<p>When the number of applications is limited each top college still has plenty of “URM, first generation, recruited athletes, international, geographic diversity, socio-economic diversity, etc.)”. And the chance to be admitted to college is still as the same as when applying to several colleges. Statistics always works.</p>
<p>“I can’t believe people don’t understand that they are just on some mailing list somewhere”</p>
<p>Not to single Pizzagirl out, because the view has been expressed several times on this thread, but that is quite easy for a certain group of people to say who have had the privilege of coming from a long line of college graduates OR have simply given a crap about the college selection process at all."</p>
<p>I’m the first in my family of origin to have gone to a typical 4 year residential college experience. Fwiw.</p>
<p>I think it’s good if people are savvy and can protect themselves against the marketing. Just that it shouldn’t be on students and their family when they fail to see the ploy. After all when a guy strings a girl along with no intention asking out, we tell girls to watch out for theitr own good. At the same time we know the guy is an A-1 a…</p>
<p>I expect that in our circle it will be the same people who were flattered to be selected by groups like People to People who will also be bowled over by the letters from colleges.</p>
<p>Thats funny, momzie</p>
<p>momzie - but so true! Aren’t there always threads on CC where people ask about the leadership summit that their child was singled out and invited to - for just $3000 - and so forth. I do think something happens to people who normally have common sense when a piece of mail arrives pertaining to their CHILD - and flattering them as to their CHILD’S achievements - they are so filled with pride over their child’s accomplishment in receiving this piece of mail that their normal healthy level of skepticism goes right out the window.</p>
<p>“The approach we tried at Tufts is one that any college can adopt by merely adding a few questions to its application. But some schools, in their rush to improve their U.S. News & World Report rankings, are moving in the opposite direction. They are stripping their applications to the bare bones, removing essays and other components that provide insight into a student’s character and talents, so as to make their applications easier to fill out. They hope to thereby increase application numbers, and thus rejection rates and the appearance of “selectivity.” But they should ask themselves how, exactly, this approach makes their schools any better.”</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/19/AR2010111906842.html[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/19/AR2010111906842.html</a></p>
<p>I enjoyed reading the view of someone who actually works in college admissions critiquing colleges that are clearly after quantity of apps and not much else.</p>
<p>Just to provide some counter-weight to all the arguments about phony “complements” for one’s children: the letters about the Telluride Association Summer Program and the Canada/USA Math Camp read much the same. The people in charge of these programs obtain the students’ names and addresses from the PSAT and AMC/AIME/USAMO. The only difference is that these programs are legitimate, and I think they mean what they say.</p>
<p>“I’m the first in my family of origin to have gone to a typical 4 year residential college experience. Fwiw.”</p>
<p>So? My point was two-part. Being that you are on CC fairly frequently you seem to fall into the second category, that is, caring a lot more than the general population about college and the college selection process overall.</p>
<p>I suspect those alternate questions on the Tufts application helped my son a lot. The minute he saw the alternate history question he wanted to answer it. (His year the question was what would have happened if the British had won at Yorktown.) It really gave him a chance to show his knowledge of world history, and his analytic and creative abilities. Also, by doing the option essay, it showed that he thought Tufts was worth the extra effort.</p>
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<p>A friend who is an academic herself and whose husband is an academic told me that her son was “selected” to attend the leadership summit in D.C. I agree with Rockvillemom that when it comes to their kids, even savvy people can lose their objectivity. Similarly, I have seen highly educated parents fall for those personalized letters from highly selective colleges. Those weren’t around when they applied, so they think they actually mean something.</p>
<p>Needless to say, colleges knew people will fall for it. That’s why they send them out. That’s also what makes them unethical.</p>
<p>I don’t quite agree that these mailings are “unsolicited.” My daughter checked a box saying that she would like to receive those solicitations. </p>
<p>When she received letters from HYPSM, etc. saying that she “had what it took” to succeed at those schools, that was true. She certainly had the grades and scores of students who were admitted. She understood, though, that many of the 90% of students they rejected also had the same stats.</p>
<p>I actually learned some things from those letters. I was surprised to learn that there was a chance we would qualify for some need-based aid. We had assumed that we wouldn’t. I had a lot of stereotypes in my head about what kind of students went to those schools so I learned quite a bit about the socio-economic diversity there. Sure, I could have looked up the stats on their websites, but since I assumed the schools were not as diverse as what we wanted, and I assumed we couldn’t afford them, I never really looked at their web-sites! It took a few letters, plus some research on our parts before we realized that those elite schools were now much more diverse than our in-state publics, and also might be affordable.</p>
