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    MizJenkinsSam Biddle
    4/21/15 6:19pm

    Well...for one thing none of this should be a surprise to anyone. As they say, “it’s all about who you know” and that’s at every socioeconomic level. I’m guessing Eloise Lynton couldn’t get into a hot party at Le Bain or 1Oak in New York as quickly as, say, the broke ass East Village barista who walks the DJ’s dog on the side. Of course the higher your socioeconomic status usually the more access you have to good hookups for your friends but I mean, that more or less is what it is. It’s hardly news.

    And if someone is going to pay the full 4-year tuition for a deserving student who can’t afford an Ivy League education to go then I can’t be too mad that they let his/her dimwitted spawn in as well. If not a scholarship or endowment then that money is probably going to tutors who will help the kid quasi cheat their way in anyway. At least someone worthy actually benefits from the Lynton scheme.

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      amgarreMizJenkins
      4/21/15 6:28pm

      The whole nonprofit world is basically this. You may have a good cause or be doing amazing work, but if you can’t get big donors in the room with a celebrity or give them special access to an event or give them something they need, you’re not going to raise much money.

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      TheHoopoeMizJenkins
      4/21/15 6:32pm

      I don’t get the snide outrage at all. Every uni has donor coddling departments. Even State U cloyingly solicits donations all the live long day. Places like Harvard gets more politically powerful people, State U gets rich construction industry parvenus.

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    lecomtedArgentalSam Biddle
    4/21/15 6:17pm

    #thatshowthingswork

    I never went to an Ivy but I find the anti-Harvard stuff kinda tedious. It isn’t nearly as self-evidently outrageous or thoughtful as most of the stuff in Gawker. And Harvard does a lot more to give poor students a free ride than most universities. And that happens because of shit like this. Sure. Ok. I’m ok with this. None of your Harvard articles have shown me how my sausage is made.

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      Orlandu7lecomtedArgental
      4/21/15 6:30pm

      So, basically, because they throw a larger than average number of crumbs off the table, there’s nothing worth complaining about?

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      lewis55lecomtedArgental
      4/21/15 6:34pm

      I think the problem is that Harvard is actually two different places in one. The privileged elitist private schoolers who go on to finance and being corporate lawyers, etc, and who gain a lot of the (deserved) notoriety are *definitely* there in numbers, justifying all the negative stereotype. But much of the university is actually populated by really genuinely smart people, many of whom go off to do all sorts of socially valuable things — from being the country’s next generation of the best scientists and doctors to all sorts of humanitarian do-gooders and what not. Many of this latter group worked their ass off to get their the hard way and worked their ass off when they got there, and many are there on financial aid, not because of their elite parents, and aren’t deserving of the scorn directed at the first group.

      Both are accurate portrayals of the university and both worlds uneasily coexist with each other. I think the same could be said of most elite schools. Its an awkward tension.

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    SoapBoxcarWillieSam Biddle
    4/21/15 7:10pm

    And everybody who complains about the unfairness of the admissions process will still use every tool at their disposal to make sure their child gets in. While it’s true that every undeserving wealthy child prevents a deserving one from attending, their family’s financial largesse may also help contribute to the richness of culture or make more scholarship funds available. It’s a give and take that also makes many opportunities available to those that would not otherwise have them—whether this is a fair price to pay is another story.

    The story will also remain the same—the genius who attends Brown on scholarship today and becomes a hedge fund billionaire probably isn’t going to tell his kids that they’re going to have to get in to college all on their own, just like he did. Why? Because part of the American dream is sending your children to the best schools, not only so that they can get the “best education”, but because it’s something the parent can brag about with other parents whose children only got into....Vassar.

    Now that’s enough Vassar-bashing for one night.

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      gooseMananaSoapBoxcarWillie
      4/22/15 8:49am

      One second here.

      isn’t Brown’s the community college of the Ivy league.

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      SoapBoxcarWilliegooseManana
      4/22/15 9:17am

      I always thought that was cornell, since it actually receives government funding. Brown is the Hampshire of the Ivy League: lots of feels and you can make your own major!

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    IkerCatsillasSam Biddle
    4/21/15 6:17pm

    During parents’ weekend my freshman year at Yale, my roommate’s father (PC ‘74) turned to me and said, “So, are you a legacy too, or did you get in on your own merit?”

    A little self-awareness goes a long way (although not nearly enough).

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      The Ghost of Nikki FinkeSam Biddle
      4/21/15 10:54pm

      There’s more to this story: the email about Maisie’s April 4 campus visit to Brown references Alison Ressler (a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell’s LA office). Alison Ressler’s daughter is Samantha Ressler. After reaching out to Alison for help getting Maisie into Brown, Lynton then returns the favor by advising Samantha about who she should to talk to/meet with on the Sony lot to help her with her fledgling acting career.

      There are a stack of emails in the Wikileaks trove between Samantha Ressler and Michael Lynton regarding Ms. Ressler’s audition for the role of daughter Lisa in the forthcoming “Jobs” biopic. She did not get the part, but does credit his influence for making it as far in the process as she did.

      None of this is really earth shattering. We know that the affluent power broker on behalf of their children. But it is fascinating to see it in action

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        Sam BiddleThe Ghost of Nikki Finke
        4/23/15 12:02pm

        Really great find.

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      Sergio HernandezSam Biddle
      4/21/15 6:16pm

      Fun story! I was working on a story many years ago about a case in which a donor *supposedly* gave several million dollars to a major university, basically as a quid pro quo to get some relatives and friends admitted. The smoking gun were some alleged court transcripts in which the school’s development officer basically admitted to trading admissions for donations, but we had to drop it because there was no way to prove the transcripts were legit. :(

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        Sam BiddleSergio Hernandez
        4/21/15 6:19pm

        oh wow

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        revarthurbellingSergio Hernandez
        4/21/15 7:33pm

        Another fun story - The U of Illinois actually got called on the carpet for a similar scandal.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universit…

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      cancanstanSam Biddle
      4/21/15 6:23pm

      My extremely wealthy bosses buy their underachieving daughters way into everything, to her disservice, because she is learning absolutely nothing but to be a bully asshole. She recently applied to 5 schools in which she was under qualified. When we file the applications they send a copy to the President with a note like I would love to see your wonderful institution have a new library. He ended up over promising to one school while his daughter chose another, so he is buying both an art lab and a library. Fuck these people.

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        Joshua Davidcancanstan
        4/21/15 6:31pm

        Is it really to her detriment, though? Being a bully asshole is pretty much rewarded at every turn when you’re rich. They’re teaching her the skills that will get her furthest in our fucked-up country.

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      Evil Roy SladeSam Biddle
      4/21/15 6:49pm

      Yale ‘68
      Harvard Business School ‘75

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        EatTheCheeseNicholsonSam Biddle
        4/21/15 6:10pm

        If you apply to a grad program at Harvard, in the last step they have a checklist where you can tick off famous/rich alums that you’re related to. It’s supposedly just for funding decisions, not admissions, but still kind of pissed me the hell off.

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          amgarreSam Biddle
          4/21/15 6:40pm

          Maisie Lynton was soon after accepted into the Brown class of 2019.

          Is 2019 just a typo or do Ivies really pick who they are admitting that far out?

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            weeniehutjunioramgarre
            4/21/15 7:03pm

            if you start college in the fall of 2015, you will graduate in 2019…making you a member of the class of 2019. this has nothing to do with it being an ivy - all colleges identify their students by the year in which they will graduate.

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            amgarreweeniehutjunior
            4/21/15 7:06pm

            D’oh! Thanks for being gentle and not calling me an idiot.

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