Real impact of high dollar donations

Prep School Admissions Prep School Parents
1

We have been in the typical discussions with our kids’ school’s development folks, who of course would prefer us to step up our giving. Our discussions around the topic ended up with a question we found ourselves debating, and to which we were not coming up with clear answers. Does high dollar boarding school giving make a real difference in your child’s college admissions process? First before everyone goes bananas, we get the fact that this should not be your motivation in charitable giving. Second, the question is largely academic for us as we are not in a position to give $200k per year to gain some advantage even if we were able to look the other way on the ethics of doing so. However, we did find ourselves starting to think that high dollar giving may very well have a disporportionate impact in ways we did not consider before going through the mental exercise.

To begin with, college development folks are savvy, and have strong data access. We suspec that if you are chunking down large bucks in boarding school, this information will be known. Second, unless you give anonymously (which would be a case not really testing our hypothesis), we expect that most of the staff at the school will also come to know this. Assuming the college counseling staff falls into this bucket, it seems like it could be a big advantage. For example, your child decides he/she wants to go to school X. College counselor A has a good relationship with Admissions officer B at the school. We suspect big giving would influence these informal channels, which are likely fairly powerful.

Of course, we know that dollars will not overcome any circumstance. If you child wants to go to Stanford and has a 1.5 GPA and is a jerk, green american dollars will not make that happen. But in a world where 75% of applicants are qualified and 7.5% are admitted, does private school giving history make a difference?

Again, don’t post 10,000 angry notes telling us we shoudl not think about doing such a thing, because we wouldn’t, can’t and it is really not the point of the question…

2

I have seen no evidence of this. If your pockets are deep enough, the college’s development team will be in the know. I, however, don’t see a connection between BS giving and college matriculation and effort expended on the part of a student’s college counselor. Many of these counselors are from middle class means and roots. If anything, I think they champion the kids with less opportunities and resources. I do have a sense, however, that many of the rich families who can afford to make big donations utilize private college advisors in addition to the BS’ college counselor.

3

The answer to your last question is almost certainly “no”. Cut to the last two paragraphs for continued short answer.

The prospect of “big donations” helps admissions at both boarding schools and private colleges. However, “big” in this case means much higher numbers for the colleges than at the boarding schools. I am not in the field, so take my numbers with a grain of salt, but a boarding school might bite for an otherwise less qualified applicant if we were talking about a history of prior donations in the several hundreds of thousands of dollars. More typically, an average candidate from a family that has a good history of gifts in the six figures, may get siblings in who might not have gotten in at peer boarding schools, or even at the connected school itself. Overall, most boarding schools want qualified applicants, the better for coming from a family that has had a good past association with the school, and who appear in the interview to be “nice” kids, potential good citizens in the community.

A college with a $450 million endowment might think twice about a donor family capable of giving seven figures. The billion dollar plus colleges probably are not impressed with anything less than eight figures. So, I would say these are pretty rarefied numbers that very few families are going to be able to do, and that “buying” a college seat this way is seldom done. But it can be, so another hurrah for the top half of the 1%.

On the other hand, more qualified applicants are probably helped (to varying degrees) at lots of boarding schools and colleges if they can simply pay the full tuition. Other threads have discussed this at length; almost every campus has at least 40-50% of the student population paying full price, including the ones that are “need blind”. Hmmm . . .

With all due respect to the OP, I’d just stick to the business of making a good, balanced college list. If you’re interested in Stanford, I very much doubt that they are going to 1. take your call about how much you’ve given to the private school and want to give to them, and 2. comb non-existent spreadsheets of private school big donations. (Once caveat; if your family already has a named building on campus or a history of multi-million $ donations, then you might call the development office about your pending applicant. Does sound brazen, though.)

What Stanford may do is recognize your famous name, or consult public-domain information such as is linked below, and flag you as a potential donor from the upper 1%. Again, I’ve read a lot, but am no insider from these offices.

https://philanthropy.com/factfile/gifts

4

They don’t do any of the legwork anymore – they simply subscribe to WealthEngine to know your ability to give… If you have a big name I guess they don’t even bother consulting the software, they just know.

5

What an interesting link!

6

Like any other special category, a strong development candidate will have impact on admissions. But we are probably talking about single-digit number of admits per year, and these schools get thousands of applications from all around the world. And there are a lot of centi-millionaires and billionaires. A lot.

So as @Charger78 said, unless you are in the 7 or 8 figure discussion–and these development officers know who you are without checking your BS giving history–don’t worry about it.

Put it this way: If you think they need to check on your giving history in order for you to get the benefit, you aren’t giving enough for it to matter. And if you are thinking about some sort of linear optimization of the right amount of giving in order to derive the maximum admission benefit, you aren’t giving enough either. Schools will move the needle for transformational (their favorite word) support.

$200k–even per annum–is a wonderful gift and they will be highly appreciative, but it’s barely noticeable in the context of the schools you are most likely thinking about. Take a school like Stanford–your example–they are generating well over a billion dollars EACH year from their existing endowment just based on conservative assumptions about investment returns.

7

So these answers are focusing on one dimension - will the college see your contributions as big enough to make a difference. I get that the base threshold for achieving such status is likely many digits. What about on the other side? Do you think the private high school itself displays preferential treatment in a meaningful way to high dollar givers? We all know this should not be the case, but I wonder if it is in fact the case.

