College Mailings Cruel?

Parents Forum
101

<p>What is up with NYU? My son briefly looked at NYU and really liked it but we drew the line at him living in such a big city as we live in a small city. I had a very good impression of NYU prior to this nonsense. Now my son wouldn't apply for free even if we said he could because he's A) irritated that NYU is so wasteful and B) suspicious of how good the school really is. The biggest offender this year at our house is Carnegie Mellon. He's gotten at least one, full color, big brochure a week from them for the past five weeks. CMU is a great school, why waste money on a kid who has show zero interest?</p>

<p>Maybe we should start a thread on colleges that are guilty of the "we hate trees" theory of getting kids to apply. I'm so curious to know if it really does work in the end.</p>

102

<p>NYU was on my daughter's short list her junior year. She, too, went to an info session and visited the campus and was smitten with the idea of living in "the village." As time marched on and the amount of mailouts became ridiculous she did her own research and found out NYU is not that well respected after all. And yes, she is a tree-hugger so she felt the school was wasteful as well.</p>

103

<p>


</p>

<p>This is a very good question. And if the objection is to what the mailings say, who has an EXACT quotation of a current college mailing that you find objectionable? How would you rewrite it?</p>

104

<p>My son has found empirically that agreeing to receive mail from the PSAT but specifying an email address saves the trees, because then most college marketing materials come by email.</p>

105

<p>
[quote]
I also question the motives of a school that rejects 90% of applicants beating the bushes to find more applicants.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>The motive is very simple: to attempt to find the most fitting applicants who can best do the college proud by being outstanding alumni. </p>

<p>Online</a> Extra: How Harvard Gets its Best and Brightest </p>

<p>P.S. Exceedingly few colleges have acceptance rates as low as 10 percent. The great majority of colleges, and surely the great majority of colleges that send mail to your children, admit at least half of all their applicants.</p>

106

<p>We throw out all of the paper mailouts, but here are some sample emails:</p>

<p>"You are receiving this message because you have been identified as a good fit for **** University."</p>

<p>"Special students deserve special attention. That's why I think that ***** and our Honors College could be the perfect place for you."</p>

<p>"Timothy, your high school achievements indicate you have a very bright future. I want to help make that future even better by sending you a new guide, The 4 Big Keys to Finding Your College."</p>

<p>I object to these because my son's hopes are being raised to apply to schools that he may not be accepted to and which we may not be willing to pay for.</p>

107

<p>Funny you should ask, token. I just got the mail, and there is one piece of college mail, from University of South Carolina. On the envelope is this paragraph:</p>

<p>"You are probably going to receive a ton of mail from colleges you are interested in, and even more from colleges interested in you. This is your brief introduction to the University of South Carolina. Take a minute to look inside and find out more -- because first impressions last."</p>

<p>I don't see anything misleading and, in fact, it makes a point of saying you'll be getting lots of this stuff.</p>

<p>Inside, the letter is addressed to "Dear YDSson" and the letter says " ... and many with promising credentials like yours find a welcome place in the Honors College." The only student-specific thing in there, other than his name, is how the university is close to the airport and three major interstates, "meaning friends and family in YDSson's hometown won't feel too far away." Nice marketing touch!</p>

<p>The P.S. says: "Your strong PSAT score provided by the College Board indicates (in bold ital) you are likely competitive for SC Honors College admission and for a prestigious merit scholarship, but the only way you'll find out is to apply next fall! ... "</p>

<p>This actually is pretty hard-press for the mailings he's received. But I still don't think it's misleading. Enticing, yes. Misleading, no. I can check out the website myself and see whether he's really "competitive" for admission and scholarships.</p>

108

<p>I just open a letter that my son received from a college and I must admit that the wording is not as strong as it was for my daughter 3 years ago. In his letter, they used words like: "you MAY be..., SHOULD you decide...". Three years ago, it was more like "You are in...".</p>

