Reply to Post-Varsity Blues, where do the UC send their kids if they end up being average academically?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The UC don't use the "side door," like in Varsity Blues.

They just give big dollar donations directly to the school in exchange for admission, aka "the front door."

What made Varsity Blues so bad was that the schools were victims of the fraud. People were getting in for a lot cheaper than the "front door" method.

Personally, I think[b] federal funding should be suspended for any university that considers legacy or donations in its admissions process[/b].[/quote]

Eh, I hear you, but it's already more subtle than that anyways. Post-college I spent two years working in the admissions department of my "prestigious" alma mater. Admittedly I was a low level person, but helped with application review. It wasn't that legacies got an automatic bump or "points" for being legacies. It was more that their alum parents could steer them in the right direction of explaining how they would be a good fit, and gave them personal experience (visits to campus, meeting other alums, understanding the superficial attributes that the college valued, etc.) to draw on. And I think the same is true sometimes with donations. It's less about a transparent "they gave $500k, let's let them in," it's more that the donations give the donor opportunities to make chummy introductions. "Oh, Dean Smith, I know you don't give the time of day to anyone else, but as my check just cleared, I was wondering if you could have a phone call with my daughter who is considering applying to Prestige U." And then Dean Smith dutifully informs the admissions office that he had a fortunate opportunity to meet a charming and extraordinary applicant, even if her grades and test scores aren't quite what we're used to here at Prestige, and he just wants to make sure her application doesn't "get lost in the shuffle."  [/quote]

The front door is still open for these families, including the Ivy League. But it's not $500K - it's millions for a single kid. It was $2.5m for Jared Kushner back in 1998. The foreign oligarchs pay a lot more than that these days to get their kids into Stanford, Harvard, or Princeton. And they pay for a guarantee, not a "...let's not let her application get lost in the shuffle..." nonsense. That's what they say about the kid of an orthopedic surgeon who is a legacy. Sure, they donate....but it's not the kind of money that impacts endowments.

I don't even want to know how much Laurie Jobs paid for her daughter Eve to get into Stanford. Lord knows that kid doesn't work - she's traveling every week during the school year from jetset locations and posting on social media.

If you have the money, that front door is still wide open. But you're writing checks with at least two commas.[/quote]

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