When a very old white guy is going into a minority family house, and makes a very snobbish remark about grades, it's never going to come off well.
I mean, could he not say something like ..
"At Michigan, we take academics very seriously. To give you an idea of how hard it is to get into Michigan, only X percent (because I don't know the exact amount) of out of state applicants even get in every year. You have the opportunity to be with a select few individuals to get to enjoy Michigan academics."
I'm not a salesman, so it can definitely even be said better than I did. But there are so many ways Mattison could have went, but instead came off like a *insert other word for jerk here* ..