Alumna Gives $128 Million to High School. Universities should be careful about who they reject.

It probably would never have happened if Harvard University had not rejected Warren E. Buffett’s business school application in 1950. But a string of events originating with Mr. Buffett’s disappointment led yesterday to a Quaker high school’s receiving a gift that dwarfs some college endowments: $128 million.

Officials at George School, a prep school in Bucks County, Pa., were reeling from the contribution, believed to be one of the largest ever to a secondary school. “All I could say was things like, ‘Wow, this is overwhelming,’ ” said Anne Storch, the school’s chief fund-raiser.

It all began when Mr. Buffett, long before he became the celebrated investor, was rejected by Harvard and attended Columbia instead. A business professor there, David L. Dodd, was so impressed that after Mr. Buffett returned home to Nebraska and formed an investment partnership, Professor Dodd invested some of his own money for himself and his daughter.

Mr. Buffett soon acquired a then-obscure textile company named Berkshire Hathaway, and over the years made his professor and many other early investors rich.

Professor Dodd’s daughter, Barbara Dodd Anderson, an alumna of the high school, yesterday used much of the fortune from that original investment to endow George School, a private, 500-student institution set on a leafy 240-acre campus in Newtown, Pa.

By SAM DILLON

Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/education/19gift.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1190213525-VIK2Av0edOrFTow9SEDpHw