<p>"I was actually shocked that they didn’t accept him. He was awarded a NSF fellowship so already had his own funding, had been published in an international journal as a college sophomore in a subfield in which my alma mater has a number of faculty, and had been awarded other honors/national awards, "</p>
<p>wow!! I would have stopped donating as well! It is VERY hard to be awarded a NSF before even starting grad school! Hope your DS is happy where he ended up .</p>
<p>To be fair, no one should have legacy once they get to master’s and Ph.D.s but if a school was asinine enough to reject someone with their own funding from NSF, they deserve no money from others.</p>
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Yeah but how did your H feel about it? ;)</p>
<p>For some of the parents who are disappointed with the alma mater not accepting the kid, - is the fact that many of these colleges are much more selective today than when the parent attended considered before cutting off the college?</p>
<p>Haha, I’m not sure that my alma matter would even notice if we stopped donating. We do give a little each year, but it is a paltry sum, as pretty much all of our money goes toward college tuition (five kids – three are graduated, but two still to go). </p>
<p>So far, out of three applications to the school (the oldest child did not apply), we got two waitlists and one acceptance. The accepted kid did not go. But one of the waitlisted ones did end up going . . .</p>
<p>^^ Thanks, menloparkmom. My son ended up with a lot of great options and is happy where he’s at now. And I understand that the concept of legacy isn’t the same at the grad level, but not only did I donate consistently every year since I graduated, but for many years I was a rep at college fairs and interviewed prospective students for my alma mater. Even without all that, I’m surprised they didn’t accept him. But given that, really?</p>
<p>Yes.</p>
<p>I have made a donation each year for 20 years. </p>
<p>My college is not super competitive - 55% aceptance. My son has SAT above the 75%.</p>
<p>I think it would be a problem continuing to support an institution in such a case, especially if the child was upset about it. Wouldn’t that look disloyal to your own kid? </p>
<p>And for the Dad above who got really upset, I can see that it would be very hard to cheer for the alma mater. It is unfortunate to lose the connection after all these years, but once the kid applied, the risk was there. Even for schools that take a high percentage of legacies, more are rejected than accepted. I think I read that Harvard (although it could have been Y or P) took 40% of the legacy applicants. That still means that 60% were rejected. </p>
<p>I would like to know more of the numbers at some of these schools: e.g. how many of applicants are legacies, how many accepted, what the pool had in terms of stats… It will never happen.</p>
<p>I also have no problem with a tip to a legacy where the parents donate or are otherwise active alumni. (just my opinion.)</p>
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<p>Had a taste of this already from some relatives giving me flak for continuing to donate to my NYC Specialized High School because they rejected every younger cousin or nephew/niece. IMHO, that’s more of a reflection on the younger relatives’ failure to make the grade and the keen competition for admission…especially when admissions is based off of a cut & dry standardized admissions exam and there’s now around 40,000 applicants for ~800 places. </p>
<p>While that is admittedly more competitive than when I applied, that’s just the way the cookie crumbles and those younger relations and their parents need to accept that and move on. </p>
<p>Moreover, I’d be mortified if I had the thought to ask older relations who attended other elite universities to stop donating because they rejected me. They’d feel it would be mighty arrogant for any younger relative to ask judging by their reactions to one of their kids who had the temerity to ask after being rejected by a parent’s elite alma mater. Then again, none of them ever had the attitude their respective alma maters “owed them” for being donating alums.</p>
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<p>Mini - that’s what we told our alma maters when they called and we had 2 kids in college and one was at a full pay private. I told them to call back in 4 years. Come to think of it, I haven’t heard from them this year…</p>
<p>“but for many years I was a rep at college fairs and interviewed prospective students for my alma mater. Even without all that, I’m surprised they didn’t accept him.”</p>
<p>You seem very vested, almost like an unpaid employee. </p>
<p>Did you ever ask why that department turned down a student who had their own 5 year funding for research? It borders on incompetent. When I was in grad school, my department always accepted any student from armed forces because they were free labor for 4-5 years while earning Ph.D.s since armed forces paid a salary while they studied. The professors loved that fact.</p>
<p>My alma mater, Brown, had a college counseling service for children of alumni, which we used, and it was very helpful, if not terribly encouraging about kid’s chances at Brown. In the end my kid didn’t apply to Brown, but I continue to have good feelings about it. That said, kid is having a wonderful experience at her college, and we will probably contribute there as well, which may mean that alma mater gets less than they would have.</p>
<p>Just when I began entertaining the thought of not donating any more to my alma mater, my S went and married a woman who graduated from there. Now I have to keep my donations up for another 20 years, just in case my unborn grandchild applies. It would be pretty awful if I became The Reason s/he didn’t get in. And you know they’d all figure it out. It would be MIL’s fault then. Where’s my checkbook?</p>
