I know its very common for high school students to receive a lot of mail/emails from colleges and universities
But for me, I keep getting these mails and emails from crazy good schools like UChicago, Brown, Dartmouth, Vanderbilt, UPenn, Yale, Northwestern, and many more top-tier schools. Im not even that great of a student; I have a mediocre gpa (UW gpa is 3.6 and W gpa is 4.3), I go to a somewhat competitive high school (rank is 9/10), my ACT is pretty good (33), but at the same time, Im aiming to major in comp sci
In other words, im just confused. My other friends with similar grades say they receive mails from ordinary schools that arent as prestigious.
Is it common for elite universities to promote themselves to students who dont have a shot in getting accepted? Because at this point I kinda feel teased by these great colleges that I probably wont end up going to.
They are marketing to a wide range of students. You have to decide if you’d get in, and if you’d like the school, and if you can afford it. It’s just marketing.
My daughter used to get a daily contact from WUSTL. She’d never expressed any interest, didn’t know anything about the school, wasn’t planning on anything medical or science, but they kept coming. Being ‘teased’ is a good way to put it.
At this point, top colleges don’t know anything about you, except for one thing: your 33 ACT score (which they got from ACT Inc.). And a 33 ACT is within the 25%-75% enrolled student range for all of these schools. So based solely on that number – which at this point is all that they know about you – you appear to be the kind of applicant that they want.
But it’s not enough to simply identify potential applicants – now they want to move people like you from the “potential applicant” category into the “actual applicant” category. So they send marketing materials to far more potential applicants than they have room for. They want their applicant count to be as high as possible, so they can reject as many applicants as possible, because this will keep their acceptance rate as low as possible.
Basically they are trying to encourage vast numbers of students (including you) to apply, so that vast numbers can be rejected. It’s not one of the more inspiring practices in American higher education.
@Corbett are you suggesting that schools have access to your ACT score even if you don’t report it to them…for the purposes of marketing? Or do they know that the OP scored above a certain threshold? I always assumed these were regional targets based on registration for PSAT, SAT and ACT.
More precisely, the top colleges potentially know whatever info you’ve shared with the College Board or ACT Inc. during the registration process (assuming you authorized the release of that data). A given college may have anywhere from 0 to 100% of this info, depending on the deals that they’ve cut with College Board or ACT Inc.
For top schools, I assume that test scores are the single criterion of most interest, but they could be looking at other factors as well.
This is insulting, and wrong on so many levels… “I have a mediocre gpa (UW gpa is 3.6 and W gpa is 4.3),”
Within the context asked this is neither wrong nor should it be insulting. First off it is self deprecating so you shouldn’t take offense. Second for the schools listed those GPA stats are “mediocre”. Admirable, worthy, hard earned surely are other potential descriptions but when talking top tier schools mediocre is factually correct.
The OP correctly is trying to gauge the specificity and relevance of the marketing material he/she is receiving and if they should respond by putting effort, hope and cost into applying. I think that sort of honest self reflection and diligence is both appropriate and prudent.
Eb23282 you can call a 3.6uw gpa anything from mediocre to outstanding but the ultimate judges in the context of college admissions are addmissions officers not our own wishful thinking. Be hopeful but not blind to what you are up against.
My daughter received a ton of mailings from “reach schools” after her PSAT and ACT scores were released. Some schools inundated her with mailings and emails (U Chicago - I’m talking 'bout you). They mean nothing. Just marketing! Toss/delete what doesn’t interest you and don’t let it sway your college list.
A Harvard gets to be in the top 5 partially because they have a low acceptance rate. To get a low acceptance rate, they need many people to apply. To get many people to apply, they send mailings to very good students…but ones that probably won’t get in.
So apply if you are interested, but don’t think that this means “ooh, Harvard is interested in me”
Agreed, the mailings are just a marketing tool and have not bearing on if you ultimately might be accepted to the school or not. My D could have made a large bonfire from the mailings from UChicago alone.
