Originally Posted by Bostonian
For Harvard and the "donor" to exchange a million dollar "donation" for an admissions spot, which can reduce Federal income taxes by about $400K (using a marginal income tax rate of 40%), is a big tax fraud. The honest thing to do would be ...

... just receipt the donation as not tax deductible. But that assumes that a fair market value has been determined for admission to Harvard.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking discusses the idea that Harvard (and Yale) looking for extroverted applicants goes back to the late 1940s.