<p>So, she applied to 5 of the reachiest reach schools that she thought were good fits for her, and was accepted to one. But of course, we didn’t expect that so she also applied to safeties and matches, both in-state publics and schools where she might get merit aid. In hindsight, of course, she applied to more than she needed to, but we didn’t know if she would be accepted at her reaches, and we didn’t know what need-based aid if any we would get at those schools. There were also schools that we thought she would get into, but didn’t know if she would get merit aid. So, we did what seemed prudent at the time, and she is now a very happy college sophomore!</p>
<p>I can relate to 50isthenew40 in that the first time you are really new the process and paranoia reigns. A little overkill is forgivable. However, we have friends whose S2 is an exceptional student (although I don’t think he tested that well) and he is applying to 17 schools. It just seems like overkill to me, since I don’t think money is really an issue for them. Since they went through this last year with S1 and probably visited a lot of those self-same schools, one would think they could narrow it down a bit this time around.</p>
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<p>I agree with everything you said, but I’m not sure how much colleges are able to fix this in the ways you listed. Mail may not be the best solution, but I don’t think it’s as bad as people seemed to have made out on this thread. People seem to forget that by being on CC and knowledgeable about colleges puts them in the minority.</p>
<p>In England all university applications are made through a centralized, national application system run by an agency known as UCAS. Students are limited to five choices on their UCAS application. Furthermore, they cannot apply simultaneously to both Oxford and Cambridge, having necessarily to pick at most one of those two. </p>
<p>The English model may sound too restrictive from an American perspective, but I believe some kind of upper limit on the number of colleges a student can apply to in the US would be welcome.</p>
<p>“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>
<p>That’s exactly right. The mistaken beliefs lie on both sides of the equation. They are both very robust and hard to change.</p>
<p>Ultimately, Harvard’s actions show that it would rather disappoint 100 students than fail to locate 1 first-generation superstar who’s the next Barack Obama. I do acknowledge the costs of this decision, but I think it’s the right one. Ultimately, I don’t view it as such a big deal that a lot of kids read too much into the marketing letter and get disappointed. They’ll go to college elsewhere and rarely think about it again. It’s a much bigger deal if a brilliant kid in Nogales, AZ assumes that Harvard is for rich white people and misses out on a free education and backstage pass to power.</p>
<p>The family that gets the letter and thinks “Now my kid doesn’t need to apply anywhere but Harvard!” is in a bad way. But in my experience, that’s fairly rare, because the first-generation population that knows very little about college admissions will still have an unshakable belief that Harvard is hard to get into. Anyway, some families are determined to stick their heads in the sand without Harvard’s prompting. My experience from my tour guide years is that the truly unrealistic were typically from some middle-class white small suburb and the family has had the Harvard fantasy since the kid was in fourth grade.</p>
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<p>Nonsense. There are vast swathes of this country where the USNWR rankings aren’t particularly meaningful, and the choice of what college to go to is driven by location (short driving distance), money, and where-kid’s-friends-are-going. Oh, and money. Did I mention money? The top 20 and even top 50 focus is overwhelmingly a CC type of phenomenon.</p>
<p>I think it has more to do with HS grade inflation, SAT score inflation, and the more people knowing what’s (supposedly) required to get into the Ivy Leagues. </p>
<p>A key point in the article is that the differences between the applicants have gone down. At each school, there are tons of kids with 2300+ SATs, quality ECs, and great essays. If a person thinks he or she is similar to someone who got into Harvard last year then they will apply to Harvard. </p>
<p>I think in the past, it was clearer to see who’s going into which schools. Now, with people saying that everything’s a “crap-shoot”, people are more willing to take chances.</p>
<p>I think to really solve the problem would be to have much harder SATs. It’s too easy to get 2300+ on SATs. ECs are too easily faked and their qualities are difficult to measure (President of Chess Club vs Manager of Basketball Team???).</p>
<p>Just two thoughts to throw in. Our family is originally from Canada, but we’re now permanent residents here. Due to the very specialized nature of my son’s degree and the 1/10 style chances of getting into any of the conservatory programs, he would not have been happy with the Canadian restriction of 3 applications to the central body – it simply takes more apps than that to combine fit, finance, and competitive acceptance. He now attends what for him is his U.S. dream school – but really, it was all that mail after his PSATS that got him looking hard at fit – including some of the ivy/privates that marketed to him (and that he decided. after visiting, he didn’t like 
).</p>
<p>One of my favorites that year was USC, which took the trouble to specify the criteria he matched in the way it data generated the letters (“you are in the top 5% of all hs students and and you are interested in this major so please apply”)</p>
<p>I see absolutely nothing wrong with the practice anymore than there’d be anything wrong with Questbridge applications. We’re talking about permission-based, targeted marketing here. Granted, it would be nice if the language used was “may be a fit” and included a qualification disclaimer (eg. 1 in 10 qualified students will be accepted) but if the candidates in question do not possess the critical faculty to identify the letter as a marketing practice, well, I’d be surprised!</p>