CosttogotoHarvard.docVIP

Cost to go to Harvard To get into the top colleges like Harvard, Brown and Stanford, you need good grades, and even better SAT scores, right? Well, not if you happen to be the son or daughter of a wealthy donor or a celebrity. And there are some other back-door policies that may surprise you. Pulitzer prize winning journalist Daniel Golden wrote all about it in his new book The Price of Admission : How Americas Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges. Mr. Golden is the Deputy Bureau Chief in Boston for the Wall Street Journal, and he joins us now from that city.Thanks Dan for joining us. Thanks for having me.Un, now, weve heard about legacy applications all the time, you know, the, the kid of , you know, some /alumni of a college always get into the front of lines, so to speak, but you seem to be saying that its worse than that, and more widespread than that? Knock it down for us.Yeah, the, the preference for the rich, err, children of the rich is not limited to alumni children. There is also a, a college admissions euphemism called Development Preference, which is a preference for children of politicians or celebrities or corporate executives who you might ex, expect to give a lot of money if their children are accepted. Then, there’s all the Athlete Preferences that favor kids that play blue-blood sports, you know, squash, sailing ,err, womens crew ,or mens crew, too, equestrian events, even Polo, err, athletes in those prep school sports get, get preference as well. Err just to take the other side for a minute. Say I am a wealthy donor, I am not, but lets just say. (ok) I am, I am a wealthy donor, right, you know, my kid is, say, a B student, but you know, boy, I love my kid, I am a great parent, I am out there batting for my kid. You know, apparently, colleges pay, even though tuition is 30,000 dollars, the college actually pays 40,000 for a kid to really educate them. Whats wrong with me giving, well I think a million dollars is the going rate