<p>Students are put into score range buckets - actual scores aren’t sent to schools, but schools buy lists where students fall in their targeted test range. Your credit scores are used much the same way.</p>
<p>Students provide all kinds of information to the College Board, Cappex, and other sites, and as long as they’ve checked the box that their information can be “shared”, it will get sold left and right to any school that wants it.</p>
<p>The lists come from PSAT and PLAN info the kids fill out and if they check out a college. It’s gotten to a point these days where one has to have an account to enter a lot of sites and many kids have gotten used to just doing it. Heck, I had to set up a friggin’ account to buy some socks on sale at some on line store Zooliily or something. I take it V-E-R-Y seriously as I can’t remember anything, but it appears my own computer is tracking me. I have an email I use just for those purposes, but I still get stalked. So it’s very easy to get put on a list. </p>
<p>Thanks @InigoMontoya. That makes sense. And I had completely forgotten about Cappex, Parchment, etc. And probably even a college-oriented website closer to home that will remain nameless. 
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<p>Yeah. We have also collected a box full of college junk mail in the last 2 years from all sort of schools, not to mention the amount of spam by e-mail. We did not pay attention to any of them (except for 1 that waived the essay requirement and application fee for oos students). For students that know what kind of schools which fields they want to go, these junk mail would have no effect at all. My D did not even bother to open one that is not on her school list already.</p>
<p>Frankly a lot of solid advice has been posted – but I wonder if it falls on deaf ears? The OP seems to be a controversial thread starter… but has no follow on.</p>
<p>Ah Pizzagirl, but your CC will take anyone just about who registers for those classes. These schools are being deceptive in that they are knowingly giving the impression that a kid is going to have an enhanced chance of acceptance Some of the mail we are getting are from highly selective schools and the language truly implies that this is a direct personal invitation. </p>
<p>I do think it’s awful. Yes, they are businesses but to prey on youth when these colleges fully know by certain measures which students will never be permitted entry is unfair. They get these list from the college board and ACT and PSAT scores are revealed to them, predictive, etc…</p>
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<p>That is what’s next. I received countless calls from colleges advertising themselves. </p>
<p>The problem with calling this a teachable moment for the newbee is that in many cases, the eyes of the parents are just as glazed over as the eyes of the student. Who is the teacher supposed to be? The con becomes the teacher in time as it always does, which burns, if only, in this case, from a little embarrassment for being naive.</p>
<p>College in the US is romanticized to such an extreme degree that most people on the outside have a hard time grasping the fact that Harvard=Halliburton+quad. Heck, most people here on CC would resist such a crude summation.</p>
<p>Of course these are corporations which can be every bit as deceptive and manipulative as your local car dealership, but I don’t blame the general pop for not grasping this the first time through. It runs counter to the zeitgeist of the college experience here. “Those admissions people who visited our high school were so helpful and so, so, so… Progressive!” Yeah, that is no accident.</p>
<p>So I guess I agree with everyone; it’s a little bit cruel AND people need to develop a thicker skin. So they fooled you the first time through. Get over it and give a heads up to your neighbors with younger kids.</p>
<p>@Blossom wrote: “if a family has a high achieving first generation student than that is EXACTLY who these mailings are targeted to. The most superlative and extraordinary kid I ever interviewed for my alma mater had never heard of the college until he got a postcard and a viewbook (the days before email and websites).”</p>
<p>Back in the Dark Ages, I walked into my homeroom in high school to find a brochure and letter from a certain Ivy waiting for me on my desk. I think these letters were mailed to all NMSFs, but I looked at the letter, smirked, and took it to my guidance counselor, saying, “Can you believe THEY are encouraging ME to apply?!?” I was a first-gen college student, and everyone at my school applied either to the big state schools or to tiny in-state schools. The idea of applying to an Ivy made about as much sense to me as applying to go to school on Mars.</p>
<p>“Well,” my guidance counselor said, “Why don’t you apply and see what happens?” So I did. And the rest, as they say, is history.</p>
<p>But that was a long time ago, and so much information is at one’s fingertips, that I wonder if those mailings still have the same effect.</p>
<p>There is a bit of a difference between a generic CC mailer that goes to every house in the county, and a form that comes customized to a prospective student, including specifics about whatever area of interest they checked off with College Board, and links to an application already partially populated with the student’s information. Yeah, it’s still junk mail, but more “personal” junk mail. Especially for first-generation kids, these can be exciting until enough of them come that they realize it’s all computer-generated via mail merges…</p>
