@one1ofeach That’s the boat we are in. I am hoping my son can pick a couple shifts a week at the place he worked last summer but his coach also wants them fully available so I have no idea how realistic it is. But with spring season all but canceled, campus locked so no ability to attend club practices, and the school practices being mostly skill development with no real contact, he needs all the playing time he can get if he still wants to try to play in college. I fear that the campus bubble continues into the fall, and sports may be still limited, which puts even more pressure on the summer season. Honestly I am ready to throw in the towel but at this point he is not.
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It is no secret that legacy plays a big role in BOTH boarding school and college admissions. Every cycle, admission offices will have a list of students that they would like to accept - kids of important alum, celebrities, politicians, or even important faculty. These cases were separately discussed and understood between the schools and the applicants.
My friend’s son just applied to a prestigious BS in mid-January. While most applicants will not know the results until March 10, he already does. Using a sublet language (over the phone and not email of course), the school told the family that the kid will be accepted - all within one week of receiving the application package. Naturally, the family made a commitment before they hung up the phone - and promised to withdraw from other acceptances, should there be any come March 10. Again, yield protection. As if we were talking computer chip production.
If boarding schools can do this (to protect their yield/take care of the legacy families/help grow their endowment), imagine what private colleges can do. I have witnessed how top universities actively seek out the children from important families. The parent graduated from an Ivy and has strong ties with the school (donor/celebrity status or whatever have you). The parent contacts the top brass at the alma mater long before the admission cycle to ensure that the kid receives a good look. This is very, very common.
Is it fair? Of course not. Can the universities live without donations? You tell me. Without donations, how are the universities able to offer financial aid to lower-income yet deserving kids, build new labs/dorms/etc., or hire top professors? Tuition income alone cannot cover the actual cost of operation - a significant portion will have to be supported by investment income on the endowment fund and (more importantly and you guessed it again) donations.
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Why not?
Every boarding school and every college has a bucket for development admits and each has a Development Office and officer whose job is to seek and woo those families. We might not have mentioned it explicitly in this thread because it goes without saying here. Development admits are not taking seats away from any applicant any more than any other type of admit: athletes, mathletes, musicians, artists, scholars, celebrities, etc. Schools craft their classes from a range of talents and diversity that meet their institutional needs. The development bucket is one of many. Each student helps fill a bucket that helps round out a class. I doubt anyone here begrudges the seats reserved for development admits over the seats reserved for any other type of admit. Every one of our children here matched one of those buckets.
Also, if you search the BS archives for “annual fund,” you will find threads dealing with how each BS clearly explains the tuition shortfall and how important donations and endowment are to covering operating expenses and providing the outstanding academic resources and programs they do. So, even full-pay students are being subsidized by those development families. Thank heaven for them.
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^ I agree with much of this. But know as well that it is pure destruction to a donor relationship for their kid to fail to thrive at an institution. I have seen these high profile donors have their kids turned down because a school was pretty sure that the kid wouldn’t do well there.
I mention this because there is often a misperception that schools admit unqualified applicants. They don’t. But the right connections can easily lift a meh applicant into the yes pile.
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However, the assumption that legacy preferences are necessary to get donations may not necessarily be true:
Development admissions (i.e. explicitly in relation to donations) could be a different story, however.
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Thanks @ucbalumnus for sharing this 
Agree @gardenstategal - also disaster if the student of alum donor crashes out due to bad behavior and is asked to leave.
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Do you think that there are some colleges where the tide is turning away from this? One AO who knows us from their previous stint on Development at DH’s alma mater (where he has given $, free seminars for students/alum, mentoring, scholarships and internships to students) say to us ‘Your kiddo’s application will reek of privilege and financial resources… we really are looking for students who are the opposite of yours”. Further along in the conversation, he said this: “Look, your kiddo will do well no matter where they attend. We want students who really need us” …”But can we count on you for this year’s Annual Fund?”
Yes. Our kiddo’s application reflects much privilege. We own it. We don’t “expect” anything for what we have happily given back to DH’s school. It was interesting to hear the AO state openly to us what we had said to ourselves.
Truth.
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Check out the New York Times article on applications:
This is what Scott Galloway was talking about, isn’t it?
I can tell you how I’d answer that question. But, I can’t type it here…or it would get flagged for profanity and I’d get a stern message in my inbox.
Why is this an either/or issue? As suggested upthread, there are many buckets…and that is what makes institutions their best. To borrow the current lingo…it is “equitable, inclusive and diverse.”
