<p>That's the current number of college info mailings my son (a junior) is getting now. I think it's worse than it was with his brothers; his PSAT scores were just a bit higher.</p>
<p>Anyway, he doesn't look at ANY of them. Just tosses them aside. I can't blame him... that's what I do with unsolicited credit card apps. But I WISH somebody's would say "look at US- we'll probably give you MONEY." THAT, I think, he'd read.</p>
<p>Right now it seems like a waste of paper and postage, even though I try to comment on some of the better schools he's getting mail from.</p>
<p>D has a growing pile. She looked at the postcard that showed her first name "written in the sand" (see other post about clever mailings). Otherwise, she's making a pile to look at sometime...... she looks at the ones from the school her sister is attending, and reads the ones from U of Chicago (because they're pretty witty). Otherwise, it's to the pile they go.</p>
<p>Yesterday's mail was like doling out cards for a game...one for her, one for me, one for her, one for me! We should probably assign a box for her by the front door for the mail after she takes the SAT.</p>
<p>We kept them in a grocery bag then a carton. The summer after junior year we sorted them by state to see how much of the country he had covered, then recyled just about everything except the handful of interest.</p>
<p>See if your school's college and career office would like the extra view books and brochures for others to browse through as they search for colleges.</p>
<p>He goes through them every few days and decides if he wants more information from a particular school. If so (that's pretty rare), he fills out the card. If not, it goes into a file I'm keeping in the office because what doesn't interest him as a sophomore might be appealing as a junior.</p>
<p>LOL, I wasn't sure what this thread was about. Was thinking along the lines of 4-6 servings of fruits and vegetables....</p>
<p>We had plastic file boxes for each individual school S was interested in, and had a cardboard box for all the rest (kept them 'just in case'). The HS was interested in the viewbooks, so I took all those in the guidance office after he went off to college.</p>
<p>It pretty much all goes into one large pile on my bookshelf. About the only things I really find worth looking at are the viewbooks and the U of Chicago stuff, which always seems to be incredibly amusing and interesting to read.</p>
<p>We used to call it the fan mail. Did not want it piling up so they had to decide maybe or no before it left the mail drop area. All no into the trash/recycle right away. It was bad enough with the maybes. By the 4th one I got a little more brutal about asking really?? and getting it into the recycle.</p>
<p>I discarded definite no's right away, the rest I kept until the twins were ready to look at the mail seriously. Then I sat with each twin and we created files for each school they wanted to look into, and we slowly winnowed those files down to the schools they actually applied to.</p>
<p>I now just laugh at the reasoning behind what is a keeper or not. University of Chicago is clearly at the top of the creative and interesting ones, along with Caltech, Oh and the period table from Reed was a huge hit! Of course D decide she does not want to actually look at any of these schools. Huh??</p>
<p>woohoo...we found it is virtually impossible to get removed from these mailing lists. Just get a box and recycle. DD still gets mail (not as many but she gets them) and she is a college soph. DS FINALLY stopped receiving undergrad mailings. He is a grad student.</p>
<p>We threw them all into one of two boxes, then recycled the ones she was not interested in. The amount is amazing, and some schools will send you stuff several times.</p>
<p>We told D "revel in this - you will probably never have something like this happen again". Think back - how many times in your life have you EVER had that many "suitors" for anything? It was overwhelming and completely wonderful - just let yourself look at it that way. I found a great rattan basket that she put them all in. When they started to slow down and she had narrowed her choices, and I took the rest to the recycling center. </p>
<p>But, before we got rid of them, we put them in a huge pile on the floor. She sat in the middle and we took a picture. The caption - "I'm wanted!!".
In this world of hard knocks, experiences like this just don't come along very often.</p>