Suit Accuses Georgetown, Penn and M.I.T. of Admissions Based on Wealth

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Behind the paywall, what does the article say exactly? Simply demonstrating the admission rate difference among income tiers isn't a good enough argument without controlling for merit factors.

It isn’t a good enough factor, period. It isn’t illegal to favor wealthy people, just as it isn’t illegal to favor low income people.

But it should be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nothing new here but still worth a read

“ The schools were accused of giving special treatment to wealthy students who might not otherwise have been admitted.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/17/us/lawsuit-georgetown-wealthy-students-admissions.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Schools should do this and just be transparent about the criteria. People who give $5 million or more to MIT should be able to get bright, hardworking but unspectacular kids into places like MIT.

Those kids are ngmi at MIT. That school breaks the spirit of genuine spectacular geniuses. Not doing “bright rich kids” a favor by admitting them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, duh
I thought everyone knew this

everyone knew what?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Behind the paywall, what does the article say exactly? Simply demonstrating the admission rate difference among income tiers isn't a good enough argument without controlling for merit factors.

It isn’t a good enough factor, period. It isn’t illegal to favor wealthy people, just as it isn’t illegal to favor low income people.

But it should be.

So how then, would you suggest elite schools fill their classes? There aren’t enough spots in the T20 for every high stats applicant, other factors HAVE to come in to play.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So much for MIT being the only school that admits solely on merit

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah you wonder what Jared Kushner's actual SAT scores.

we all know Trump is dumber than a rock, and his daddy bought his way into Penn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm shocked. Shocked!

Good one. Great sarcasm!

By the way, if we look at the results from our respective schools, we can see that given 4 identical candidates (race, gender, major, test scores, ECs, LORs, etc.), colleges waitlist the financial aid-seeking applicants and accept the other full pay students. Dig deeper and research in your area, and see what you get.

[Anonymous]

Financial status is not a protected class so how can this be illegal?

[Anonymous]

100% I have seen this first hand for Georgetown.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Financial status is not a protected class so how can this be illegal?

There was a now-expired carve-out to antitrust rules prohibiting price-fixing via colluding on financial need calculations by a group of universities. That carve-out required the universities to be need-blind for admission. The plaintiffs argue that the targeting and admission of potential big donors means the university was not need-blind. The universities argue that by need-blind, they meant they do not discriminate against applicants with financial need in making admission decisions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:100% I have seen this first hand for Georgetown.

Does Georgetown still do this, currently? Would they, for example, run a list of applicants through a DonorSearch type of database?

I read parts of the book, The Price of Admission, though that focuses on those applicants who didn't meet academic admission standards at the college in question. I wonder about the applicant who does meet academic standards and, say, their parents show up in DonorSearch or similar. Do they get a tip?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm shocked. Shocked!

Good one. Great sarcasm!

By the way, if we look at the results from our respective schools, we can see that given 4 identical candidates (race, gender, major, test scores, ECs, LORs, etc.), colleges waitlist the financial aid-seeking applicants and accept the other full pay students. Dig deeper and research in your area, and see what you get.

which respective schools? what do you mean by this? thx!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm shocked. Shocked!

Good one. Great sarcasm!

By the way, if we look at the results from our respective schools, we can see that given 4 identical candidates (race, gender, major, test scores, ECs, LORs, etc.), colleges waitlist the financial aid-seeking applicants and accept the other full pay students. Dig deeper and research in your area, and see what you get.

which respective schools? what do you mean by this? thx!

DP. I think they assume they can identify actual students in a scatterplot. Personally, my guess is that they may think they know more than they actually do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:100% I have seen this first hand for Georgetown.

Does Georgetown still do this, currently? Would they, for example, run a list of applicants through a DonorSearch type of database?

I read parts of the book, The Price of Admission, though that focuses on those applicants who didn't meet academic admission standards at the college in question. I wonder about the applicant who does meet academic standards and, say, their parents show up in DonorSearch or similar. Do they get a tip?

Interesting stuff. Looks like a number of colleges use DonorSearch on new parents, as that's a specific market/product: https://www.donorsearch.net/resources/new-parent-screening/

But, do they search up applicant parents? Anyone know?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:100% I have seen this first hand for Georgetown.

Does Georgetown still do this, currently? Would they, for example, run a list of applicants through a DonorSearch type of database?

I read parts of the book, The Price of Admission, though that focuses on those applicants who didn't meet academic admission standards at the college in question. I wonder about the applicant who does meet academic standards and, say, their parents show up in DonorSearch or similar. Do they get a tip?

With a long legacy of giving, yes.