CWRU withdraws application for unsubscribing from their emails

I agree with saillakeerie. They are trying to weed out those that are not interested because they are getting so many more applications this year. If your student is truly interested in case western this should be a good thing for you that they care about giving the student who is dying to go there the chance they deserve. I actually feel like this is a good lesson for our kids. Our actions have repercussions and if you really want some thing you should think long and hard about your decisions. Instead of unsubscribing which sends a message of you donā€™t want to hear about that school an alternate option wouldā€™ve been to filter them to an email folder. In corporate America we get so many emails depending upon on your job. I get thousands weekly and need to manage them. I think it was an easy misstep that many might make - but itā€™s a good learning opportunity.

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Wouldnā€™t at most a dozen or so of all the countless emails from a college be informative or necessary? Why spam applicants with the rest? To see if theyā€™ll open and read all the emails? I donā€™t know about others, but Iā€™d become more annoyed rather than more interested if I were the target of such spams.

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Colleges know they are still competing even after an application is received and are attempting to establish more of a relationship, stand out in some way and provide a window into what it would be like to attend. With as many schools as kids are applying to these days the schools have to try to do something to break through the clutter. Of course this creates a deluge of information being sent their way and some schools seem to be better at finding the balance of how much is enough than others.

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Establishing a relationship with spams? If the college wants to ā€œprovide a window into what it would be like to attendā€, wouldnā€™t that be more appropriate after their acceptances?

Email spams are recent and unique to undergraduate admissions. Grad schools probably send no more than half a dozen emails to an applicant, even though their acceptances arenā€™t binding and many students also apply to many schools in popular programs these days. One could argue that yield is even more important for these graduate programs since every single noncommitment has greater impact on enrollment.

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Itā€™s clear why Case does this. Itā€™s a yield play- and very consistent with their tactics of late. They do not want to make the error of admitting someone who has done something strongly correlated with future intention to decline enrollment. They absolutely have data to support this- although itā€™s intuitive. And makes sense from their perspective. Their bots picked it up and recommended the decision.

The irritating parts here are:
1- heavy handed negative consent- unless you opt in we are withdrawing your app. Not a good look for them.
2- the reminder that they have data scientists driving this process and that every click of the mouse is tracked and is input data into an enrollment model.

The creep factor is very high here. Itā€™s not just Case- but their woeful yield for a very good school is a real sore spot for them- and they are taking a ā€œNortheastern-likeā€ aggressiveness towards addressing it. I doubt it works. Cleveland isnā€™t Boston.

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And I 100% crossed Case off of the schools I was going to suggest my daughter consider. Even being in Cleveland which was not a location she preferred, on the surface it really checked off so many boxes.

The more I have learned, it seems they (and probably the students) seem affected by being just a notch below some group of schools they want to be considered within.

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Yes, the truth is that they ARE the back-up school to some other schools. They could have chosen to embrace this and made themselves into the best back-up school possible, marketing themselves as providing excellent education while also being kinder, more helpful, more practical, and more fun than the competition. Instead they went the route of acting angrier and creepier. Reminds me of incelsā€¦

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So they should try to appeal to more people who donā€™t want to go there? And who will only go if none of their other preferred options pan out? Increase the numbers of students attending who wish they were somewhere else. That sounds like it would be a wonderful experience for students and staff alike. LOL

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Yes, actually:

ā€œSo they toss it and leave it
And I pull up quick to retrieve itā€

Literally every school is in this position to some degree. Every.

Itā€™s the the tactics that provide a constant reminder that they as an institution are an outsider looking in that are a real turnoff. Instead of focusing on being the absolute best first, second, or third option (which puts them in some pretty heady company with some of these kids), they employ a go for broke strategy. Again, this worked very well for Northeastern.

They harm their reputation with tactics like this that get a ton of publicity and really have the exact opposite effect: solidifying them as a Tier 2 school.

Itā€™s a bad strategy. It detracts attention from their stellar academics.

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I was waiting for Northeastern to be brought up in this thread.

Last cycle Northeastern had a 33% yield that created a major over enrolment problem, especially for housing. This year they had a 20% increase in freshman applications for a total of 90,800. As far as I know there were no application fee waivers sent out except to selected Boston Public School students, per an agreement with the city. This year the acceptance rate will likely be in the single digits as they try to get enrolment under control. Predicting yield in the era of COVID has become very difficult.

bro I never unsubscribed but still they sent me this mail why

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Guys I never unsubscribed caseā€™s mail but still I received the mail, does it mean Iā€™m gonna get rejected

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Itā€™s one great big circle.

As admit rate goes down, yield goes up. But admit rate is largely a factor of the number of people that apply.

The herd sees an marked reduction in admit rate (some of which is marketing related- due to efforts towards boosting applications) which they equate with prestige. Naturally that contributes to a higher yield. That phenomenon, in conjunction with hype aggressive yield management can result in less predictably in enrollment to the high side if both efforts are successful.

But above are business tactics. For the 10,000th time on the forum ā€œcollege is a businessā€. I get it. OK. And all schools do it- but there are differences in the degree.

Me as a consumer, I am seeking out schools that seem to focus their efforts on running an educational institution, and weed out those who are so obviously declaring their intention to compete by boosting their admissions profile. This move, and several other by CWRU make it clear to ME what category I put them in.

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As far as I know, nearly every college provides fee waivers to families under a certain financial threshold. Northeastern may not provide fee waivers to six-figure families, but NEU most certainly provides fee waivers to lower-income applicants.

:exploding_head:

so does this mean they think I will not enroll after getting in ?

I was thinking of mass mailings going out to students regardless of income. That occurs at some schools trying to increase application numbers.

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Thatā€™s odd but just to be certain Iā€™d send an email stating youā€™re not sure why you received this email but you are definitely interested in keeping your application in the process.

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I think this is a bit unfair. Any school not Ivy, and even some of them, are backup schools.

For many Case is a reach. Maybe someone was going to Elon or Denver which were safeties and Case is a reach.

On the other hand, maybe they targeted Vandy or Duke and Case is a fallback.

One can make the fall-back statement about every school but maybe 10-15 in the country.

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Totally agree with this.

Rest assured, the schools taking approaches that appeal to you are doing so because they think its best for their business model. In the end, people should apply to the places that appeal to them and avoid those that donā€™t.

Case is trying to have more people who actually want to be there. Its not hard to demonstrate the requisite interest. If someone is not interested, its easy. Just donā€™t apply. If the approach turns you off, you donā€™t need to do anything because failing to reply will result in cancelation of application. And if you donā€™t want to apply as a result of this approach, that works too. There are a lot of different options out there.

@CD1121_gaming. I wouldnā€™t read anything into getting the email. But I would respond. To the email at a minimum. But maybe call the phone number listed. Good luck to you in your application process.

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