<p>I've heard of people buying their way in mentioned by a lot of posters on CC about "large donations"</p>
<p>Out of curiosity how large are these donations? What about for prestige universities (i.e. UPenn)?</p>
<p>Like > 500k or > 1mill or >3mill</p>
<p>10 million. Funding the construction of a wing, perhaps.</p>
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<p>$3MM or half of NYC would do it. I did read though that Ralph Lauren played the money card and got a kid into Duke and so far has given under a million.</p>
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<p>Penn is launching a large capital plan right now, so they are pretty keen on donations. At my school, to the best of my knowledge, one kid got into because his family gave 6 million. Of course I don't know everything about him, but most people assume thats what did it.</p>
<p>if your family can donate 250,000 your name will probably be on the radar or at least alerted to the admissions office, i mean unless you are way below the stats of an average person at that school, 250k+ should significantly help you get in, but to guarantee admission I'd have to agree with the above posts you would need to get into the millions to guarantee admission</p>
<p>We have a family friend that lives in Dallas who donated around 1 million to Yale, his alma mater. His daughter was just accepted there with pretty average stats... I think she got around a 1700 on her SATs. But then again, she was also a legacy so she got sorta a double boost.</p>
<p>If you could afford it would you do it :D</p>
<p>would i donate money because of the love i have for my alma mater? Yes
would i donate money so my average child could get into the school? No</p>
<p>Meh if as a kid I had a lot of money I wouldn't donate because frankly I don't need the institution.</p>
<p>I don't think any of these rich kids need the institution, its a matter of pride and prestige. Their parents want to be able to say something at the dinner table rather than "my kid isn't going to college".</p>
<p>I'm not rich, so I have a real hard time understand why would anyone pay that much of ridiculous amount of money, just for a college.</p>
<p>$10 million? My god...</p>
<p>I wouldn't even pay a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of that. Not that I even have that much money.</p>
<p>We know some of these folks who donate buildings and enough to build such. Their kids do not go to the schools where they donate. There are families who do want their kids at a school where they are donating, and, yes, those kids do have quite the edge in getting such schools. THe number of kids who fall into this category are not that big, however.</p>
<p>It would be funny if someone with a building named after them got rejected.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I'm not rich, so I have a real hard time understand why would anyone pay that much of ridiculous amount of money, just for a college.</p>
<p>$10 million? My god...</p>
<p>I wouldn't even pay a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of that. Not that I even have that much money.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, if you have more money than you know what to do with, then why not donate some to your alma mater, especially if you really enjoyed your experiences there. And also, isn't there some sort of tax incentive for donations?</p>
<p>On top of that, the college may decide to name one of their schools after your name or your family. Thats how NYU Stern chose Jesicca Stern's family for their business school title. They donated a huge amount of money to the school. It's rare but it can happen.</p>
<p>wrong house of london, NYU chose the name from Leonard Stern who not only attended NYU, but also donated a hefty 30Mil</p>
<p>My cousins all went to expensive prep schools in the east. It was a matter of school pride that 100% of the graduating class would get accepted to prestigious colleges. Supposedly, when my youngest cousin did not have the stats, uncle made a large donation and she got in to a good school.<br>
The family joke was that she felt that any school that would accept her, was not a good enough school for her.</p>
<p>It drove my uncle nuts that all of my brothers and sisters paid for our own college education. (There were five kids in my family and six in his).</p>