A posh private school's bizzarre attempt to raise money by shaming rejected students suddenly makes a little more sense. It was an honest mistake! And it wasn't a list of all the students Dalton rejected that got sent out—just the children of alumni who didn't make the cut.
"It’s horrible," one alumna told the Times of the embarrassing incident. "Why should anyone know how much I have given and whether my kid got in or didn’t get in or even applied?"
So what happened, exactly? Like most incessantly-fundraising institutions, Dalton has rules about which alumni can be hit up and when. Understandably, they don't like to ask alumni with children currently applying to the school for cash, and that is where the problem arose.
In November, according to a letter Dalton wrote Thursday to members of its community, a committee of 12 alumni from one class met to make plans for a reunion and for raising money for a class gift to the school. The committee was then given a list of 11 of their classmates whose children had applied to the school, and their admissions history; three of those were applying for admission for the coming year. The letter did not say how many of the applicants had been admitted.
So it wasn't like a master list of rejected tots, just a short list. And the school is clearly, and rightfully, totally embarrassed. "We apologize for and deeply regret the release of this information,” head of school Ellen Stein wrote to the community. "We are reviewing our protocols to ensure that information about the admissions status of all Dalton families and applicants is protected and remains confidential. We have reached out to apologize personally to those 11 alumni whose names were listed."
