<p>Asking because I am a need to know kind of guy.</p>
<p>My son is a junior in high school. He has taken the ACT 3 times. His best is a 30. Best scores are 36 Reading, 35 English, 30 Math, and 28 Science which is a 32 superscore but I don't think colleges look at that. He has roughly a 4.0 at an "urban" high school.</p>
<p>My question is this: why do schools like the U. of Chicago send him numerous mailings? Not emails but stuff through the regular mail. In the past couple of weeks he received mail from Northwestern and Amherst. There have been other schools that I can't think of right now since we tossed the mail a day or two after it sits on the kitchen table.</p>
<p>So why do schools like that, send mail, and so much of it to a kid like mine? I don't know if it is relevant or not but we are just a plain ole' middle class family, living in a plain ole' small town in Ohio. Have any of you had similar experiences?</p>
<p>Why not? Your kid might be a candidate. My B+/A- kid with high verbal (790) and okay (680) math scores was accepted at Chicago a few years ago. He’s a middle class kid, from the NYC suburbs with no special skills or abilities, but he writes a mean essay. </p>
<p>Chicago was on our radar because family members attended (aunts and uncles - he wasn’t a legacy), but most kids in our area don’t know anyone who went there. Chicago, in particular, has been working on its reputation for years. They used to be the fallback for kids who wanted to attend the Ivies, or the school for the “where fun goes to die” sort. Now they are contenders. Those mailings (and switching to the Common Application even though they still have their nutty essays in the supplement) have made a huge difference to them. I don’t know what they are like now, but the Chicago mailings were by far the most informative about the school.</p>
<p>I asked myself the same question. My son has similar stats…and for some reason, in the thousands (?) of pieces of college mail he’s received over the past year, Harvard, Dartmouth and Cornell seemed to be some of the most “generous” with their correspondence. Maybe these “elite” schools have such an enormous marketing budget they don’t have to do any “weeding” of their lists? Or maybe it’s part of an overall “diversity outreach” campaign? Part of me wishes we had kept every single piece of school mail he’s received…I’m pretty sure it would be at least six feet deep. And I’m pretty sure that some of these colleges would be able to cut a nice chunk off their $60K pricetags if they weren’t sending glossy magazines and posters etc to kids twice a week. :)</p>
<p>My D got very little college mail, because she checked (or didn’t check - I forget which) a box on her standardized test forms so that she wouldn’t be inundated. However, plenty of her friends got college mail from colleges they didn’t have a prayer of being accepted to. Some of it was even “personalized” - the “we’re looking for students like you” letters, whether or not the student was remotely close to the school’s admissions standards. </p>
<p>I had to tell one mother that such a letter did NOT mean that a top 20 school was going to accept her daughter - she was convinced from the college’s junk mail that they really WERE looking for unhooked students with 25 ACTs and a B average. </p>
<p>So why do they do it? I imagine to cast a wide net and get more kids to apply. My optimistic self thinks they don’t want to see a student who is a good fit not apply because they’re not aware of the school and what it has to offer. My cynical self thinks they’re trying to increase applications so they can reject more students and thereby boost their USNWR ratings. Reality is probably somewhere in between.</p>
<p>midwestdad, don’t sell your kid short. There are tons of boys with skyhigh math scores, but those with skyhigh reading and English scores are much less common. You may be pleasantly surprised by your son’s results. We were.</p>
<p>Marketing is big business. If it gets more students to apply, hopefully those with strong stats, they may get a few more great students that might not otherwise have looked at their glossy brochures and had something catch their eye.</p>
<p>Why do you think being a plain ole’ middle class family living in a plain ole’ small town should disqualify your kid from receiving mailings? Do you believe that U of Chicago / Northwestern / Amherst only care about rich kids in big cities? It seems that you think that elite schools are for a kind of person that you are not. And that’s not true. This is why these schools continue to do this outreach - because they are NOT just haven for rich, urban / suburban kids.</p>
<p>Acceptance rate plays an extraordinarily minor role in rankings.<br>
It’s hard for those on CC to believe, but there are many folks - like this gentleman - who think that elite schools are for “others” and not for plain folks like them. And this is why they do these mailings. To open up the minds of the average person who doesn’t have a lot of exposure to elites.</p>
<p>I mentioned income because if I was in college admissions, I would hope that the kids admitted with the lower test scores would be from wealthy families that would pay full price and maybe donate money in the future.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, I do agree that I assume that a school like U of Chicago or Amherst is not a place for my son and I am not sure why I think that. I have never visited or even known anyone who attended these schools but I think I know what they are like. I really shouldn’t make assumptions like that. </p>
<p>For good or bad, my son definitely wants to attend college but he doesn’t have any interest in challenging himself academically. He is not driven by money or potential money or prestige or perceptions of prestige. Every time I post on here and read the response it goes in directions I did not expect and I learn something new.</p>
<p>And that’s EXACTLY the point, and why they send those materials.
