<p>Yep, we saw that at Birmingham Southern, too. Nice touch.</p>
<p>Bama sent our family tickets to a football game. That was nice.</p>
<p>We registered to visit WashU a few days before our scheduled flight last summer. Within a day or two later, they fedex us a packet with campus map, St Louis hotels, travel information, direction, and parking pass with concise info where to park on campus. When we arrived at the admission office, they ask for our name, and pop came another packet with itinerary of the day, a free dinning voucher at any of school dinning halls, and more information on restaurants and local attractions that we might be interested in visiting.</p>
<p>In contrast, we spent almost one hour at Cornell trying to find this tiny little parking department to issue us a parking pass for the day for about $10. After spending more time finding the admission office, we were told to walk another long distance to some auditorium where the info session and tour was. At John Hopkins, we had no idea where to park, and finally went into a parking lot with automatic gate. After we were done, we couldn’t get out of the lot, no attendance person or any way to open the gate. After a long time, we found somebody walking around and was able to use his card to open the gate. I think it was one of the research lab parking lot and it was not supposed to be used by visitor and yet they let any car in without warning. Or at Brown, where you park on the street with 3 hours max meter or risk getting a ticket. The admission office was manned by somebody who could not even give you a campus map or good direction to where you need to be.</p>
<p>a) When my D was a sophmore at Swarthmore, she came down with a three-day flu bug. The health center gave her a comfy bed in the infirmary for two days and two nights, with her own TV to watch old Seinfeld episodes, while feeding her chicken soup, ginger ale, and crackers. Just like mom.</p>
<p>b) Last month, the major blizzard on the last day of exams left several hundred students stranded at Swarthmore, unable to fly because of flight cancellations for two days past the time the dorms and dining services shut down. No dining hall personnel could get to campus. Of course, the College kept the dorms open. More remarkably, the Dean of the College and the Assistant Dean of Housing broke into the dining hall at 4 am Sunday morning, raided the shelves for supplies, and headed over to a dorm on campus with a dining room and cooked Sunday brunch for the stranded students. Sunday night, they ordered in pizza.</p>
<p>Aaaw – that’s too wonderful. I hope Swarthmore includes that in a future alumni magazine article.</p>
<p>i’ve gotten a handwritten letter from UNL (univ. of nebraska)
i also got a flash drive from them, it was awesome and lit up red</p>
<p>i visited and had an interview there, everyone was ridiculously nice too, and all the students were willing to tell you about the school and seemed to have a lot of pride in it</p>
<p>When my oldeset was a senior she had her selection narrowed down to two schools --one fairly large with a great reputation and a small liberal arts college that seemed very friendly and comfortable, but was relatively unknown.</p>
<p>In the midst of the decision making process she was diagnosed with Rheumatiod ARthritis. She was 18 and scared . When a student from admissions at the small school called to check in on how her decision was going I mentioned that we hadn’t gotten far because of dealing with the RA and all that went along with that. </p>
<p>The next week we got the funniest card–kind of a “life sucks” but we love you card with a picture of a crying baby on it. The admission staff had all signed it and written short messages.</p>
<p>Who know if it was just a ploy to get our money and our student–they got both and it was the best decision we could have made.</p>
<p>when we visited Carleton, after the information session, my kids were handed an envelope with their name on it, and an information sheet on everything they had checked off on the form they had filled out when the arrived. This told me that the school takes a personal approach to its students.</p>
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<p>Try to resist. These are not genuine gestures of thoughtfulness from people who will be impacting your student’s life for the next four years. They are calculated marketing strategies that may be the products of a professional consulting firm that was paid to deliver the “Awww.” The President didn’t compose that letter with all the references to the applicant’s essays - there’s a staff member in Admissions who pulls up a template, changes the names and quotes, and then runs the letters in a stack to the President’s desk for him or her to sign.</p>
<p>We took a tour at Brandeis earlier this week. The admissions receptionist brings out freshly baked cookies (you can see the oven where they come from) and was super nice and friendly to all the teenage boys angling for more cookies. It was also the only admissions office I noted where there was a paper giving directions to the nearby Boston universities. I thought both of those did set a very nice tone.</p>
<p>Bennington sends a huge, campus baked chocolate chip cookie with all acceptances. We went to visit with my GF and her D along with my S, who wasn’t interested in the school.</p>
<p>He opined that he wanted to apply and be accepted to get the cookie. Of course, he didn’t. But it did seem cute.</p>
<p>Friends D ending up a SCAD.</p>
<p>While on one hand these are “faux touches” as gadad says, one of the things I make it a point to look for in a college are what I perceive the college’s values to be, and those things manifest themselves even in the little touches – how welcoming they are to students / parents who may be new, what refreshments they offer and how they offer them, even things like whether they have recycling, or ponchos / umbrellas for rainy days, etc. All of these things send messages. Or at least they do to me.</p>
<p>DD had her interview at Barnard on a hot August day, August 31, the last day of summer interviews. She also had one at Sarah Lawrence the same day.</p>