109

<p>Gosh! Too late for the lawsuit :)</p>

110

<p>i agree with the posters who say they get tons of junk, but not enough from those they are clearly interested in. We never received a Middlebury viewbook, despite requests. That did not dissuade my son. We also get postcards all the time from Colgate, but usually they are pretty pictures and they are posted on a bulletin board with other pictures of Tufts, or whomever else sends picture postcards. </p>

<p>The truth is, you can opt out of your name being sold to these mailing lists. Who sends you crap is completely dependent on your final score AS WELL AS demographic information your child fills out on the form. Opt out if you don't want the stuff, but like some have pointed out, there are schools they would have never considered. I think the ROI of a direct mail piece is something like 1 out of 50. They don't expect to do much better than that, so for them, it's working as well as it typically does.</p>

<p>What ticks my son off is how some schools get his school email address and have overloaded it with, "there is still time to apply." And I am thinking, if he had wanted to, he would have. But email costs them nothing.</p>

111

<p>I am in a profession where I deal all day long with people who hear what they want to hear. I think this is the case here with the mailings. It is also the case with on-campus interviews. I know my sister came away from every college they visited with my nephew sure that not only would he be admitted, but that he would get the top merit award!</p>

112

<p>Momofwildchild - And why wouldn't she? I bet you the interviewer continue misleading by ending the interview with: "You are exactly the type of student we are looking for!", or "You'll fit right in!". Again leading one to believe. Oh but no! A student SHOULD know that the brochures are marketing, as well as knowing what interviewer exactly mean at the interview. So after receiving brochures, providing the school with ALL and more personal information, money, inner thoughts in essay forms - "Don't forget, we want to know about you" and concluding a stellar interview according to the interviewer, a student is not supposed to think that he IS in, especially if he/she meet all of the requirements in the brochure?</p>

113

<p>Thanks, Youdon'tsay. I appreciate seeing the EXACT wording of some of the current letters. (Keep that coming, everyone.) I toss many letters we receive, but keep some. As I noted above, my son gets most of his recruiting letters by email (and he tells me he largely ignores them). I just leafed through the letters he has received this season, and I don't see any unwarranted promises. </p>

<p>My son keeps busy with his studies, his nascent business project, and his volunteer work. He doesn't worry about what recruiting letters he gets, as he is already very clear that many colleges recruit many applicants.</p>

114

<p>whats really funny is my oldest- who had tested into the .03% of the population when younger, who had been attending smancy private schools her entire life ( well not fancy per se- after all at least one of the moms still doesn't let her kids have an ipod! ;) )
, and who had gotten pretty strong if not NMS SAT scores, got mostly info from colleges that she wasn't interested in.</p>

<p>Some even offered her money before she applied. ( and they kept calling us- I don't know what she checked on her college board app)
Mostly women's colleges back east or slightly religious colleges on the West coast/
*Reed **didn't send her * anything until after talking with the neighbor ( who was an alum), I thought it might interest her and I requested some. ( She is now Reed '06)</p>

<p>A plus to private schools though, I don't remember any military stuff to throw out, as opposed to her sister, who had gotten stuff from the military, as well as other schools that we didn't even consider ( **huge **package from Princeton :confused: )</p>

<p>I know her sister didn't check anything on the College board test, but she did participate in a program at her school for challenged students to prepare them for college and she did graduate with honors.</p>

<p>I do agree that some colleges go overboard.
& I hate the wasted paper-</p>

<p>I am aquainted with at least one young lady who had been told her whole life how brilliant she was. Perhaps this led to her tiny social circle even at her International Bac. high school- Anyway- parents were convinced * she was Ivy material and as result they were quite happy with the * handwritten notes pleading with her to apply.</p>

<p>It is very difficult to say to parents who are proud of their child, to not go overboard.
( I suppose this is why, it can be very easy to sell things like honor society pins and the like to parents)</p>

