<p>The emails are personally addressed to D, are from the Undergraduate Admissions Director of the schools, and they can easily fool an adult, never mind a 17 year old, into thinking they really were selected for some sort of special admission treatment.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, these emails are just the latest means of farming for applications (and application dollars).</p>
<p>Isn't the college admissions process abusive enough already?</p>
<p>What's next, calls and texts to D's cell phone?</p>
<p>College is big business, and they market as such. Good for you to have figured that out early. Play your own game of finding schools that you can afford that are safeties and matches, and throw in a couple of reaches if they make sense. Help your kid keep her head on straight and not be distracted by the marketing machine at some schools.</p>
<p>Unless the student is “super qualified” (whatever that means), then yes, I think that is cruel.</p>
<p>I have seen parents commenting that “oh my kid got a mailing from (pick your favorite top 10 school), looks like they care and my kid has a real shot”…but those schools would be real reachy for that particular kid. Oh, and of course the kid was super encouraged also.</p>
<p>Yes, the parents should know better and they will when they get deep into the application process.</p>
<p>Your kid must have checked that box to receive info when they signed up for the SAT. Get used to it…there is no way to get off of these mailing lists. What your student needs to understand is that an invitation to apply does NOT guarantee acceptance. </p>
<p>I don’t think it is cruel at all. Time to grow a thicker skin. Great lesson to teach your kid about using their critical thinking skills and being an informed rather than a naïve person/consumer.</p>
<p>It is cruel if the student allows herself to believe the emails , letters, are anything more than marketing techniques. </p>
<p>Parents need to explain how colleges are like corporations searching for good numerical profiles, rankings, and high yield rates. It is a teachable moment.</p>
<p>I think it’s cruel if both the parents and the student fall for the misleading marketing devices. I also have friends who think emails and mailings from reachy schools confirm their child’s high chances of acceptance until I tell them D (not a high stat student) got the exact same email/mailings.</p>
<p>It is time, and possibly a little late, for a high school student to understand marketing. Cruel? Not to me, just cold hard marketing. It’s only cruel if you believe it.</p>
<p>Just checked the email folder where I started dumping college emails as they began arriving after the PSAT this past autumn and then again after my daughter took the SAT this winter. 1300 emails. And a couple of grocery bags of snail mail dumped in the recycling bin a few weeks ago. My daughter is a nice, solid student, with solid but not spectacular stats. The kind of kid who might or might not not get accepted at our state flagship, where the stats of accepted students has been rising every year. </p>
<p>(I have absolutely no reason for saving all those emails in a folder! Eventually they’ll all get dumped, and I doubt my daughter will ever look at any of them. She used our family email address when she took the tests, which is why I’m clearing them out of our inbox daily, and stashing them in a folder.)</p>
<p>What I secretly find amusing are the parents who humblebrag about all the summer programs at Ivy League schools their child has been invited to and how difficult it will be to decide among them, not realizing that the vast majority of them have nothing to do with the school other than having rented part of the campus for the summer.</p>
<p>My daughter, a junior, has already gotten a couple of those “we already filled in the first part of the application for you” texts and e-mails. </p>
<p>Cruel? No. If she doesn’t understand it is marketing, tell her. Colleges are businesses. Having said that, RPI is ridiculous. So far both S and I have received an email and a letter letting us know that soon, very soon, he will receive an “official” invitation to apply. WOW, an “official” invitation…</p>
<p>^Our older son got an “official” invitation to apply to RPI - the extra essay was waived and he also was told if he got the application in with his first quarter grades they would let him know within three weeks if he was in. It was pretty clear that the invitation was based on either his very high scores. They did accept him and with merit money - so we were happy - accepted to a safety early in the game.</p>
<p>Even though my D explicitly indicated that she did not want to get solicitations from colleges via standardized test scores, she got real mail from some colleges she did not contact herself anyway. I am not sure how they got our information. I have to say that back in the day, I liked getting catalogs and brochures in the mail since I would have never heard of some of the colleges and some of them looked pretty nice. I guess we are jaded now, and can find out about many colleges through the internet quite easily. I am not sure what these emails say that would make someone think that they will get special treatment. If they tell you that they will waive the application fee or get back to you soon, certainly that is meant to be an inducement, but is that so wrong? I have heard of the no application fee letters, and I can understand why schools do it. It doesn’t require them to accept the candidate, but they might get some folks who might otherwise not have applied, and those might attend.</p>
<p>I was looking for the video clip earlier but couldn’t find it online – When you guys talked about sensitizing your students to the fact that this is just a marketing ploy, I was reminded on that scene on the TV show “The Neighbors” when Larry, the alien, comes into his neighbor’s house all excited because he has just been admitted into the exclusive club of people who have been invited to save forty percent off on one item at Bed, Bath and Beyond. He is so excited that he wants to go there at once so he can exercise his membership. </p>
<p>Interesting parallel – getting the special exclusive application to apply to University X is a little bit like getting that special exclusive coupon to save 40 percent off on one item at Bed, Bath and Beyond.</p>
<p>I have to agree that the mailings are not cruel but in fact a wonderful way to learn more about colleges a student may not have even considered. We had back to back rising seniors and it is quite interesting how the mailings changed from one year to the next. Our D, a very average student was sent many brochures, letters and the like from a certain level of institution. What seemed interesting and a ploy, was the offered "scholarship " money from many schools, should she chose to apply -none of whom she chose to attend because of athletics. Our S, a very high level. high achieving student received throngs of mailings etc from only high caliber universities - a number of which we did check out and apply to. However, the “scholarship” offers were not made yet he legitimately earned substantial merit money – seems the process has changed. My guess is the change comes from so many high schools claim their students have been “offered X millions of scholarship money” much of which is not through a true offer.</p>
<p>It was cruel the day I realized that buying a certain brand of shampoo was not going to make me popular like the woman in the commercial. It was cruel the day I realized that I wasn’t going to marry a millionaire with a yacht if I started drinking a certain type of beer, even though the ad made it seem that way. It was very, very mean the day I realized that drinking Mountain Dew was not going to make my social life better by giving me friends who did cool and adventurous things on skateboards without helmets.</p>
<p>Haven’t you been helping your kids understand this stuff since they were about three years old and wanted to have superpowers??? Eating sugary cereal, drinking beer, consuming particular products- your kids have been targeted since they were in utero.</p>
<p>If they are really serious, they will waive the application fee. There are a few schools doing that. Otherwise, those are just spam and advertisement.</p>