<p>from my son, indicating they are looking forward to reading it and providing him an I.D. #. Is this a favorable sign, sort of pre-screening him as a likely candidate or just a random mailing? He has had no prior contact w/the college vis email, scores, or anything.</p>
<p>Very common, random mailing probably based on PSAT, SAT, or ACT scores. The higher the scores, the more creative (and frequent) the mailings get. D was a NMF, and got letters from small colleges offereing paid trips to visit, and a guaranteed full ride (if she kept grades up, etc.) One school that was particularly aggressive was a very small college whose freshman average ACT score was something like a 22.</p>
<p>Flattery. DS got so much personalized mail - here’s your special login, here’s this invitation; one was very clever and included his name and our town on a postcard with an arrow to the school. All recycled :)</p>
<p>One of D’s favorites was a postcard that had her name spelled out in the clouds on the awesome blue sky over the campus!</p>
<p>D received a birthday card from a random freshman at one school. She thought it was really creepy.</p>
<p>I don’t know why schools waste the money on mailings, but the post office needs all the help it can get.</p>
<p>We have received numerous “free application” offers and some holding out scholarship possibilities. I can hardly believe it but it seems to me like the mail for my daughter, class of 2012, is even more onerous than that for my son, class of '09. Have colleges decided that kids don’t pay attention to email and they might as well just rely on tried and true postal mail? It probably catches the eye of parents more than students. I know it does me. My daughter doesn’t even glance at most of it.</p>
<p>One school sent my son a t-shirt (among other things like a calender, pens… )I took it to wear to bed.</p>
<p>My guy got one letter that said, in large letters, ACCEPTED. He was puzzled as to how he could be accepted somewhere without even applying. In the small print it told him all he had to do was have his school send a transcript and fill out some basic info.</p>
<p>I suppose that would be a good method to get a rather lazy student. The school didn’t fit him at all, but he still laughs at how easy it is to get accepted at some places. (He also has high scores, so is among those getting oodles of creative mailings, many from schools we didn’t even realize existed.)</p>
<p>But you know, it’s always good to know you’re loved somewhere. Love your safeties (especially if they offer merit $.)</p>
<p>It’s flattery, and it mostly ends in the recycling… but it serves a purpose. It reminds them that they’re not just being judged, but making a decision, and that colleges do want them, some pretty badly. That’s a good thing to hear when all you really know is your own high school.(Plus which sometimes you get fee waivers etc. to colleges you really want to attend!) </p>
<p>D applied to one school she’d never heard of before, because the mailing made her feel it was a good fit and the website etc. confirmed that. So it does work, once in a blue moon.</p>
<p>They send snail mail AND e-mail. If you’re getting these from a range of schools, it probably does mean that you’re an easy admit at those at the lower end of the range.</p>
<p>Many schools send out these mailings because the more applications they receive, the more they can reject, boosting their improving their “selectivity” scores.</p>
<p>To date, my daughter has received over 2,000 e-mails from colleges as well as several trees’ worth of printed mail. She too received a creepy birthday card from some random school. She opens hardly any of these communications.</p>
<p>The fad that I think is weird is the website personalized with the student’s name. I assume the colleges have to pay someone to set those up. Perhaps they could forgo the personalized websites in favor of lower application fees!</p>
<p>One school has sent several mailings indicating she would qualify for a scholarship based on her test scores, then listed her test scores incorrectly.</p>
<p>I personally appreciate the mail that is honest and explains that they bought her information!</p>
<p>When this process is over, we may crown the winners of the e-mail spam and the snail mail spam.</p>
<p>What sort of scores are generating these mailings? My D got a 2260 and 800’s on subject tests but has only received a smattering of solicitations from obscure backwoods schools. She got one handwritten postcard that looks like it was scribbled by a chimp. Also some cards from Cal State campuses (we’re in CA) but nothing from a UC. Her scores were delayed by 2 weeks, could they have escaped the block of scores purchased by colleges? We read about everyone getting these invitations from good schools and wonder what stats they have to get them in the “desirable” database.</p>
<p>I think a lot of this mail is based on the PSAT, not the SAT.</p>
<p>My D checked the “do not release my information” box on all of the CB tests, so we only get mailings from schools where there has been some contact.</p>
<p>My son gets a ridiculous amount of college mail, including many offers of free applications and “priority applications” (no essay, just fill in a few details on a pre-printed form). He has good but not amazing SAT scores and a self-reported 3.0 GPA. The funny thing (to me) is that he gets a lot more mail than my daughter who had almost perfect SATs. I assume the “lower tier” schools don’t want to waste their money trying to recruit kids who are probably aiming higher?</p>
<p>Absolutely zero mail in our house from schools that S didn’t somehow connect with at a college fair, multi-school “road show” type event, or by going online and submitting contact info. Zero; not one piece of virtual or actual mail. Even the “other” schools in the road show group (i.e. the ones he wasn’t there specifically to hear about) haven’t sent anything. All scores–PSAT, SAT I and II–have been 95th percentile or above. Not sure what he filled in on the PSAT or SAT registration, but I’m assuming he checked the box not to release info! I find it pretty interesting, and would love to hear any theories about why. Not complaining; there’s still at least one piece of snail mail daily…</p>
<p>I never understood why people complain about getting contacted by the schools. </p>
<p>EMAIL
The email address comes from a very likely source, namely the ACT and the College Board. All that was needed was to create a specific email when registering. A smart idea in general considering the usual “creativity” of teenagers. This email also should not be a parental email because the contacts might not stop for years.</p>
<p>**BROCHURES **
Your garbage is someone’s treasure. How hard is it to take all the brochures and publicity to the adcom’s office? Not everyone is a high stat student and your safety might be someone else’s match. The adcom might decide to give the “junk” to freshmen and sophomore to give them a glimpse of what it coming.</p>
<p>DOES IS MEAN ANYTHING
Very little to nothing, but it should make anyone feel good. Although you should be careful not to walk on the sideline of the next game and tell the other soccermoms that your progeny is now being recruited. :)</p>
<p>If your kid isn’t getting mail and is a top student, he must have checked a box while taking the PSAT that said he wanted to opt out of mail. My kid has been bombarded with mail, starting the summer after jr year. Kid is a good student but not the class star, good scores but not NMF. We’ve actually enjoyed the mail, and I know kid found it exciting, like daily assurances that hard work is being noticed. What puzzles me is the stuff kid gets from schools that I’m pretty sure wouldn’t accept kid if kid applied. What’s with the giant, perfect-bound book from Notre Dame? A- students don’t get in there unless they are football stars. A look at the current ND freshman profile pretty much confirms that my kid would not make the cut. Are they just trolling for $$ from application fees?</p>