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Comment by clarkm | Hacker News Reader

The newsletter from The Fountain Hopper (who appears to have discovered this) has some more interesting details:

When you apply to Stanford, your application gets assigned at least two admissions 'readers.'

FoHo knows you get a third (specialized) reader if you're a legacy or a 'minority' (though we're not too sure how that's defined). We also think you get an additional reader if you're an athlete or development kid (i.e. you donated $$$).

These readers (a mix of full-time admissions officers and seasonal hires) are tasked with reading thousands of applications in just a few weeks and distilling each of them into an concise, 300-ish word summary.

http://us9.campaign-archive2.com/?u=c9d7a555374df02a66219b57...

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> FoHo knows you get a third (specialized) reader if you're a legacy or a 'minority' (though we're not too sure how that's defined). We also think you get an additional reader if you're an athlete or development kid (i.e. you donated $$$).

This is how pretty much every major university does admissions, so not especially interesting. The one thing to note though is that athletes usually only get a boost if the coach actually goes to bat for them as part of the recruiting process, you're not going to get extra attention just because you played a sport.

Unless of course it's Caltech, which breaks both rules.

I may be extremely naive but what does Stanford need the donations for? Aren't they rolling in dough.

They are rolling in dough because of their donations.

I thought that affirmative action was a well established part of almost all university admissions. Seems disingenuous of them to put minority in scare quotes, when affirmative action is not something that universities are coy about talking about.

Minority is in scare quotes because they have to be the right minorities. East Asians and South Asians don't count.

I understand that, and agree to some extent, and yet universities don't claim to give preference to East Asians or South Asians (actually they discriminate against these groups, but that is another matter). Usually universities would call Blacks and Hispanics "historically underrepresented groups" or something similar.

A good term to use is "margarine group", it's more accurate than minority. In apartheid south Africa black people were a margalized group despite being the majority of the people.

Likewise, one could say that a minority of the USA is Asian, but are Asians a margalized group when it comes to university?

development kid (i.e. you donated $$$)

Anyone got any numbers on that? What does it take to become a development kid...

if they get another reviewer for that category, i can guarantee you that all that person will do is open an excel sheet, order by donation amount per family, and write the position your family is at. So i doubt donating the minimum will do you any good.

There are cases of parent givers (<$100k mind you) whose kids are rejected even with good stats.

Actually I've heard from sources I consider reliable, that there is a specific number, that people know, that you have to donate to guarantee entry of you child. It's really the logical conclusion of considering these factors in admission.

How are people not angered to the point of spittle launching fury by "development kids"? Its outrageously contra to a functioning meritocracy.

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