Reply to Getting into St. Albans

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[quote=Anonymous]I think people's reactions to the "athletic fields" comment are a bit overblown.  Everybody knows that private schools are always on the prowl for major donors, everybody knows that the schools' financial needs are always enormous even for basic operations, to say nothing of when special projects or capital campaigns come around, and everybody knows that in some cases money CAN grease the skids up to a point.

Yet a school like STA isn't going to take a student who's a bad fit academically or socially or who isn't going to bring something unique to the overall mix within the student body; this is not only because the negative aspects of doing so are so high, but also because the opportunity costs of doing so are also so high (in other words, the competition is intense, and the school can pretty much pick and choose whoever they want, and they're not going to turn away someone they think will really be a win-win admission just to score a few bucks with a lesser candidate).

It's slightly tacky to drop the comment bluntly at a "first contact" event where everybody's supposed to be tip-toeing around on their best behavior, but if the substance of the comment came as a shock to anyone in the room, they probably shouldn't have been there in the first place.  And everyone, even a school administrator or admissions person, is entitled once in a while to say something they probably wish they hadn't.

ALL else being equal, a student from a wealthy family will probably get the nod over one from a less-well-off family, but that's the extent of it.  And IIRC STA runs a need-blind admissions office.

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