For the record, I have no intention/ability to do this. I'm just curious if it's even possible to buy your way into Harvard (or any elite business school) the same way you can buy your way into their undergraduate programs.
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If you have to ask, you can't afford it
First of all your answer isn't helpful. Second of all, I literally said I have no ability to pay whatever the price would be. Not many 20 year olds have an extra mill lying around
Never heard of a Z-J eh?
If you can buy your way into HBS, you probably won't need it.
As mentioned by many, money alone isn't going to be enough, but say a candidate (usually from an emerging market) is being groomed to take over the (very large) family business. So you have someone who is destined to become the CEO of a large business AND comes from a family that has fuck you money and is therefore able to commit to a large donation to the school (Stanford bans candidate and their family from making a donation concurrently with an application, but Harvard definitely does not). So even if the candidate has an otherwise average profile, it's really a win-win for the business school, there'a a reason why Harvard has such a big endowment. And this is where section X comes from.
Now, this is definitely not something that unique to HBS, every top bschool has a family business club. I just think HBS does it much, much more blatantly.
I keep sending them checks in the mail, but have yet to receive my entrance acceptance letter.... I figured $100 a month would be sufficient, due to the vast nature of their endowment size. Anyone have any tips?
I think it can and does happen, though I personally don't think it happens as much as we may suspect. While there were a fair amount of my MBA classmates from rich families (Billionaire level and mostly from Asia), they were all actually very qualified. They weren't the types you'd wonder how they got in.
In short, I think there are enough rich AND qualified candidates that the top schools don't really need to lower their standards to get more money. They probably get enough money from qualified sources as is.
I would add that a lot of alums are a big source of donations so a school like HBS doesn't have a strong need for wealthy families. For example, a standard MBA student (i.e. not from a wealthy background) who goes on to be a F500 CEO or start a successful HF/PE fund will often give back quite a lot. HBS has plenty of these types.
My friend and her siblings all went to Harvard undergrad because her Dad bought them a science building. My other friend and all her siblings got into Stanford undergrad + MBA because again their Parents bought Stanford a building.
So if you have the funds for a building, I'm sure you can attend. But then again, after attaining a degree from Stanford, I had to show her how to create a Pivot table on Excel.