Financial resources are not the same as privilege. The latter frankly a divisive and weaponized term that is too often equated with the former. How do we achieve affordable, high quality education when colleges are increasing costs in lock-step with the increase in available loans, students are taking those loans to cover degrees with upside-down ROIs, there is raging public debate over shifting student loan debt to taxpayers (including a huge working-class base), and colleges seek to offer more and larger financial aid packages to students (the one good thing)? The math (and the logic) simply does not add up.
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@Golfgr8 thanks for sharing that insight. How has that conversation, and general knowledge of the inner workings of a top U, shaped how you’ve approached the college application and decision process?
Hard times or good times, everyone–FP or FA–should give what they comfortably can to the annual fund drive and don’t think twice about the amount, $1 or $100,000, it doesn’t matter. Participation is ALL that matters. The participation percentage is important to the school (the closer to 100% participation the better as the schools compete among themselves on this metric), and they understand when times are hard and contributing to the annual fund may be the last thing on your list after paying for BS, but every little bit helps and they don’t look down their noses at the amount of any contribution. All contributions are gladly received. Remember, ALL students are subsidized, even FP.
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The ones who oddly benefit the most from this are more average students who are realistic enough about their abilities to apply to only less prestigious/competitive schools.
At least, that’s my impression, based on the results so far for a young relative in that category.
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I agree with the participation piece, but still, if you don’t feel like your family has been treated fairly you make a point not to give. I have seen it many times, including from people who have been very generous. A friend of mine has been a very generous donor to her alma mater where she also met her husband and they have loved the place and been involved ever since. Going to games and alumni weekends and all that. Now their DD was not accepted, should they just brush it off? Of course not, the school will never see another dime from them. It would be one thing if the kid was not qualified but we are talking strong student with 1580 SAT, talented musician and overall great kid. And when the mom described the phone call to me I had to cringe too. Needless to say the school is never going to see another dime from them, all the money is now going to the rival school that was wise enough to admit the kid (and as I just heard also the younger sibling). People do not enjoy being treated badly and paying for the privilege.
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I would hope no one is donating to their alma mater hoping for a feather on the scale for a child’s admission. You give to your alma mater in gratitude for what YOU got out the experience not for some quid pro quo. I’m guessing the disappointment comes from thinking those donations are buying something the alma mater is not selling. A donation is not a bribe, and diverting donations elsewhere might help the hurt alum feel better, but the institution is impervious to the loss.
Top students are rejected from alma maters all the time – too few seats for too many excellent candidates. The story you describe is legion. Most BS/colleges are fairly transparent about how much weight they give to legacies, donations or no. Even if legacy is weighted heavily, not every sterling offspring will be admitted. That should not come as a surprise to anyone, but this story should be instructive for anyone reading here who does not understand this.
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yes and no @tristatecoog - we consider culture/climate of the college/university and also the value. Even though our kid plays one sport that (hopefully) will continue in college, academics is the main goal. We are also looking at how some schools have responded to various demands by students and what the administration values. For example, we took one college off the list because they have cancelled in-person Biology classes for the year (not due to COVID) but to reassess the curriculum per demands of student protestors last Fall. Another school we did consider is now not on the list because of videos of student protests shutting down classes or having something labeled as “performance art” resulting in unrelated class being disrupted. As a parent who is paying most of the tuition bill for our kid, I don’t want days or weeks of courses cancelled. I want my student to have traditional lab-based science courses in preparation for a career or advanced degree in certain fields. A parents of a student seeking STEM, our family is taking an approach to college that fits into specific interests of study as well as the school culture.
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As we mentioned above - we have given to our respective colleges and also our shared graduate school with annual donations but also in mentoring/coaching, free seminars & lectures, internships, and networking for recent grads. There are many ways to give back to your college or grad school. More than 30 years later, we are still involved in mentoring and providing internships/research opportunities. DH and I were both first-generation to attend college and we give back from the heart. Don’t expect anything ever - but kiddo did get a free hat when born at the university hospital.
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Perhaps they were donating for an admissions advantage, and not a true love of the school. I don’t see how having a kid not admitted is being treated badly, lots of high achieving, deserving kids are rejected from highly selective schools.
They were not donating for admissions advantage, in fact they were involved for years before they even had kids and just always loved the school and their experience there. It was not just about not getting in but also how the school handled it. In any event, I am no fool and realize a ton of legacies do not get in. But from what I have seen the star students who are also legacies do get in, and the kids who don’t are just more of an average applicant for the school. This was not the case here, in fact the daughter landed at another HYP school so qualifications were not the issue.
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