<p>That’s so stupid. What’s annoying is even my high school bugs me for donations. I want to write a letter saying something to the effect of “my parents ‘donated’ many thousands of dollars to you guys each year. I just graduated a year and a half ago. What the hell makes you think I can donate money or that my parents will?”</p>
<p>If I ever become rich, I’ll donate to my high school. I’ll definitely donate to my university when I can. But the top of my donation list includes organizations like, say, the ASPCA or the Wounded Warrior Project. Not a private high school that costs more than a BMW each year.</p>
<p>I actually was able to read the entire article earlier today, but didn’t post.</p>
<p>The situation for Dartmouth was that someone agreed to donate a certain amount of money if all the seniors donated. The girl in question did not donate because as she put very simply the cons of the school far outweighed the pros in her case and she should not be forced to donate to something she does not choose to support.
It seemed like the minimum donation was somewhere around 20 dollars, but I’m not sure it was stated.
The group that had said they would donate DONATED THE MONEY ANYWAY. They didn’t care that one person didn’t donate. They put this girl through this for nothing.</p>
<p>It’s ridiculous. I’d do the same thing if my school was demanding I donate. I am a scholarship student, (Full ride for merit aid. Came in with no need, but my father did lose his job earlier this year) but even my full ride doesn’t cover everything. And the costs themselves are ridiculous. They can take their twenty dollars out of the extra five hundred dollars a semester they charge students for dining plans.</p>
<p>I’m not saying that I’d never donate. I’m saying it’s like if the Make A Wish foundation told all your friends you didn’t donate to their charity. Only this charity does nothing to help sick children and you are in fact already paying this charity much more than they deserve every year. </p>
<p>Not that this could ever work at my school.</p>
<p>I am not prepared to even consider donating to my school until I have paid my student loans. And frankly, right now I don’t even have a dollar. If I can donate in BlueBucks they could have $10 from me, but that’s about the extent of it. The point of donation is that it is not supposed to be obligatory. I don’t know the details of the story but if what’s going on about it is true, I find that disgusting.</p>
<p>Wow, students paying 200k+ and/or getting buried in loans to go to Ivy League schools can’t afford to donate money too??? Gosh, darn. For shame! The worst has happened…Dartmouth and Cornell will have to cut their table tennis teams. :(</p>
<p>Good for her. By that time I would have not donated just to make a point. Especially since the donor had since said they would still match/donate.</p>
<p>Really makes you wonder just what kind of herd mentality, money hungry, narrow minded student body and school administration these so called ivy institutions of higher learning are made of. Nice to know you better go along( be it for $1 or $20) or be hung out to dry, for what ? Money. So much for free choice or ethics. HS parent’s take note of where you send your kids and hard earned tuition dollars.</p>
<p>I would only ever donate to my school if I could definitely control where the money is going to go (i.e. programs, special departments). Sports are cool and all, but I wouldn’t be overly thrilled if my donations went to the athletic department, when I will probably have nothing to do with that… I’d prefer to “give back” to a program that actually “gave” something to me :p.</p>
<p>Interesting point, sky. My parents are not alums so I don’t know how giving works. I want to ask my aunt that question now… of whether she and her husband (both alums of the school I currently attend) know where their money is going. They have given well into the 7-digit category (they are both highly successful and live a modest lifestyle simply so they can give back to the school and other organizations) so I will make a point to ask that at Thanksgiving.</p>
<p>^Also make sure to ask them for money. If they can afford to give to a school, they can afford to give to you. $)</p>
<p>Seriously though, people should decide whether they want to donate or not. That’s why it’s called a donation! Modest encouragement is fine, but forcing either group of students to give money is not right. That’s the biggest problem with taxes. Taxes will never be specific enough to each individual person, but true donations are as specific as possible.</p>
<p>@math- lol. They help me out sometimes when I need educational stuff… lol (they’re not real aunt and uncles, they’re my parents’ best friends, so they have no real obligation to me…)</p>
<p>I know most schools out there let you specify where the money you donate is going to. I donate about $20 a year to my department since that’s what really made my undergrad school so fantastic.</p>
<p>I don’t plan on donating to my current school due to the attitude of the various people I’ve met that manage the funds and how my department has been run. The guy that’s in charge of graduate alumni recruiting told me he wants to change it so you can’t specify where money goes since Princeton does that and they have a higher alumni giving rate. Also, alumni shouldn’t choose where the money goes because the school knows where the money would be more useful than the donor would. (For the record, my first two years here I was supported on a fellowship the school is trying to remove because it specifies fields that they consider are too narrow and they want to open it up to more fashionable research fields.)</p>
<p>I think donating is a lot like tipping. As I’ve said in this thread, I probably won’t donate to my high school. They educated me, great, I could’ve gotten close to the same education at the public HS for my school district for ‘free.’ I did learn some great values but otherwise I pretty much hated high school (and middle school) so I don’t see why they should get an extra share of cash in addition to all the money I forked over.</p>
<p>Whereas at UMD, even though socially it hasn’t been great I’m really enjoying myself and it’s a great place to learn.</p>
<p>I agree with you, that donating is very much like tipping. You don’t donate money that you can’t afford to donate. And it is right, I believe, to say that your experience depends a lot on whether or not you want to donate.</p>
<p>For me personally, the education I received at my private school was far and away better than the education I would have received at my public HS. I may not have thought it then, but I do now when I look at the amount of work and studying I have to do compared to my peers. I personally want to make sure that future children continue to receive top-notch educations like I did, so when I graduate college I will donate. While the school is very expensive, they provide a great education that should be more affordable for everyone.</p>
<p>^ Knights, to be fair, it could just be you and not your school. I went to a public high school and I very rarely study whereas I know people who went to Cranbrook and study all the time and I still get better grades then them. If your school was great, then donate! But don’t base it on a comparison between you and your friends lol. </p>
<p>I agree with the tipping. I went to a private K-8 school and there is no way they will ever see a dime of my money. My public high school and my university (particularly my residential college within the university) will definitely get donations once I graduate.</p>
<p>before i clicked this page i was praying “not cornell, not cornell, not…” in my head. and what do you know, cornell’s one of the 2 schools. i’m starting to get the vibe (not just from this) that cornell is a little mean. </p>
<p>and i say this as someone who’s applying there early. </p>
<p>i think it was very wrong for either school to violate the privacies of those students. let’s just say that they stoutly said that they wouldn’t donate 100k unless 100% of the seniors donated, if even just 1 dollar. i’d still support that girl. donation is supposed to be about free-will. if you really wanted that stupid 100% you should have made it mandatory. that’s really what it was anyway, a mandatory giving of money masquerading as a donation.</p>
<p>I didn’t do particularly well grades-wise in HS, haha. Otherwise I would be more in line to agree with you. And yes, my HS was similar to Cranbrook.</p>
<p>^ when you donate money to a school you can designate where your monry will be used. I always designate my donations for financial aid. That said my designation doesn’t really accomplishment much … the schools have budgets of where they will use the money … sure I get to designate some money but then the schools just uses less money from the “general” donations for financial aid.</p>