Did your D take the PSAT and or the SAT? Did she ignore the box about the college search service during the Registration process? (most students don’t pay any attention or think, ‘yeah, send me some stuff’) The default is to opt in so yes, colleges will purchase lists of students in whatever demo they are seeking (grades, test score range, first gen, zip code).
If your family did not wish to receive this outreach, she should have checked “No” to receiving college marketing materials. (Doesn’t mean she won’t receive any, but she would receive a lot less.)
The article linked above about the godfather of college marketing spam also touches on how colleges have increasingly figured out how to get students info without buying it from the test companies. It was revealing. Colleges have gone “big data” with full time staffs that mine for data across the internet. They are buying names and data now from the same places that major companies are. Your kid registers for game on their phone, colleges buy that info. Even if your kid visits a college site anonymously, they now have the ability to use IP addresses and cookies to link that activity to a name, and can use that data to see how often they visited their colleges website as well as other sites to determine if they are likely to attend or not if offered admission. In the same way it’s creepy how Facebook gives you ads on things, that’s the level many colleges are now at with predictive modeling of who to admit.
That is a great article, and I read it when you first posted it in the other thread. Universities and colleges are a business, so I guess they are entitled as much as any other business to engage in marketing. The trash can is usually just a few feet away.
This week, DD got letters from Yale, Duke, Chicago, Northwestern, and Columbia, among many others. She barely looked at them and tossed them aside. It’s not that she’s not nterested in the school; rather, she knows it’s just a marketing letter. She’s doing her own research. She’s wiser than her dad, I guess.
The idea of setting up a separate email for college admissions is an excellent one. Thanks to CC, I discovered the concept of “demonstrated interest”, and I guess one needs to play the tech games with these schools when they send stuff electronically.
Ugh, UChicago was particularly egregious — DD got not one, but two free t-shirts from them her senior year of HS after she had already committed to another school.
Not a bad strategy to give Ivy-bound students some free U Chicago marketing materials…having that T-shirt on campus in Palo Alto, Cambridge, New Haven etc. sends a message that U Chicago plays with the “big boys” now.
Does anyone have thoughts on what to tell fellow parents who don’t know that mailings from prestigious colleges are not personal? For example, a student who was interested in U Maryland, GW, American, started getting emails and letters with their name in them, and is now pivoting towards Duke, Williams, Georgetown/whoever sends mailings. Parents think that means the school wants their student. Student is a great kid, and may have a chance anywhere, but is typical average excellent. So far, I’ve just been supportive, and sometimes mentioned acceptance rates, but people are used to their kid getting 98%, so they think their kid is in the top 4% and will therefore get in😔.
I let them create that list based on mailings and emails, but also suggest spending time considering colleges with higher chances of acceptance where they may have some of the things the student may be looking for.
Example, if they are planning a trip to Georgetown, I suggest going to look at American or GW.
I also suggest they talk to their school counselor or college counselor about where they suggest.
They may not want to hear it. The mailings are both marketing and prospecting. In other words, marketing to increase applications and decrease acceptance rate, and prospecting in the sense of reaching worthy kids who are from underrepresented groups and might not otherwise apply.
But they mean nothing in terms of chances of admission. That’s the part they might not want to hear
To me, it depends on how close you are with the other parents. If they are not friends but just have kids in your kid’s class, I would not suggest saying anything. It will take time to explain the situation to them/chances/etc. You aren’t likely able to do that with a positive outcome with people you barely know. If you are friends with the parents, you may have more success being able to talk to them over time. Educating them along the way. But as others not, they may not want to hear it. All you can do is what you can do and move along.
Thanks for your thoughts! I think you’re all right to suggest caution . . . I made a mistake once with a friend who said that she didn’t understand why the GC was so unsure about her child’s chances of Top 20 since they had over a 4.0 (W). I said that a lot of students have over a 4.0 these days, but then regretted it because she seemed upset. (43% of students at our school have 4.0+, 19% are 4.5+)
When the topic comes up, I can mention my kid’s college journey. We are planning to visit matches and safeties, and avoid falling in love with one of those schools that’s a reach for everyone.
It’s really the kids that I would like to protect in these situations, having seen hearts broken among the friends of my D19 and D21. Wish they could see that getting into a “prestigious” college is not the finish line, or a reward for those who worked the hardest, or a reflection on who they are.
Yes, it’s a hard situation. Perhaps at a different time (or in the same conversation, depending on how the situation feels) you might mention how your child received mailings from X colleges (preferably not naming the same ones the parent just named), but that your family is treating them as marketing materials and that you’re not getting your hopes up, but rather researching colleges independently, taking a look at all options, etc.
My perspective on this issue (and rankings) changed this weekend.
Spouse and I were on a family vacation in South Carolina where we had an extremely and appropriately proud grandfather as an Uber driver. I had on a Duke hat and the driver proudly mentioned that his daughter had wanted to go to Duke but had been rejected ED but that is was for the better because she was now being “recruited” by University of Chicago and and an Ivy League school. I naively said that’s phenomenal what sport does she play.
He said she doesn’t play a sport but mentioned all these various correspondences she was getting, how the schools clearly wanted her, and she wasn’t sure which she preferred but that they were both “ranked” higher than Duke so their loss. Made a comment that they didn’t even realize how good a school Chicago was until she received “a book” from them and looked up the ranking.
My spouse and I exchanged glances and awkwardly just said how awesome a student she must be and how full of pride her parents must be. Clearly to late to say anything that could be helpful and likely to be hurtful. I asked if she had any “safe” schools in mind (hoping for a fallback) and he mentioned Georgetown given she is a top student at her local HS. The pit of my stomach tightened.
CC and our own experience had corrupted me. I always falsely assumed people had to see through the marketing and arbitrary nature of ranking. Upon reflection my view had been skewed by having attended a prep school, access to quality guidance counselors, familiarity with T20 schools and places like CC. Reality is we are blessed and more the exception then the rule.
This proud grandpa really had no clue and I just hope he was unaware of his granddaughter’s more realistic plan. Clearly regardless of outcome the solicitations and rankings played a role in dictating behaviors that may ultimately not serve the student well. Definitely an eye opener.
Yeah, I hope that between the guidance office and the parents there was a diversification strategy that the grandfather wasn’t aware of. My kid has mentioned several classmates that had “no safety” but then as the year went on those turned out to be rumors and exaggerations and the students in question do already have acceptances in hand. People talk about the “famous” schools and for various reasons don’t always communicate the whole application story. But we know from CC that some kids do aim too high and end up empty.
The most disconcerting part of the discussion was my sense that the family had no prior interest or even awareness of UC and was motivated to apply and bristle with pride based entirely on the solicitations and rankings. Not picking on UC I can think of numerous top 20s who do the same but that happened to be the name mentioned.
You can pick on UC and not feel bad. Great school, have a family friend who loves it there. But we also got “the book” and a big bunch of other mail, and the ED, EA, ED2, etc. strategy is just over the top (they love to compare to the “peers” but Ivy+ schools offer only one early option each).
