Some elite US universities favor wealthy students in admissions decisions, lawsuit alleges Education News

Although it has always been assumed that such favoritism exists, the filings provide a rare glimpse into the often secretive deliberations of university heads and admissions officers. They show how schools enroll otherwise undeserving rich kids because their parents have connections and can potentially donate large sums of money, raising questions about fairness.

Stuart Smil, dean of admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote in a 2018 email that the university admitted four of the six applicants recommended by then-board chairman Robert Millard, including two “we would not have admitted otherwise.” The other two weren’t admitted because they “weren’t in the ball park, or the push from him wasn’t strong enough”.

In an email, Schmill said Millard was careful to minimize his influence on admissions decisions, but he said the chair sent notes to all six students and later “met with Schmill to share insights on who is a priority.”

The filings are the latest salvo in a lawsuit that claims 17 of the nation’s most prestigious colleges conspired to reduce competition for prospective students and reduce the amount of financial aid they offer, all giving special preference to the children of wealthy donors. .

“That unlawful collusion resulted in the defendants providing students with substantially less aid than would have been provided in the free market,” said Robert Gilbert, an attorney for the plaintiffs.

Since the lawsuit was filed, the 10 schools have reached settlements to pay a total of USD 284 million, including payments of up to USD 2,000 to current or former students who may have lost financial aid over more than two decades. . They are Brown, University of Chicago, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke, Emory, Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt and Yale.

Johns Hopkins is working on a settlement and the six schools still fighting the lawsuit are California Institute of Technology, Cornell, Georgetown, MIT, Notre Dame and the University of Pennsylvania.

MIT called the lawsuit and claims of admissions bias baseless.

“MIT has no history of wealth favoritism in its admissions; quite the opposite,” said university spokeswoman Kimberly Allen. “After years of searches that produced millions of documents providing an overwhelming record of independence in our admissions process, plaintiffs can cite only one instance in which a board member’s recommendation helped influence a decision for two graduate applicants.” In a statement, Penn also said the case is without merit because evidence shows it does not support students whose families have donated or pledged money to the Ivy League school.

“Plaintiff’s entire lawsuit is an attempt to embarrass the university’s alleged admissions practices over issues completely unrelated to this case,” the school said.

Notre Dame officials also called the lawsuit baseless. “We are confident that every student admitted to Notre Dame is fully qualified and prepared to succeed,” a university spokesperson said in a statement.

The South Bend, Indiana, school, however, admitted affluent students with apparently subpar academic backgrounds.

According to new court filings, Notre Dame’s then-associate vice president for admissions, Don Bishop, wrote in a 2012 email about accepting “special interest,” noting that this year’s crop had a poor academic record compared to previous years.

The 2012 cohort included 38 applicants who were given “very low” academic evaluations, Bishop wrote. He said those students represented a “greater allowance in the strength of family connections and funding history”, adding that “we allowed their higher gifts or potential gifts to influence our choices this year than last year”.

The last line of his email: “Sure hope the rich raise some more smart kids next year!” Only a few examples pointed to in court filings this week show that students benefit from being able to pay full tuition. During the deposition, a former Vanderbilt admissions director said that in some cases, a student will get an edge on the waitlist if they don’t need financial aid.

The 17 schools were part of a decades-old group that got permission from Congress to come up with a common vision for providing financial aid. Such an arrangement would otherwise violate antitrust laws, but Congress allowed it as long as all colleges had requirement-blind admissions policies, meaning they did not consider a student’s financial situation when deciding who would admit.

The lawsuit contends that many colleges claimed to be need-blind but routinely supported alumni and children of donors. In doing so, the colleges violated congressional exemptions and tarnished the entire organization, the lawsuit said.

The group disbanded in recent years when provisions allowing cooperation expired.