<p>I wish that the emails and such invitations have that purpose in mind as Blossom and Ridethewave have said, but…I don’t think so. I’ve dealt with colleges for a long time now, and this years mailings and emails are really the most “come hither” ones I’ve ever seen with language directed to make one feel so special. Heck, you all know I’m no starry eyed novice in this, and they kinda get me hoping a bit. That’s really extreme.</p>
<p>Unfortunately a lot of it is a result of the prevalence of - and importance placed - on rankings. How many times have posters on this board nit-picked over which schools are most selective, which have the highest admit rates, and so on? How do you improve those numbers? Get more applications on, so you’re turning away more kids. How do you get more applications? One strategy that evidently must return enough value is to flood kids with mailings. Build that name recognition. Make them feel special, and maybe they’ll like you enough to send in a non-refundable application fee (which more than pays for all those bulk snail and e-mails) and help grow your numbers. Maybe you even offer free applications - then you’ll get even more applying so you can show you’re turning even more away!</p>
<p>^^Yep - that’s why one university sent out postcards and emails saying that they waived the application fee for your special snowflake. But if you check their website and the common app, you would find out that they never had an application fee!</p>
<p>If a supposed smart high school student doesn’t realize that some computer inserted “Johnny” in “Dear Johnny,” then he doesn’t belong at a highly selective school. </p>
<p>“How many times have posters on this board nit-picked over which schools are most selective, which have the highest admit rates, and so on? How do you improve those numbers? Get more applications on, so you’re turning away more kids. How do you get more applications?”</p>
<p>The admit rate counts for 1.5% of USNWR rankings, so it’s hardly as though blanketing the country with mailings is the way to jump up in the ratings.</p>
<p>The naivete here is astounding. Gosh, it’s so nefarious that Johnny indicated he was interested in chemistry and biology and therefore the mailing mentioned the college’s offerings in chemistry and biology. Well, duh. If you all ran businesses, what would YOU do with that information? Just ignore the fact that Johnny’s interested in chemistry and biology and send him the same darn brochure as Janey down the street who is interested in history and philosophy? Isn’t this just sort of Common Sense Business 101?</p>
<p>Meanwhile, these kids are all on Facebook and if they “like” xyz band, they’ll see all those ads for their concerts or CD’s on the sidebars. What’s the difference? Businesses use information about personal preferences to customize their offerings. In other news, the sun rises in the east. </p>
<p>Can you give an example of language in these brochures that is, IYO, “extreme”? They seemed like any other piece of mass marketing to me.</p>
<p>The cultural disconnect is astounding. Many people see colleges as quasi-public institutions with an eye on the public good. Others call them naive for being surprised when colleges act like the feral private businesses that they are.</p>
<p>I don’t see where anyone said this was restricted to only mailings from highly selective schools - while D got mailings from every Ivy, the service academies, and enough to wallpaper a room from U Chicago, she also got tons from schools where her SAT score was more than double the school’s average. And the customization goes far beyond just the student’s first name. Yes, you would hope in this day and age everyone would be media savvy, but there are lots of kids who get sucked in by this. If there weren’t, then there wouldn’t be any publications of all those “special” high school who’s who books, that pretty much only require that you pay to purchase the book to get your name listed. I can totally see a disadvantaged kid whose family has no experience in the process getting sucked in, at least until the mailings start reaching ridiculous proportions.</p>
<p>After all, somewhere in this country there are still people who believe a Nigerian prince wants them to hold his millions for him until he can safely get out of the country.</p>
<p>It’s not the brochures. It’s the personal emails inviting the students to apply as well as some personal letters. No, the ones I am seeing this season are very different than any I’ve seen before as they target very directly and look just like a personal letter, not a mass mailing. I’ll PM one to you if your PM file is open to take. </p>
<p>Pizzagirl, I’m a hardened old timer on all of this and I’m telling you the first one actually got may attention and made me wonder if there wasn’t something special there. I think it’s a bit harsh that you think kids that get fooled by this do not belong to a highly selective school, as I was taken in for an instant and this is my … well I won’t say how many rounds of doing this personally. I went to a highly selective school as did DH, and we were both a bit taken in. Not fully, and we did recover quickly as we are seasoned. But a newbie, absolutely, would be.</p>