Colorado School of Mines Golden Application

Hey,
I was selected to receive Colorado School of Mines’ Golden Admission Application. Since no essay and application fee was required, it seemed pretty sketchy to me… Do you guys know if this is legit? Is this common and what factors were used to determine this? While my GPA is high, my SAT/ACT scores aren’t that good. Also, would my application be considered as binding/Early Decision? Sorry for asking too many questions and thank you in advance!

This isn’t a selective thing, it is just marketing and the application is free anyway. If you are OOS it is quite expensive, and the EA shouldn’t be binding but you can surely check that on the website. Only apply if you want to go, it is a niche school. Do you want to go into eng or mining etc?
Colleges will send you marketing if you put your contact info out there. They are looking to fill their classrooms. with CSM, you just look at the yield numbers to see what a free application does. It isn’t sketchy, and if you want to attend it is a really quick application. Make sure it fits in your budget.

It is marketing and a little confusing. My son received the Golden App. I looked at the Golden App linked to the email and the app on the website - same app - both included a request for essays. My son called the admission office to clarify the “no essay” offer and the admission rep did not appear at all certain about whether he should go ahead and do the essays or not. “Well, the second question is skippable, but we would probably like the personal statement.” … “skippable”? … “probably”??? A lot is riding on that ambiguity. He went ahead and did them both.