Development cases are a set of preferences in university and college admission, particularly in college admissions in the United States, separate from merit, athletic, racial and legacy preferences, whereby applicants from wealthy families are more likely to be granted admission to selective universities based on large donations made by family.
Contents
The practice is not widely discussed by universities that use it, but is reported to be used by a number of top-ranked schools, Ivy League and otherwise.
Definition
A development case is an application to an undergraduate institution that is set aside during the admission process for further review. In these cases, the merits of admitting a student based on their academic performance, test scores, and extracurricular activities are lowered by the donations of the applicant's family. With development cases, a student whose academic performance and test scores are not enough to merit admission might instead be dependent on the donations the applicant's family may give.
Example
Student X and Student Y are applying to University Z. The interquartile range (25th percentile-75th percentile) for the SAT scores of admitted students is (2000, 2200), and the interquartile range for GPA is (3.7,3.9). Student X graduated High School with a 3.9 and an SAT score of 2200, while Student Y graduated with a 3.7 and 2000, respectively. Without taking family wealth into account, Student X would probably be granted admission, while Student Y would probably not. However, if Student Y is a relative of a wealthy donor, he/she would probably be more likely to gain admission, possibly even more so than student X.
Mechanics of admission
Most elite universities (Ivy League and others) base their admission decisions on a holistic approach to each application individually. Most of these universities assign scores (typically 1 to 7), with one end of the scale being high achievers and the other end the low achievers. While colleges typically look at each application in addition to GPA and SAT/ACT, these numbers are usually put through an algorithm to determine a score. Using the previous example, a student with a 7 would most likely be admitted, and his application scanned only for major problems (cheating, criminal offenses). A 5 would be thoroughly read, and the decision would be more difficult to make, while a 1 would most likely not be considered. An application that is a development case, however, would be more likely to be admitted given their score; a non-development case 6 might have the same chance of admission as a 4 who is a development case.
Motivations
Development cases are used in order to secure large donations, according to admissions officials. The cost of denying admission to a candidate who otherwise might be admitted to make room for a development case is outweighed by the benefit of having a student from a wealthy family that made a large donation that can fund the financial aid of other students or the construction of a new facility.
Prevalence
Most applicable top tier schools are susceptible to this practice, although the admissions teams typically keep the mechanics behind their process as secretive as possible. In addition to Ivy League Universities, other top-ranked universities, including Duke University, Stanford University, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rice University and Vanderbilt University have had their admission practices exposed by former admissions officers.