Look, there are STILL a lot of people in this country - outside the east coast - who think that Harvard (et al) “couldn’t possibly be for them” - that it’s full of uppity, rich snobs, that it’s like Oliver Barrett from Love Story, and you don’t fit in there unless you’re an extreme brainiac and / or extremely wealthy. Harvard wants to dispel that myth, so they send mail. Ditto for all the rest. </p>
<p>You said in another thread your wife wants your son to look only within X hours of where you live. Well, that’s another thing that these schools want to open your eyes to - that it’s a big country. Explore it. Play with it. Who knows? But don’t prematurely cut off options.</p>
<p>I am a living example that those glossy mailings work…</p>
<p>I grew up in the poor,rural midwest. A town of 1,700 people and a HS graduating class of 55. Never had to write a single paper in high school. I qualified for a Pell and SEOG grant. Received a glossy mailing from Northwestern, decided to apply, and ultimastely graduated. Had no problem fitting in and absolutely loved it. (OTOH, it was not a good fit for me academically, as I really never found anything that I was excited to study…I preferred and needed a more ‘hands on’ major like architecture, agronomy, urban design, forestry, etc.)</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, Love Story? You might be showing your age. I think all Harvard people are like the Winklevoss twins in The Social Network or maybe Brendan Fraser in With Honors or C. Thomas Howell in Soulman (my personal favorite).</p>
<p>My boy is just not interested in working that hard in college (or high school). I don’t think he would be happy at the academically rigorous schools we have discussed. Also, my wallet would feel the pinch. I know he may change his opinion in the future but right now he is not a motivated student. He studies very little. He is a competitive runner, involved with church youth group, and has a nice circle of friends that hang out alot. You also have to make time for show choir and ping pong and frisbee golf and football games and basketball games.</p>
<p>When we talk about his future he says he would like to teach and coach in our hometown. I am glad that he loves our town so much but a little disappointed he isn’t a more ambitious. Then again, I went from turning down law school to junior high teacher (for just 3 years) to internet entrepreneur (ebay and my own website). I will never get rich but I love my hours and my boss.</p>
<p>When I lived in a small city in the Midwest and interviewed for my “back East” alma mater, I would be amazed at the range of students who would sit in front of me every admissions season. Some- wealthy kids from upper middle class neighborhoods, where going to college was expected, and going “Back East” was not uncommon. Some- incredibly driven and ambitious kids from lower income communities, where nobody in their family had ever been to college, and a terrific math teacher or guidance counselor or pastor had encouraged them to aim high. My favorite applicant of all time was the first person in his family to apply to college (let alone to attend); had never heard of my college but had gotten a brochure in the mail and one of his teachers assured him that it was a legitimate university and that if he was admitted, he would get enough financial aid to attend (which he did).</p>
<p>OP- for every kid like yours who doesn’t want to leave the area and doesn’t want to push himself, there could be a kid who is dying to leave home, has aspirations to do heart and lung transplants, or wants to prosecute war criminals at The Hague. And if those kids get a mailing from a university which encourages them to log on the college website and explore- then hey, it’s worth it.</p>
<p>I went to college with the sons and daughters of rich and famous people, and the sons of daughters of janitors and house-painters. The colleges have to work much harder to get on the radar screen of the latter group, not so hard for the former.</p>
<p>DD got TONS of mailings from colleges where she didn’t have an ice cube chance in hell of being accepted. The big joke in our house was that DD should apply to WashU and include all the letters (we’re talking over 20) that said what a PERFECT addition she would be to their school.</p>
<p>Why do these schools send these mailings? Because they can.</p>
<p>Because they can and because they work- students who would otherwise head off to their local community college end up with strong need-based financial aid at a four year university.</p>