<p>To the OP, I was jesting above, but I hope there are better days ahead for your child’s college quest. Around here, we also get emotional when our kids’ biggest dreams don’t pan out as we’d hoped. When something else breaks positive for them, and eventually something always DOES, that helps.</p>
<p>That your H immediately boxed up the Stanford memorabilia but stuffed it in the attic, rather than throw it all away, sounds like he hopes his hurt will soften someday.</p>
<p>I remember our pediatric dentist being quite put out when his alma mater rejected his very bright daughter. She had been accepted at a couple of Ivies and this was not an Ivy, but she really wanted to go to her Dad’s school. He was a very wealthy man and had been a big time donor and would have been full pay as well. He asked them why she had not been accepted and they said (off the record I imagine) that they had met their quota of Caucasian females but if she had any American Indian blood they would get her in. She ended up going somewhere else and being very happy. The school actually contacted her and tried to get her to transfer to them the following year, but she was not interested. I am pretty sure dad stopped donating to them</p>
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<p>Wouldn’t that depend on the estimation of the kid’s chances at the school? If the parent’s school looked like a reach or out-of-reach school for the kid (and schools like Stanford are reach for everyone, even “hooked” applicants), is it reasonable to get upset at the (likely) rejection? On the other hand, if the parent’s school were a low match or safety level school relative to the kid’s achievements, it may be more upsetting to be rejected.</p>
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<p>Even that may not be a guarantee if:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Kid concerned writes an uninspired essay which tells adcoms he/she didn’t put in much effort/feels he/she’s a shoo-in. </p></li>
<li><p>The school is such a low-end safety that there’s little chance the kid would enroll if admitted…even if parents were generous donating alums and kid hasn’t demonstrated any interest (i.e. Kid with Ivy-level stats applying to Long Island U. Actually knew of an older classmate who was rejected by that school because his stats were TOO STRONG and they didn’t think he’d seriously enroll if admitted).</p></li>
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<p>Well of course it’s a very emotional situation and I don’t hold myself to any standard of behavior that is logical or rational - if you’re looking for that, ask Mr. Spock how he handled it when Jr. was rejected at Starfleet Academy.</p>
<p>Our past contributions have been in the solid two figure area (excluding loose change) and on occasion soared into the lowest possible three figures. Schools remove themselves from my consideration when they “dis” my kids. I know our contributions have mattered only when they count the percentage of alumni who give so even during our tuition bearing years, I’ll write teeny tiny checks to schools who have stayed on my good side because of that.</p>
<p>But there’s another reason I’ll contribute to my kids’ schools rather than the ones H and I attended, and it’s because I look tom the present and future more than the past. We enjoy some sports at our old schools, so it’s not like we’ve completely written them off, but contributing tomtheirncurrent maintenance, when our kids are Inc vested elsewhere, makes as much sense to me as mowing the lawn at the house I lived in 30 years ago. I like to think that house is kept up, and if there was a true need or disaster that arose, I’d be inclined to help, but I don’t inflate the value of our giving. It’s symbolic and if you didn’t show my kid the love, somebody else did and for that I’m grateful.</p>
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<p>Well, assuming Starfleet Academy is a sci-fi analogue of the Federal Service Academies…reactions of nearly every SA alum I’ve met who had a child turned down was similar to my own reactions to my younger relatives’ rejection from my math/science exam magnet high school…the child in question just didn’t make the grade in the midst of heavy competition for admission. </p>
<p>In fact, every SA alum parent was well-aware and tend to be much more accepting that the SA didn’t “owe them” a backdoor/easier admission by virtue of being alums. If anything…from being around them…they’d find the entire mentality to be far more revolting and reeking of entitlement than the older relatives who were alums of elite universities. And one of those relatives really gave her son a dressing down when he even brought up the idea of asking her to stop donating to her elite alma mater after he was rejected.</p>
<p>DD received an email asking for a donation from the alum association of her alma mater the same day her brother received his deferral. She told him she deleted the email with gusto.</p>
<p>D1 loved her experience at Cornell, and because of her we have started to give to the school. If D2 had been deferred/rejected, D1 said Cornell would have lost a lot of shine for her. It is an emotional process, and very hard not to take it personally. Now, we will probably give more with another kid going there.</p>
<p>I understand the frustration but consider the alternative. An earlier post said that Harvard accepted something like 40% legacy for SCEA but rejected 60%. If schools only accepted kids of parents who gave money there would be no room for anyone else! I am sure sitting in the admissions office trying to decide among the “legacies” is a daunting task at best!</p>