Do frequent mailings mean anything?

Colleges and Universities A-Z SUNY at Geneseo
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<p>My wife, my son, and I toured Geneseo during easter week, 2009. We did the regular tour, plus the biology presentation. It looks like Geneseo will be his first choice, and it looks like he will apply ED. He is also applying to Bing and SB.</p>

<p>My question is, do these frequent mailings from Genseo mean anything? We often recieve 3-4 pieces of mail per week from them. We have recieved the same brochures over and over for the past eight months. I can't believe a SUNY would waste money like that. Comparitively, he has gotten a few things from SB and very little from Bing, and we took the guided tours at those schools too. No, we didn't recieve a t shirt in the mail, LOL.</p>

<p>My son is biracial and has taken the SATs and is registered with his high school as Hispanic. His best SAT scores are as follows 650 M, 610 CR, 580 W. His HS GPA is 3.6 unweighted (92), and 3.7 weighted. His school weighs only the APs classes, not the Accelerated. They also only weigh the APs at 1.075. Does this seem like a light weighting to anyone?</p>

<p>So, are they recruiting him because he's in the right range and Hispanic, or does eveyone get all these mailings? We probably recieved more mail from Geneseo than the next 5-10 schools combined. It makes him feel very warm and wanted : ) Is that the intention?</p>

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<p>Geneseo wants a more diverse student body.</p>

<p>He is Hispanic and has good stats so its a win win for them. And its a win for him too.</p>

<p>Geneseo is a great school.</p>

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<p>Agree with sean256. They want your son to apply!</p>

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<p>Thanks guys. We love the school/town. My wife and I are a little heartbroken because he’ll be 7 hrs. or so from home <sniff>.</sniff></p>

<p>Sean-Good luck with your studies!</p>

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<p>“I can’t believe a SUNY would waste money like that.”</p>

<p>Believe it. SUNYs, like all NYS agencies, waste enormous amounts of money. In this case, it sounds like your son’s name has been entered in the admissions database two or more times. It happened to my daughter at a couple of out-of-state schools when she was doing the college search thing.</p>

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<p>Is it a waste of money? Yes.</p>

<p>However, Geneseo sends out a lot of mail in order to promote their school. It is highly unlikely that he was entered twice into a mailing database.</p>

<p>That happened to me when I applied to New Paltz, and I got exact duplicate mailings.</p>

<p>Geneseo, however, sent me a bunch of mail but it was all different publications, etc.</p>

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<p>I don’t know about that school, but I receive mailings from many schools where my chances for admission are slim to none. Some of the Ivy’s have written, sent materials and a few have even emailed in addition to the mailings…yet my GPA is 3.2 and my ACT is 28. Maybe they have me mixed up with someone else! Ha!</p>

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<p>I have received alot of mailings from Geneseo, too. I just visited last month and liked it very much. I have applied regular decision. My scores are M650 CR610 W640, with an unweighted 93 and weighted 102. Rank: top 10%. I’ve also applied BING, SB and New Paltz. Crossing my fingers. Good luck to the OP’s son, I hope he gets in.</p>

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<p>Good luck to MTPockets and Justchuck’s son.</p>

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<p>…I always admired your name, LOL. </p>

<p>You can check out student reviews and comments about any school at “students review dot com”. That’s students, plural and review, singular. The reviews on SB and Bing are eye opening. SB is very convenient for us, and it has a medical school too, but it is huge and somewhat run down looking. You have to take a train to town, and probably a bus or cab to the train. I liked Bing, but my son fell in love with Geneseo. He likes that the town is right there too. My wife and I liked it very much too. Still, I wish it were 3-4 hrs. from home instead of 7.</p>

<p>I would advise you, MT, to switch to ED if they offer it at a school you want. I called Geneseo yesterday and they switched us over the phone. My son still has to sign the committment, which they are mailing. Someone posted on another forum that the acceptance rate to Bing is down to 31%. I can’t swear that this is true, but I know it has been reported in the media that they had a record number of applications last year. The acceptance rate for 2008 was like 39% or so. There must be many bright kids with MTPockets!</p>

<p>At this point, after a year of reading books, forums, posting, etc. I am convinced that college is all about the undergrad experience. Small classes and access to professors is what it should be all about.</p>

<p>Are you going for Bio or a science MT? Do you live upstate/downstate?</p>

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<p>justchuck: That is what is so great about Geneseo. Geneseo is all about the undergraduate experience. That is exactly why US News highlighted Geneseo this year as one of 80 schools strongly commited to undergraduate teaching. </p>

<p>[SUNY</a> Geneseo](<a href=“News Center | SUNY Geneseo”>News Center | SUNY Geneseo)</p>

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<p>I just got this book from the library yesterday titled “Acceptance”. It is a new book about college admissions and the frenzy it is these days, but it is not a 'how to" book. It is a look at the methods of the head counselor from Oyster Bay. He often has to talk parents and students down from their lofty reach schools, but he has a very realisitic philosophy about “right fit” and smaller schools. I highly recommend the book. I read about a third of it yesterday. Some stats on 2008, the most competetive year in admissions history:</p>

<p>Regarding Northport HS: Princeton- 4 of 5 rejected, Yale- 5 of 6 rejected, Brown-11 of 12 rejected, