‘Please Admit’: Rampant donor preferences alleged in college financial aid lawsuit
A new court filing in a high-profile lawsuit shows how much of a leg up the children of donors may have in the college admissions process.
Emails and internal records from some of the nation’s most selective universities paint a picture of a system fraught with inequities and looser standards for applicants with rich parents….
After a protracted court fight, 10 of the schools, including Yale University and Brown University, settled with the students for $284 million in July. Other colleges named in the lawsuit have continued to fight the accusations in court. All 17 of the institutions sued continue to deny any wrongdoing.
The suit has raised new questions about fairness in college admissions, evoking comparisons to the Operation Varsity Blues scandal, in which a slew of celebrities and business tycoons were embroiled in a massive fraud scheme to bribe their way into prestigious colleges. Since the settlements last summer, similar price-fixing lawsuits have emerged against some of the same top schools, which often have the most generous financial aid packages in the country.
College-bound students and their parents have long criticized the admissions process at selective private universities, saying it is opaque and unfair. While many of those schools have acknowledged they’ve given preferential treatment to the children of some donors to benefit the whole student body, the evidence filed in court Monday provides a unique glimpse into what the controversial preferences look like in practice.
Here are five accusations that stand out:
- Allegation #1: Georgetown had a ‘President’s List’ School records submitted in court indicate that Georgetown University
in Washington, D.C., followed a “special interest admissions policy” that offered “favored treatment in admission” to students from families who could help improve its fundraising. The university adhered to the policy, in part, by creating a “President’s List” of roughly 80 wealthy applicants each year, the plaintiffs’ lawyers say. Students on that list were almost always admitted, the filing says, and the words “Please Admit” were often added to “President’s List” applications.
- Allegation #2: Notre Dame administrator acknowledged donor preferences. In an email written in 2012, the University of Notre Dame’s associate vice president for undergraduate enrollment admitted that “high gifting” or “potential gifting” of students’ families influenced some admissions decisions at the time.
In particular, the official at the Indiana college expressed frustration that more kids with ties to donors were admitted in 2012 than the year prior, even though those students had worse academic track records. “Sure hope the wealthy next year raise a few more smart kids!” the official wrote. - Allegation #3: Former Penn admissions dean airs frustrations
Monday’s court filing also says the
University of Pennsylvania, an
Ivy League school in Philadelphia, gave the children of donors preferential treatment. A former admissions dean who worked at the school from 1999 to 2008 testified in a deposition that some applicants were designated as serving a “bona fide special interest,” or BSI. Students marked with “BSI tags” had parents who were “big donors,” she said, or for whom members of the board of trustees had advocated. “To get a BSI tag, you were untouchable,” she said. “You would have gotten in almost 100% of the time.” - Allegation #4: Cornell conducted ‘connection reviews’ of applicants
According to the plaintiffs’ lawyers,
Cornell University, an Ivy League
school in New York, has a record of tracking applicants “backed by substantial institutional donors.”
Monday’s filing says the admissions team often conducted “connection reviews” for those students, who were kept on “VIP watch lists” by the school’s fundraising team. - Allegation #5: MIT board chair pressured admissions dean
The filing additionally accuses the former chair of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s board of successfully pressuring the dean of admissions for the school to admit the children of one of his previous colleagues….
Connect the Dots 101 
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