and zero for my other daughter who has slightly better grades? ( twins )
I will never understand how these colleges market themselves.
One daughter may not have checked the box to receive mail.
I was always amazed that a university can claim to be Green during their tour and send so much mail.
Don’t get fooled by email or USPS mail asking your student to apply. Mine applied to Columbia ED because she got 5 invitations to come look at the school including a family meeting with an astronaut. She got rejected. Happily, she is a student at Pomona, and was waitlisted at Harvard, so she was definitely Columbia material.
My kid got a ton of mail from Wash U. It wasn’t even close to being in range for her. Just junk mail. View it as such.
In my own experience, if both your daughter and family like that school and can afford it (after checking the NPC), your daughter at least should apply. These colleges are no dummies, and they won’t waste money for ad. Maybe your the other daughter with higher stats is not the profile of past applicants to the school. My D got the most mail from the school your daughter got during her Junior year and is now a student there. Why not try?
@twoinanddone Nope… this is just a Vandy thing. Basically they both get all the same stuff…
@thumper1 … well, she absolutely has the grades… but the school is far too conservative for her, with not enough diversity. They both have essentially the exact same grades. Just strange that only one gets it.
Two possible reasons 1) one did something on Vandy’s website or 2) one got deduped off the mailing list. Vandy is maybe trying to save money by not sending stuff to Bill Smith and William Smith. The method may not handle twins correctly.
These colleges have plenty of money for these soliciting emails…and they get sent to thousands and thousands of kids who have little to no chance of being accepted at the colleges.
They are college junk mail. Period.
They have no bearing on whether the student has the application strength to be accepted at all.
what @thumper1 said.
The colleges persist because parents really DO buy into the idea that this somehow means something, hence the abundance of such threads. When your kid doesn't give contact info away, you get very little.
Of course this is junk mail, and a way to get applications up and acceptance rates lower! Wow, I got something in the mail. They must like me. It tells me to apply. It also doesn’t tell you that you will likely get denied! More applications, same amount of admittances, lower acceptance rate. Wow, that school looks so selective! (sarcasm added). It is a ploy that schools have been doing alot…glossy mailers, etc. to everyone and anyone. Trust me. At first you feel important, and then you figure it out!
“At first you feel important, and then you figure it out!”
Um, some never do. We’ve had more than one thread where outraged parents blast a college for courting their child (ie - sending junk mail) and then not admitting him/her. I kid you not.
Vandy is not really a conservative school without diversity. It may have been at one time, but it has not been so in recent years. It is a great school that provides a top-notch education & has incredibly generous financial aid. In fact, my D never got recruiting mail from them … but not only did she get accepted twice (once for freshman year & then as a sophomore transfer student), but she got amazing aid as a transfer. I realize your post wasn’t about whether or not Vandy is good, but I feel the need to correct misinformation about what I consider to be a great school that is not what people seem to think it is.
@milee30 what I was saying is that first you feel important by getting the mail (courting by the college) AND then you figure it out (once you get denied!). I am sure they figured it out!
My son started getting Vandy mail in 9th grade. They don’t send them out to everyone. I’m certain that they have an algorithm that takes into account standardized test scores. The goal is to increase applications, to increase rejections, drive up selectivity and climb the rankings. Wash U invented that game.
I’ve gotten at least 41 credit card solicitation junk mails…and my husband has gotten NONE. He has the higher income.
We view HIM as the lucky one.
It’s JUNK MAIL. Junk mail…just like those random college mailings.
I don’t think it’s junk, but don’t weight it so seriously. I got tons of emails and such from Brown since freshman year, and I was straight up denied. Meanwhile, I didn’t receive much from Vandy, and I was accepted and invited to Mosaic. They use mail to scope out interested students as well as those who fit the class profile. However, if one twin receives mail, it isn’t meant to shut out the other. It’s just a weird marketing ploy. It can hold some weight, but it’s not a guaranteed acceptance.
It holds no weight. It’s junk.