<p>Sarah Lawrence is a gorgeous forty acre campus. The admissions building is absolutely lovely. We were comfortable, and then the time for the interview passed and passed. They had forgotten to log her in and tried to send off on the admissions tour. Eventually she did have her interview. The disorganization wasn’t enough to turn her (or me) off to the school, but it was something to notice.</p>
<p>Then we got to Barnard. The admissions office in a beaux artes building, also lovely. No where near as commodious and comfy as the one at SL, but air-conditioned and furnished with a huge bouquet of stunning cut flowers. Felt more like “her place.”</p>
<p>Of course, these things aren’t significant, but they do alter impressions.</p>
<p>My real problem with SL was that the bathroom stall doors didn’t close or lock properly. I know they have an awesome faculty/student ratio but that lack of attention to the physical plant was a bit troubling. So was the fact that their movie night was a movie that was four years out of date.</p>
<p>Still, DD would have been happy to attend had she not been accepted by Barnard.</p>
<p>Hendrix sends the candy which the student noted as their favorite on the application supplement in the mail after acceptance. Receiving that was a nice touch, and now I’ll associate my favorite candy with Hendrix, which is probably a nice angle for them.</p>
<p>I think even form letters can be sweet. I’ve got one reminding me that I’m part of the family, one that references an “inside joke” from a visit to campus (it came with a picture everyone took), a stuffed animal- which I showed to all my friends. Seniors never get tired of them, haha. Rain ponchos when it rained out, and I think my mom really liked the letters from the professor at one school. (They were signed by the professor, if nothing else.) </p>
<p>Hendrix sounds like fun, though! :)</p>
<p>My D was in a Presidential Scholars competition at one of her choices. She learned that she won when the President of the college came to her high school and announced it to her at lunch in front of her senior classmates. To the cynical ones on the board, I guess this is a “faux touch” that should factor 0.000000% into the decision. But in our case it did tilt the board a bit more in the direction of that college. Of course the $$$ did too!</p>
<p>Just, please, no more of those, “[Kid] we know you really want to apply here so we’re extending the deadline 15 more days J U S T F O R Y O U” emails.</p>
<p>^ I got about ten of those from NAU. It was very frustrating to have my phone vibrate in class, only to announce yet again that NAU was extending my deadline, when I never had any intention of applying.</p>
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<p>Well . . . maybe. But these are strategies of the Admissions staff, who are the sales force of the college. They generally aren’t involved in most institutional decision-making and they typically don’t stay in contact with students after they’re admitted, except for the few who they might hire to lead tours. Yes, if there’s a pervasive philosophy or culture of the campus, they’ll try to convey it and be true to it. But I wouldn’t recommend that you develop a loyalty to Chevrolet just because the salesperson in the Chevy dealership was pleasant. This is a fairly similar thing.</p>
<p>At a car dealership, when I find a salesperson I like and trust, he/she is the main reason I buy the car - as long as the car is considered safe, reliable, and (after research) is a good value.</p>
<p>So…maybe not the example you wanted to use to make your point!!!</p>
<p>(and yes…the blatant marketing ploy of having a Nobel prize winning prof call and talk with our child, and take our child and H to lunch at the faculty club, helped cement the decision. )</p>
<p>I see your point, gadad, but in the example you gave - I’d be hard pressed to buy any Chevy (or any American car for that matter) based on quality concerns, and the nicest / best Chevy salesman wouldn’t change that. I’m talking about situations in which you’ve already kicked the tires (ha ha) and believe the “education product” to be of high quality. In those cases, I see nothing wrong with looking to those nice touches – not as deciding factors, but as evidence of the school’s philosophies.</p>
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<p>It’s interesting that you say this, because I have had VERY different reactions to different adcom members who are leading info sessions. Some, indeed, are very “sales-y” and that’s a turn-off (the American U adcom made several negative comments about Gtown and I found that unimpressive).</p>
<p>Personally, I’m impressed when the adcom starts out by talking about the school’s history, philosophy and values and how that informs life at that campus and what they are looking for, and then segues into the more specific info about how to apply and deadlines and what the dorms are like and what % study abroad and blah blah blah. Gtown, Haverford and Mt Holyoke are three schools that stood out for me on that dimension. </p>
<p>It tells me that the adcom isn’t just “adcom employed by College X” but that he or she is really an expression of an overall philosophy and value set that the college expects of its employees. Those are the ones that get me thinking about “what is it about this place that is different / special, and could I see my D / S in this environment.” Versus those who just answer what the SAT range is, when the deadlines are, whether freshmen can get singles and whether their study abroad program covers Russia or not.</p>
<p>Are fresh-baked cookies and coffee representative of that? In one sense, no – in another sense, yes, they can be. Because they speak to the extent to which they look at the experience through the prospective students’ / families’ eyes.</p>
<p>The Haverford adcom bowled us over with his talk. Yet he was in an unprepossessing, slightly dumpy room, and had no audiovisual aids. That actually says something about what they value – ideas, simply but elegantly expressed. Both American and Gtown had expertly produced videos / slide presentations. But American’s stressed internship and Gtown stressed heritage and possibilities.</p>