Rejected-Students List from N.Y. Private School Hints at Pay-for-Acceptance Plan
Dalton, the most prestigious co-ed private school on Manhattan's ultra-rich Upper East Side — you know, the one with the bomb suspect alum — is apparently engaging in some Mean Girl-style tactics: The school sent out a list of rejected applicants and parents of kids with pending applications, all in an effort to get alumni to push said parents into donating money to the already very well-off school, according to the New York Post's Page Six:
Recently, the upper-crust school sent out a letter to boosters and alumni with a list of families that have applications pending, as well as names of students who were rejected from Dalton. ...
The revealing e-mail went out as part of a fundraising effort to have school supporters lobby parents of recently rejected kids for money, sources say. Recipients, we’re told, were encouraged to make contact with the families in an effort to broker better relations and deepen the potential fund-raising pool.
We understand that there might be a sliver of sense here — many of these wealthy, well-connected parents run in the same circles, and the families of prospective parents might have lots of disposable income to spend. And even though Dalton currently charges $38,000 per student, they apparently wouldn't say no to more donations.
RELATED: The Dirty Book That's Changing the Lives of Upper East Side Moms
But why would the parents of a recently rejected student want to donate to a school that rejected their kid? Oh, right — because those parents may still want their kids to get in, and giving money by way of your new Dalton-boosting friends might be a way to do that.
RELATED: Upper East Side 'Mommy Madam' Is Talking But Not Talking
There's one problem with this alleged breach of privacy, though. According to Page Six, parents who were on the reject list don't want to make too big of a stink of the Dalton "burn list" since everyone would know their kid didn't get into the school. Because your kid not getting into a school that totally breached your right to privacy is worse than letting everyone know that this school violated your privacy, apparently.
RELATED: Single Women, Stray Dogs, and Cycling
Dalton has acknowledged that "a breach" happened, and promised that this will only happen this one time.
Dalton’s policy is to treat information about applying families confidentially. We were informed there was a breach of this policy, and we are taking all steps so it will not happen again. As a matter of practice, we do not solicit families who are in the admissions process.
