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thatoneguy889 t1_iwm2o8l wrote

There's a friend of a family friend of mine that's one of those disgustingly wealthy people you've never heard of. His son applied to a very prominent and prestigious university, but didn't get in because he fucked around in high school and his grades sucked. The guy basically donated a new wing to the university's library or something like that and a few weeks later the son got a letter in the mail saying his admission was reconsidered and he got in.

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KingfisherDays t1_iwmdynd wrote

Ever heard of the z list? That's what happens when you're the kid of a rich donor who can't get into Harvard normally. They admit you and make you defer a year in between. So if you seen the child of a rich or influential person going to Harvard after a gap year, it's possibly because of that cough Malia Obama cough

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Redpandaling t1_iwmrkpd wrote

Eh, rich people are also better situated to take a gap year in general. Gap years are like entrepreneurship - a thing you can do when you're rich because you're not worried about having enough money for your basic living needs.

For your specific example, I'm not aware of any evidence suggesting Malia wasn't a good student / made bad decisions. Obviously giant leg up from being a first daughter. Given that she would have been going to college in 2016, taking a gap year seems like a smart idea for her just to let the furor die down a bit.

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Recent_Record t1_iwuc77b wrote

It probably helped that both Barack and Michelle went to Harvard too.

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wheniswhy t1_iwngx08 wrote

I went to a prestigious Ivy League university. One summer, I took an internship working with a bunch of Harvard kids in NYC. I remember thinking it was kind of odd that they were all Harvard kids except for me, but it was a good opportunity with a good company and great potential networking, so didn’t think too much of it.

About a week in, I found out that the kid who was really running the operation was the son of the guy who owned the company. Who owned the floor. Who owned the building. And he had absolutely no clue what he was doing.

We had a saying at my school: “The hardest part about Harvard is getting in.”

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themoneybadger t1_iwmpj54 wrote

This isn't news to anybody. Legacy admissions are a way to secure easy funding.

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