<p>First off, sorry if this isn't in the right spot, I wasn't sure where to post this question. Anyways, any mail that one receives from a college involving an offer for a free book about the "top 5 ways to impress colleges" is basically useless right? Or is receiving mail like that from a college you actually want to go to a good thing? So far I've gotten that stuff from a lot of colleges, but the only 2 I'd actually want attend are UIUC and JHU.</p>
<p>Think of it this way,</p>
<p>More applicants= more rejections= ranking and reputation will go up</p>
<p>If it’s a school you want to look at, responding to any offers gets you on their list for more mailings - nothing wrong with that. Just don’t read anything into it, like they are interested in you. They want you to think that, but it’s all mass mailing even if they say otherwise. The “books” are usually a few pages of common sense information, so I wouldn’t bother with those unless you truly are interested in the school.</p>
<p>These are mass mailings, carefully tuned to raise the hopes of potential applicants without actually promising anything specific. And some come pretty close to that line. What is the average HS kid to think when she gets a letter apparently signed by a dean saying the college is impressed with her record?</p>
<p>You are going to get boxes of this stuff over the next few months. It means nothing about your chances or whether the college is interested in you.</p>
<p>My gut feeling was that it was just to urge more kids to apply, I guess I overthought it. Thanks for the help!</p>
<p>Yes, this has got to be a reason because one of mine was from Harvard, and I know my chances are zero to none there. I guess they also used the info we provided because they mentioned a program for african americans</p>
<p>Yeah they basically want you to apply there to make them look good to show that they have a large applicant pool nad low acceptance rate. I get mails from all over that place from Hill Billy State to Fancy Shmancy U. They all mean nothing.</p>