8

I would also answer “no” to the question. The bar is very high for standing out by donating to a school. If you’re able to give buildings, college development people would be able to discover your potential by Googling your name.

I don’t think you would gain an advantage in college admissions. It would be a nice thing to do for your child’s school. It might help other families afford that school, especially if you give to FA.

There was fraud committed some time ago by a private “college counselor,” who misled a foreign couple into thinking that the way into colleges was to donate to said colleges through an intermediary–namely, the fraudster. https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/10/09/chinese-family-lawsuit-former-harvard-professor-promised-admissions-help-took-million/7tfbug9YlmW5LR4EqumIFN/story.html If someone is trying to convince you of such a thing, run, don’t walk, away.

9

No one here really knows. You are asking insider info only a tny minority has. That being said, common sense says schools will help their major donors, which should be a small number. Not every donor has the college with the lowest admit rate as their top priority but if they do I suspec the school would try their best to help. The question is - are you one of the few donors they truly care about?

10

I don’t think many colleges will give you a tip because, according to Wealth Engine, you might be a big donor as a current parent. The CC at the BS might push you over a classmate at a highly selective college, but in the end, the college will decide how much it wants to be influenced. The donation would probably carry the most weight at your college Alma mater if your child decides to apply there. And again, it’s school specific as to how much of a difference it would make.

As you probably concluded as you walked out of the meeting, you’re best off donating to causes you believe in where you feel the money will have a strong impact.

Personally, I will support DS’ BS after graduation because I am so grateful for the person he’s become while he’s been there. I hope he feels the same way when he starts getting a paycheck!

11

I’m not sure how much influence the CC even has a top school. There are so many BS and so many top schools that I don’t see them having that special connection where they can “make a call” to Harvard and give the student a boost. Sure, some counselors have closer relationships to certain reps at certain schools, but not all top schools.

12

Agree @suzyQ7 , but they usually have some connection at some schools, and then, only to give a nudge to qualified applicants. This influence would evaporate if the CC recommended students who did not succeed there. And to that end, CC is probably recommending students who will flourish there regardless of whether their parents donate. That’s part of how they pave the way for future classes.

Your point highlights that a gift can only have limited impact, though, and often in situations in which it probably isn’t needed.

13

Just to be clear, a $200K donation for any of these elite schools would not be a significant hook; for many families, that’s tuition. $10M, however, puts one on a different playing field altogether, IMO.

14

The development offices at most boarding schools and top colleges are very active. Even a school like Harvard with a a $30+ billion endowment has active fundraising.

Although the development office and admissions office operates independently there are definite links between the two. Most schools have regular meetings between development and admissions to review potential candidates. Clearly unqualified candidates are tossed out, but those who are within the range, and with parents who can donate, are given priority. The extent of this advantage varies from school to school. Some schools like Caltech offer no advantage, whereas others it can be a huge tip. Another link is that the college counseling office at some of the big-name boarding schools pass along information about potential development cases to colleges.

Now how much of a donation would get their attention in the development office? I honestly don’t know. I worked on the fundraising group for my son’s BS. The average donation for the annual drive from parents was approx $200. They also care about consistent giving. One of the key thresholds is if you can donate enough to self-endow a fund, scholarship or chair. The minimum required would be a few hundred thousand dollars.

Author Daniel Golden wrote a good book on this topic. He gives several examples of kids from well known boarding schools (Pingry, Sidwell, Harvard-Westlake, Lawrenceville) who got into top colleges because of their parents ability to donate. The name of his book is called The Price of Admission. The book is about 10 years old, but gives a good perspective.

15

Let’s flip the point of view to the BS for a second.

I am friends with a CC of a private school in Boston. She told me that their school helps all students but only “personally backs” a certain number of kids to any of the top schools. For example, they know that Harvard is not going to take more than X number of kids from that school. They are definitely going to take some. So now this private school has to decide which horse to back in the race. And that is when all the factors come in. Grades, personality, First choice school, etc

Given that reality, I read your question to be. Can I give enough to get my child into one of those coveted spots where the school is going to personally back your child’s application? In my experience it is absolutely possible. I think the challenge is what is that number where you have been noticed by the administration as being a “friend” of the school vs just a good citizen.

16

If you’ve crossed that threshold, you know it. And those who have the ability to cross that threshold already know what it is. :wink:

17

An excellent use of funds would be to make a sizeable donation to each poster on this thread. I am sure it would result in much future success for your family. :wink:

18

Thinking about the numbers again… If one can donate 250k/year, that’s a 1M pledge paid over years. Nothing outstanding but for most BS, the small ones in particular, how many such pledges do they get each year?

19

From reading the Daniel Golden book, I didn’t get a sense that the students singled out for his attention had been pushed forward by their prep schools. Rather the opposite, that the parents were pulling threads at the colleges on their own, outside of the prep schools’ control. The applicants’ parents may have made contact with the college development offices? Or the parents were household names or board members of big institutions.

20

@Periwinkle: its been a while since I read the book, but I remember Golden pointing to the college counseling office at one of the prominent private schools (I think it was Pingry) who shared information about potential development cases to several colleges.