<p>The dramatic rise in applications at many selective colleges is both a cause and a symptom of increasing uncertainty for students and enrollment officials alike. </p>
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<p>Yes. The problem is that there are many kids and parents who think that getting an unsolicited letter from Harvard means that they are being recruited by Harvard, which gives some of them inflated notions of their desirability to schools where all but the very strongest applicants have little chance of being accepted. Thus, as the guidance counselor quoted in the article later says, it becomes very hard to get the student to consider “the nice little school in Ohio” that would be a great fit. It’s fine to have a few reaches in the mix, but when marketing practices by those schools lead the student to believe that those schools are not reaches, the outcome is one of big disappointment.</p>
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<p>I have a real hard time ginning up sympathy for this, though. I can’t believe people don’t understand that they are just on some mailing list somewhere, based on having achieved X scores on a standardized test or some-such, and that really, Harvard et al isn’t truly just dying to have you come there, any more than the Mercedes dealer really cares about me when he sends me a flyer telling me to come test-drive the new Mercedes.</p>
<p>pizzagirl - you would be surprised. My b-i-l is an attorney - his wife a CPA. He recently told me that they think their daughter (not an athlete or URM) is being recruited by Stanford - based on the mail, etc., she receives from them. I offered my opinion on the likelihood that she was being recruited (slim to none) - and then sent them a few links.</p>
<p>PG, It’s hard for us plain folks to think that Harvard has a need to market and is marketing. We think they already have more than enough applicants to bother just anyone.</p>
<p>I think Harvard is seeking total world domination. There was a quote from their president a few months back that his goal was to have a Harvard application on the kitchen table of every qualified high school student.</p>
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Every qualified high school student or every single high school student? That seems to be the difference here. By casting a net which includes students with little to no chance of getting in, it becomes more like every single hs student.</p>
<p>In one sense, there’s nothing wrong with Harvard (or other elite school) using marketing in order to attract some unique applicants that might not have considered the school but could add something interesting to their class.</p>
<p>The sad part is the large number of qualified but unexceptional students and parents who will assume the letter from the school inviting them to apply means they have a real chance of being admitted.</p>
<p>Best way to curb application inflation would be to bring back the early programs at Harvard (under review), Princeton, and UVA (coming back as EA)</p>
<p>Moving beyond the population peak will help as well in any case.</p>
<p>Like in everything these days, the academically oriented educated, professional middle class and ORM get the short end of the stick. So yale is looking hard to recruit more kids from under privilege background and URM community? Their spots are not created by not admitting the scions of the ultra rich, the ultra famous, the ultra powerful, the famous legacy, and the athletes. they come at the expense of the kids like mine.</p>
<p>By the way, I do support the AA policy that favors the disadvantaged kids. It’s the other category that I have a problem with, especially the legacy part (And, I am an Ivy alum).</p>
<p>The best way to curb application inflation is to limit the number of applications a single student can send. It will make colleges and students much more thoughtful about the process. Perhaps the colleges will start to differentiate and the students will be less cookie cutter in their applications. I also think there should be huge pressure on USNWR to eliminate yield numbers from their reporting. Those numbers have become so manipulated and meaningless that it is sad to me when people spout them as if they had some importance.</p>
<p>You should see what is in these letters…“We think you have what it takes” etc etc, kind of shameful IMHO to lead on anxious students and parents in this way.</p>
<p>Time to bring back early binding-admissions.</p>
<p>We could hold Harvard responsible for a disingenuous marketing. They shouldn’t be saying, “We think you have what it takes” to already anxious kids. They know it’s not likely to be true.</p>
<p>My DD received material from Harvard, Columbia, and UChicago, schools that she had no chance of being accepted into. My H and I had to gently explain college marketing to her. (Thanks to cc for educating us!!). She became quite annoyed when she understood the process. So she used the material from these schools to make a collage which rather artistically expressed her views of these schools as well as the entire college application process! Very cathartic for her! (She is currently attending a school that she loves!)</p>
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<p>I’m sorry, I still think it’s rather dumb - at least on the part of an adult - to think that this form letter that says “We think you have what it takes” really means anything other than a form letter. It’s fluff, no different from “We think we have the prettiest campus in the country.”</p>
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A shibboleth of mine. The difference between the estimated peak in U.S. high school graduates last year and the projected trough of U.S. high school graduates in 2014 is less than 4%. That gets completely swamped by (a) increased percentages of high school graduates going to college (the number of U.S. students attending college is NOT projected to decline in the foreseeable future), (b) applications from international students, many of them newly wealthy (and getting wealthier for these purposes as the renminbi appreciates and the dollar depreciates), and (c) the tendency to apply to more, and more famous, colleges. Just as the tiny percentage increases in U.S. high school graduates over the past few years (less than 0.5%/year) had nothing to do with the massive percentage increases in applications to top colleges during that period.</p></li>
<li><p>The problem with Harvard limiting its marketing to people who have a good chance of getting in is that arguably no one has a good chance of getting in, or at least no one beyond a few hundred athletes and superstars in assorted fields who, I believe, are often being pursued by Harvard with more than junk mail. For everyone else, it IS something of a crapshoot, and I suspect there are lots of people who think they have a great chance and don’t really, and lots who believe they have no chance but who might be accepted if they applied. </p></li>
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<p>In my part of the world – which, granted, is somewhat sophisticated about college – I don’t see people who objectively have no prayer applying to Harvard. In my son’s class, I think six or seven people applied. Few of you would be able to pick which one was accepted if they all posted their “stats” here, and all of them were basically in the same ballpark as far as that was concerned.</p>
<p>I see kids who apply to these schools who might objectively not have a prayer - but it’s because they don’t have a full understanding of the selectivity, NOT because they received a brochure or letter in the mail and think that Harvard et al is courting them with roses and flowers.</p>
<p>LOATHE the unsolicited mail that my kiddo has received for the past few years. She doesn’t even open anything that doesn’t come from one of the schools she has chosen to apply to. My recycling pile grows daily…</p>
<p>Among her snarkier comments – on unsolicited viewbooks – “Look – XYZ University pledges to be a greener campus…while sending me 50+ unwanted glossy pages!” Or how about the letters thanking her for meeting them “when the rep visited your school this week”. Ummm…her apps have been in since Labor Day, the college search is OVER. And it IS sad to hear some of her friends, who believe a form letter from Yale is a sign of the college seeing “something special” in their child. Um…how about an address that has a live person at the end?</p>
<p>My daughter received unsolicited email from Princeton, which we deleted, since we knew she wasn’t in the range for Princeton. I was flattered when she received email from Rice, Chicago and Emory, based on her Jr year psat scores. However, I realized that those schools are unrealistic, based on her gpa.
So now she is applying to CWRU, WPI, Pitt, Binghamton and others. Also, the demographics are against the class of 2011.</p>