<p>She applied to 5 universities- that fall under the Ivy league header. Not sure why, as they were very different, as many know. ( her mom- obviously not a CC'er, more of an Ebay'er)
She also applied to the state flagship as backup, since the counselor begged her & threw in a small university whose alumni/admissions representative made a good impression at their school.
Thank god.
The only schools she was admitted to were the flagship and the small U.
Not even waitlisted at the others- and it was so awkward because the family had been so confident of her acceptance.
I am sure that the mountains of mail didn't help- ya know the saying * blinded by bull$it?*</p>

115

<p>At the risk of sounding like a secular snob, I will agree that some of the stuff only the most naive would buy into- but when you are a devout member of the LDS church, you probably have made that leap of faith into believing the unbelievable some time ago.</p>

<p>My oldest, while she had applied to Reed at a time when their acceptance rate was about double what it is now, was within the ballpark, but still more in the bottom third of the student body- just going by numbers.</p>

<p>However to Reeds credit, they have always had a reputation for taking a risk, and accepting students who were* Reedies,* even though they might not graduate.</p>

<p>As the school rises higher in circles looking for things besides * quirkiness, week long library marathons & rumours of wild parties*, they seem to be finding it more difficult to take the long shots- especially if they need financial aid ( no merit based & they meet 100%).
But if I hadn't had a neighbor who had attended Reed ( same yr as Steve Jobs), and who had told me he had gotten financial aid, I probably wouldn't have looked into it.
Neither I or my H had attended college & her college counselor- thinking of her learning disabilties, wanted to make sure she attended someplace where she was supported & Reed didn't occur to her either. </p>

<p>I also want to say that when you get information that is useful, like catalogs and such, instead of just throwing it out, pack it up and take it to the high school. Especially if the high school has mostly students attending community college, they probably have old and outdated information about other schools.</p>

116

<p>I think these mailings have their purpose. What I object to is the heavy marketing edge that implies the kid is sure to get in that is characteristic of many.</p>

<p>This is no different than the naive believing they can make $1000/day working from home or win a million dollars by ordering magazines, but at least those marketers are forced to put the truth in small print.</p>

117

<p>I agree that it's awkward to try to get another parent to understand that these are marketing tools, if that parent is invested in believing that his/her child is so special that Harvard and Columbia and MIT have written up nice cover letters especially for their kid. I know a man who insisted on believing that his daughter was receiving actual offers of admission and scholarships instead of application come-ons. How's this for naive - he thought the recruiting brochure from the Air Force Academy was a personalized acceptance. Fortunately, his d had a good GC and a mom with critical reading skills, and so wound up in a good spot. But this guy was resistant and even got hostile when I tried to say, as nicely as possible, that although his d was of course amazingly talented and wonderfully brilliant, other kids (even my own humble brood) also receive the same letters. Some people.</p>

<p>As to the odds of acceptance - no, they usually aren't in the first paragraph of the cover letter, or even in small print on page 39 of the viewbook. But especially today, that info is readily available, when pursued.</p>

<p>"Let the buyer beware." Every 5 year old should know what this means.</p>

118

<p>The buyer MUST beware. However, when information is not accessible other than via glossy brochures and planned campus visit, how can one beware.</p>

119

<p>What information isn't accessible? Acceptance rates are in each school's common data set, the US News, Princeton Review, and College Board sites ... it isn't hard to find. For the past 5 years at least, newspapers and magazines have printed uncountable articles about the daunting college application process, the increasing numbers of applicants, and the decreasing acceptance rates. Who is surprised about this nowadays?
The responsibility for choosing a college rests with the student and, to a variable extent, the parents. If no one asks, "how hard is it to get in to this school?" even if they possess a collection of monthly come-on letters, they have made a foolish mistake. The world is tough on people who accept too much at face value.</p>

120

<p>
[quote]
What I object to is the heavy marketing edge that implies the kid is sure to get in that is characteristic of many.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I've already asked for examples of exact quoted language from letters. What examples have the characteristic mentioned here?</p>