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This is quite true; I was also speaking to selective private schools. Around here the admissions ratio for many private schools is crazy low, indicating that they are turning away plenty of qualified students and that they can recoup the lost tuition by admitting another pupil at will.

In that situation it starts to approach "is there something on campus with your last name on it" levels of donations if you want to avoid getting kicked out...

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Yeah, the ones around here have wait lists, and they're not impressed by daddy and mommy Mr. and Mrs. VP and MD, paying list tuition price. There are a dozen more where they came from. If they think a kid might make a few other families think twice about enrolling next year, and some reasonable attempt to make things work out falls through, that kid's gone. Maybe not immediately (though, sometimes), but they won't be back next Fall.

Can confirm, went to a school like that but without a namesake building. They can either always admit someone else, or more often, just not bother because educating kids is an expensive loss leader for the endowment even with full tuition. It definitely seemed like there needed to have already been a family building or two before you got to campus if you expected much immunity because of that...

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