It’s worth noting that while a few elite schools have an overabundance of applicants, many other colleges are struggling to fill their class. That’s a good thing to keep in mind when picking a list of colleges - some colleges may choose to offer strong aid packages to attractive students who will boost their stats.
<p>I don't know, they don't sound that outlandish to me. That Doane mailing sounded ill-advised, but the other stuff sounds like pretty standard marketing. It's hard to get students' attention with so many colleges out there and otehr things on their mind. Frankly, I like the idea of getting students to expand their choice set a bit. So, if students will be close to good skiing at Latrobe college, well, nothing wrong with making that clear with a recruitment weekend that features skiing. I presume that in the end families will still make the choices for the right reasons. This just gets a foot in the door.</p>
<p>I think it's great, but I'm not sure even the type of attention they're talking about would make me give up one of my top schools were I to get in.</p>
<p>Both St Vincent's College and Centre College are excellent schools that really deserve more consideration from more families. Being small schools in locations that are not well known really hurt both schools. Don't really know how they can market what great schools they are in a way to snare the kids' attention. But I can tell parents, that these schools do deserve consideration for kids who need a little TLC.</p>
<p>I like getting the extra attention (especially from schools at which I've already been accepted or to which I'm applying). It makes me feel loved! LOL. However, like babybird87 said, even if I do get that extra attention, I still don't think I'd pick that another school if I also got into my first choice school (especially since my first choice school has been doing the same in marketing applicants). I think the extra attention coming from my other top choice gives me more of an incentive to accept their offer of admission if I get rejected by my first choice school (or can't afford it).</p>
<p>The ways that my colleges have been marketing themselves aren't anywhere near being outlandish and are completely normal marketing techniques (yet still enough to get my attention or to keep my mind on them).</p>
<p>KirbusPrime, I completely agree with you!! I'm a swimmer, and there was a very very fast swimmer on my team a few years back.. he went to the Olympic Trials at 16, held over 70% of the state records by the time he was a senior in high school, and was very smart to boot -- his GPA was something like 99.6%. His first choice school was Harvard, and was admitted! He also got into University of Texas (the best men's swimming university in the world).. UT recruited him very aggressively. When he arrived in Texas to visit the university, they sent a limousine to the airport to pick him up, took him out to a fancy restaurant at the expense of the school, etc etc etc. Harvard didn't recruit him as aggressively, and he liked the attention UT gave him (he was something of a pain in the a** to be honest.. he could stand to have his head shrunk a bit) and ended up going there. I hear from my coach that he now regrets his decision, as UT doesn't treat him nearly as nicely as they had when they were trying to recruit him..</p>
<p>I think it's great that colleges are trying to get in personal touch with the students they want, but all these marketing techniques shouldn't obscure the fact that the ultimate goal of attending university is to learn.</p>
<p>I had a friend who (a number of years ago) was contacted by an alumni association that offered him free use of an insured new car if he came to their school. He totaled it the first year and they gave him another......Here is your quiz question, do you think he was (a) a national merit scholar, (b) a first string violinist or (c) a baseball pitcher. I would guess this type of stuff still goes on somewhere.</p>
<p>i dont see how this is different in anyway from NCAA recruiting violations. i mean, if its skiing they can give it to you, but if its drugs, beer and women they cant?</p>
<p>yarrr, NACAC regulations and NCAA regulations are different. There is a limit to what sort of "free stuff" colleges are supposed to give you while recruiting, but it wasn't clear to me that the colleges profiled were giving away stuff.</p>
<p>Yeah, we had a D1 lineman on our team, and they took him to an "adult night club" <em>cough</em>euphemism<em>cough</em> on one of his recruiting visits.</p>
<p>Blast. All I've been getting are posters, all featuring the same blandly attired, brightly smiling, heavily sedated group of multicultural business majors.</p>
<p>I'm beginning to suspect this phalanx of pod people roams from campus to campus ambushing photographers and stealing the unlucky portraitists' kidneys.</p>
<p>Oh! And I got a really cool clicky pen from Austin College. Yay!</p>