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

[Anonymous]

So, if school development office or president or whoever gives to the admissions office a list of 50 or 80 or 100 applicants that development would like to tip the scales for, are the identities of the applicants all really coming from friends of donors and friends of trustees, or are they coming from these databases like DonorSearch?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would admissions or financial aid contact the development office if they thought an applicant's family would make potential donors?

no - its usually the other way around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would admissions or financial aid contact the development office if they thought an applicant's family would make potential donors?

Good question. My understanding, previously, was that no, it doesn't work that way. For most universities, if an applicant was supported by a big donor, the donor would get in touch with their development office contact, which would then contact admissions. That would only be relevant for prior/current donors to the university

That before I understood that there are databases that may identify potential donors at various levels. I am not familiar with DonorSearch and similar databases, but it seems plausible that with the right tools, one could run a simple search on a list of names. On the other hand, universities get thousands of apps every year.

So, to answer your question, it sounds plausible that a subset of applicants could be searched. Such as, for applicants who did not apply for financial aid at need-aware schools, or for applicants whose parents have a graduate degree or meet some other combination of criteria.

Separately, I am aware that development offices do this annually for, say, all new parents who didn't apply for need-based aid - seems like a fairly secretive process but that's what I was told when I got a development call when my oldest was a freshman. We turned up. I really want to know about applicants, however.

no this also works for prospective donors, who get connected to the development office through a mutual contact, though they haven't made a donation yet (they usually aren't affiliated - yet). Now if you don't have a contact or aren't important enough to be connected, maybe they do this database thing. but that seems like a pain.

anecdotally, admissions and development are VERY close at Penn.
and
admissions and development have a WALL at Northwestern. You do not cross it.

Heard the Dartmouth president speak once - he's in a new position - at he was commenting about how he'd get calls ALL THE TIME from big donors with "names" - he wouldn't get emails only phone calls, and he'd write them down and then have to call admissions. Crazy how he just said it out loud at an event

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, if school development office or president or whoever gives to the admissions office a list of 50 or 80 or 100 applicants that development would like to tip the scales for, are the identities of the applicants all really coming from friends of donors and friends of trustees, or are they coming from these databases like DonorSearch?

Both? Neither? No one knows!!!

[Anonymous]

Just an observation, I see a fair amount of bashing of schools with relatively lower endowments, like Georgetown, in this forum. Yet, part of the solution to that is to get more donations.

I guess what they ought to do is stop saying they are need-blind.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like this is basically everywhere:

“Every place I’ve ever worked, and every place I could imagine working, had lists.”

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/students/financial-aid/2025/01/21/how-wealthy-universities-prioritized-rich-applicants

The article also says that Georgetown last "used the tags" in 2021. Wonder what they do now. Anyone have newer info?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just an observation, I see a fair amount of bashing of schools with relatively lower endowments, like Georgetown, in this forum. Yet, part of the solution to that is to get more donations.

I guess what they ought to do is stop saying they are need-blind.

They may have to in the future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just an observation, I see a fair amount of bashing of schools with relatively lower endowments, like Georgetown, in this forum. Yet, part of the solution to that is to get more donations.

I guess what they ought to do is stop saying they are need-blind.

That’s the whole point. All they need to do is say they are need aware.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just an observation, I see a fair amount of bashing of schools with relatively lower endowments, like Georgetown, in this forum. Yet, part of the solution to that is to get more donations.

I guess what they ought to do is stop saying they are need-blind.

That’s the whole point. All they need to do is say they are need aware.

I think they were required to be need-blind in order to participate in the 568 President's Group that shared financial aid formulas.

[Anonymous]

How is this even a lawsuit?

[Anonymous]

How are these universities taxed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not surprising at all - there is a lowered requirement for those kids that does not apply to the rest of the world.

Not sure about Penn and Georgetown, but if you are "unqualified" at MIT you are going to get destroyed. Your life will be miserable. Unlikely you will graduate.

Seeing as almost every person who enters MIT’s halls exits in 4 years, this just isn’t true

They don't major in engineering or the hard stuff at MIT.

[Anonymous]

I’m trying to understand how admitting full pay students harms other students by increasing their costs. I think that is what the lawsuit is claiming, is that right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I’m trying to understand how admitting full pay students harms other students by increasing their costs. I think that is what the lawsuit is claiming, is that right?

Well, that brings up an interesting point. The colleges colluded on financial aid formulas, for which the supposed damages are reduced need-based aid to individuals. However, that was completely allowed under the carve-out exception as long as the universities were need-blind. If the universities intentionally admitted students who were much more than merely full pay, seems irrelevant to the alleged damages, at a minimum, and quite possibly increased the level of generosity of financial aid.

If the allegation is that the financial aid formulas would have been more generous if the universities had not intentionally admitted big donor students, that makes no sense. Universities may have had budget line items for post-enrollment donations from prospective families that supported the level of generosity in the financial aid formulas.

[Anonymous]

To use an old expression, the plaintiffs, essentially, want to bite the hand that feeds them.

They are relying on the need-blind criterium in the carve-out to say that, because the universities weren't need-blind, they violated price-fixing rules and are therefore liable for the lower amount of aid that resulted from the colluded financial aid formulas, a collusion blessed by the existence of the carve-out.