<p>Two years ago, S received a ton of mailings from colleges. Now D is finishing Jr. year and she has received NOTHING, even though we actually REQUESTED info from one school (still nothing). Are other people finding this or is D off their radar for some reason? Not that I want another box of flyers and brochures, but what the hey?</p>
<p>My just finishing his sophomore year son receives mailings every week - sometimes every day. These aren’t top schools, but they aren’t no-names either. The last one was Penn State a day or two ago. I was thinking he’s getting more for the same time period as his senior brother.</p>
<p>Are you sure she didn’t check a “no info” box by accident?</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say “Nothing” has arrived, but definitely much less with D14 than we saw for D10 during sophomore year. Both took PSAT, both checked the “Send me info” boxes. D14 also has requested info from several colleges with no reply. I think colleges are doing more electronic marketing now, than even a couple of years ago.</p>
<p>Seems to me the mail traffic is down a bit for D2, just finishing her junior year. She still gets quite a bit of mail, but no multiple pieces a day as in the past. I think she may have gotten more mail as a sophomore than as a junior. But I’m not sure it’s that they’re sending out less; it might be a timing thing. It could be that they hit her with an enormous barrage as a sophomore, trying to establish a foothold in her consciousness in the very early stages of her thinking about college (as evidenced by taking standardized tests), then will return with another bombardment in the fall of her senior year, when she’s actually making decisions about where to apply. We’ll see. In the meantime, she’s happy to have less junk mail to recycle.</p>
<p>Many colleges have cut back on mailings because they realize most students do most of their research over the web. </p>
<p>I’m surprised they have cut back as much as they have on informative brochures -many colleges just send postcards that tell you nothing about the college.</p>
<p>My daughter gets only mail from a) colleges she expressed an interest in, and b) desperate colleges that really need students that don’t even offer her intended major. That intended major is listed on every form she has submitted in regards to college.</p>
<p>The most elaborate mailing that my son received last year was from Yale - a place he never expressed any interest in, and where he had zero chance of being admitted. They also sent him invites to regional admissions events. Fortunately, he didn’t believe that Yale was really personally recruiting him - which some people do.</p>
<p>I don’t know if there are more or less solicitations, but on the HS class of 2013 thread I just ranted about that same issue, Charlie. What does Yale (or similar elite and well-known schools) gain by such blatant manipulation of kids’ hopes?</p>
<p>My junior D is getting a few pieces of snail mail a week, and also several emails a week from colleges. I only know this after a key email about a college visit was ignored in her inbox, so I asked her to start forwarding ALL emails from colleges to me (learning disability makes her super disorganized, an all or nothing rule works best). You might be surprised at how much email they are getting.</p>
<p>DS is a sophomore and took PSAT last fall for practice. He receives smail mail on an almost daily basis from a lot of different schools (top 25 schools and others) and my e-mail address is deluged daily. He is my oldest, so I have nothing to compare it to, but it seems like a lot. Lately the emails tend to say “this is your last chance” or something to that effect. I am not sure if they cut you off if you don’t click on the links after “x” number of e-mails.
I have to agree that not much of the paper mail is very informative. Goofy facts or just a picture without much substance.</p>
<p>My Class of 2013 D is getting a lot less mail than my Class of 2010 D. D13 tests a little higher than D10 so I was a little surprised at first, but my mailman is thankful ;)</p>
<p>Spending on print and people reading print is going down fast. Most marketers are shifting budget dollars away from offset printing to print on demand or into digital. Everything someone wants to know about a college is on the web these days. On top of that you can search on You Tube and find all sorts of videos (good and not so good).</p>
<p>It seems that DS 2 has gotten a lot more printed letters and brochures in his sophomore year than DS 1 did 3 years ago. He also says that his e-mail is flooded with college stuff.
We are Californians and most all of the mailers are from east coast and Pacific Northwest. He could care less about any of it. His older brother chuckled as he looked through it when he came home from college last month. He said, “I got the same periodic table from this college 3 years ago!”</p>
<p>My sons are a year apart and we are receiving approximately the same number of mailings as last year, though younger sons grades/scores are significantly better…just different schools
We received one yesterday from a top 50 school that spelled valedictorian wrong…Not in a personal letter but in the printed mailer…Spellcheck anyone?
Oops. They had it as validictorian…</p>
<p>I think less and different type of schools. It could be because D1 was a NMSF and D2 isn’t. D2 also checked not to send things but some still do. Everytime D2 took some tests, sure enough there are one or two colleges send her something. There was no Yale nor Harvard that I can remember.</p>
<p>DS got tons of mail a few years ago. DD (rising senior) has received very little by comparison. Part of that is because she didn’t take the PSAT as a sophomore, but still, it does seem far less.</p>
<p>I also hate all the solicitations from schools who are just trying to up their applications to raise their selectivity rating. Luckily, DS understood that immediately (before I did in fact) and he paid no attention to it.</p>