Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It happens. Of course, you are burning some bridges with the person who went to bat for your kid.

Why would it be a burned bridge? Anyone in the world understands that sometimes another school is the better option for a kid.

Because it hurts the credibility of their future recommendations. Part of the benefit of these recommendations is that the AOs can rest assured that their yield won't take a hit by the kid going somewhere else. When the kid does so, it makes the recommender's future recommendations less valuable than those from recommenders whose recommendees always attend.

It’s clear that a lot of ppl are using college donor/board connections for letters and help with ED/RD (much to everyone’s disbelief in an earlier thread)

Connections are valuable and should be treated as such, and favors should be limited. If you’re honest with the connection about your intentions (not first choice), you aren’t responsible for the outcome, but if you shield the truth - that’s crappy.

Anonymous wrote:Caused the biggest flight of our family. Dad won over Brother (law school). Dad made it about money but Dad was right, it was also about ranking. I have often thought - if Brother had not acquiesced, it might have been an important milestone. He might have become a stronger person going forward, more self reliant, stronger sense of self.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It happens. Of course, you are burning some bridges with the person who went to bat for your kid.

Why would it be a burned bridge? Anyone in the world understands that sometimes another school is the better option for a kid.

Then why did you go to that person in the first place if the other school was a better option?

We've been through this a total of six times. We asked people to put in words for our kids for PreK/K, 6th, and college. For the 6th grade round, one person, a friend of friend, asked, "Is this the top choice?" and DH said something to effect of "It's the top two and DC would be so lucky to get into one of them." DC got into both of the top two and chose the other. It truly was a better fit but getting in was lucky.

With the exception of that person, we were friends or friendly with all the PreK/K requests. The 6th grade folks were fairly transactional types - willing to put in a word/write a letter/make a call, but no expectations more than that. One of the college ones was friend of a friend with a very strong connection to the school, but it was for ED, so no worries there. For the other DC, they met with a board member, who took a liking to DC, but at the last minute, DC pivoted back to their original ED but also thanked the board member for their time, suggestions, insights.

A friend offered to weigh in on behalf of my DC, but my DC respectfully declined, because he knew it wasn’t his first choice. I was proud of him.

I've seen friendships blow up over this issue. It's very, very bad faith to ask a trustee or board member to use their (limited) chits on your kid if you're not going to take the spot.

My sibling wrote a letter of recommendation for an ivy this cycle for a school they know is not my kid's first choice, but it's my sibling so it's not like the relationship will be severed if/when they don't go there or get in.

Caused the biggest flight of our family. Dad won over Brother (law school). Dad made it about money but Dad was right, it was also about ranking. I have often thought - if Brother had not acquiesced, it might have been an important milestone. He might have become a stronger person going forward, more self reliant, stronger sense of self.