An alleged lawsuit colluding universities to determine student financial aid packages offers insight into how top schools evaluate privileged kids differently from the rest of the applicant pool.

At Georgetown University, a former president selected students for a special admissions list by looking at their parents’ giving history, not their transcript, according to the lawsuit. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a board member got the school to admit two applicants who were the children of a wealthy former business associate, according to the suit. And at Notre Dame, an enrollment officer in charge of a special list of applicants wrote to others, “I sure hope the rich grow up a few smarter kids next year!” according to the lawsuit.

The motion, presented this Tuesday federal court of Illinois, is the latest salvo in a lawsuit that began in January 2022. The plaintiffs, former students, initially accused more than a dozen elite universities of price fixing. Since then, twelve schools have been installed. Tuesday’s motion seeks class-action status for the case against the remaining five schools: MIT, Notre Dame, University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown and Cornell University.

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University of Notre Dame campus in South Bend, Indiana. (iStock/iStock)

For families involved in the college application process and facing increasingly high odds of gaining admission to elite schools, the records fuel suspicions that colleges have different standards for to children with resources.

At Notre Dame, the university’s Committee on Institutional Risk and Compliance said admitting so many children of major donors posed a significant risk to the institution’s brand if it became public, according to the motion. In 2020, the school admitted 86 applicants connected to major donors, or about 4% of the incoming class. Within that group, 76% of those donor admissions needed special consideration to get in, according to the motion.

Speaking about the class of 2016, Donald Bishop, then associate vice president for undergraduate enrollment, noted a drop of 30 academic majors at the same time the donor list was used.

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“We allowed their high endowments or potential endowments to influence our choices more this year than last year,” Bishop said in a 2012 email provided in the lawsuit.

Spokesperson for Georgetown, Notre Dame and MIT he said the schools plan to fight the lawsuit in court and that all of his students earned their spots. A Notre Dame spokesman said the school is confident that “every student admitted to Notre Dame is fully qualified and ready to succeed.”

The Georgetown University campus is shown on March 12, 2019 in Washington, DC (Win McNamee/Getty Images/Getty Images)

It’s a precarious time for elite universities, which have become the target of growing public frustration. President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to investigate the university’s internal operations and tax the elite schools’ endowments.

Some of the anger directed at the nation’s most prestigious schools stems from perceived hypocrisy.

Elite universities are often presented as meritocracies that admit the best and the brightest. The motion filed Tuesday, which is based on years of speeches at exclusive meetings, depositions and internal university reports, shows officials bowing to financial pressures admit wealthy students over potentially more qualified applicants.

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Discovery in a separate court case about race-based preferences in college admissions revealed that Harvard University had a “Z list,” a route through which weaker but wealthy or connected applicants they could gain admission.

View of the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images/Getty Images)

In recent years, several schools, including Amherst College, have gotten rid of legacy admissions. Additionally, several states, including California, have banned the practice.

Inside the dress

Tuesday’s filing seeks class action certification and seeks $685 million in damages. If granted, that figure would triple to more than $2 billion under US antitrust laws. Ten schools, including Dartmouth College, Northwestern University and Rice University, have settled for a total of $284 million, with two others settling for undisclosed amounts.

The College Green on the campus of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, USA on Sunday, October 17, 2021. (Bing Guan/Bloomberg via Getty Images/Getty Images)

The lawsuit also includes testimony from Sara Harberson, Penn’s associate dean of admissions from 1999 to 2008, who testified in the case in October 2023. She said the school had a “special interest” label. in good faith” for students of families who were big donors or knew someone from the board of trustees.

Those students were assured of admission.

If the school was over-enrolled, they were protected, regardless of their academic record. “You had absolutely no power as an admissions officer,” Harberson said in her statement.

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A Penn spokesman said he sees no merit in the lawsuit.

“The factual evidence in the case makes clear that Penn does not favor in admissions students whose families have made or pledged donations to Penn, regardless of amount,” the spokesman said.

At Georgetown, a former president selected students for an annual president’s list after reviewing information about parents’ giving history and ability, but without reviewing the applicant’s transcript, teacher recommendations or essays personal At the top of the list he often wrote “Please admit,” according to the motion.