Here’s the thing, if these colleges didn’t have some success with this, they would have stopped doing the physical mailings a long time ago. Direct mail is the least effective, lowest ROI that companies do, that most have stopped. It’s all email, google search et… I know the colleges are also sending tons of email, which makes a lot more sense (cheaper, easier to measure).
The responses on this thread of people who know the deal about the mailings, are not the primary targets of colleges, these would be more secondary. They’re targeting first gens, kids whose parents grew up in another country, lower SES, internationals, i.e. people that think these emails mean interest. They would only need a few hundred, maybe a thousand, to apply, collect the app fees, to cover their costs.
"One of the reasons that the cost of college is much higher today is because colleges have many more expensive administrative and marketing personnel. "
These mailings have been going for a while though, I got letters in the early 80s, before the first usnews rankings came out. In fact I got the Rose Hulman card that was mentioned earlier, in 1982 I think, I know dating myself!