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.

Anonymous wrote:Why would Sara H be the Penn whistleblower for this? What does she have to gain?

I doubt she testified voluntarily. Why make an enemy of Penn’s admissions office? Most likely she was subpoenaed. If she was subpoenaed, then she had no choice.

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

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would Sara H be the Penn whistleblower for this? What does she have to gain?

She worked as the Dean of Admissions at UPenn. So, assuming she knew the inside works, she thought to speak about it. That's brave IMO.

Strategic. Most of her clients are not wealthy. She’s Robin Hood.

No need to oversell her.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would Sara H be the Penn whistleblower for this? What does she have to gain?

She worked as the Dean of Admissions at UPenn. So, assuming she knew the inside works, she thought to speak about it. That's brave IMO.

Strategic. Most of her clients are not wealthy. She’s Robin Hood.

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!

I'm sorry, I wanted to write "your respective schools." Data and studying the outcomes of your own school over the years will give you a very nice picture. I have been reading my child's high school data and profiles of various high-achieving students, and speaking to the counselors over the years gave me a very grim picture of admissions decisions. Which is why J Selingo's book made so much sense.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would Sara H be the Penn whistleblower for this? What does she have to gain?

She worked as the Dean of Admissions at UPenn. So, assuming she knew the inside works, she thought to speak about it. That's brave IMO.

Agree, but I don't believe she was ever Dean of Admissions. She was an admissions officer only.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Have you seen any RD schools checking you out on LinkedIn? If so, why do you think that is?

It's much easier for staff than checking out someone on LinkedIn. They use paid databases, as most nonprofits and most university development offices use. The question I have is whether they run the list of applicant parents through these databases.

Anonymous wrote:Why would Sara H be the Penn whistleblower for this? What does she have to gain?

She worked as the Dean of Admissions at UPenn. So, assuming she knew the inside works, she thought to speak about it. That's brave IMO.

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

They’re so evil.

What if a student applies for financial aid but turns out to be full pay? Have they been hurt in need blind admissions?

Why would Sara H be the Penn whistleblower for this? What does she have to gain?

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I mean, the university position here is pretty sound.

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Have you seen any RD schools checking you out on LinkedIn? If so, why do you think that is?

Georgetown will take a mental midget if they have money.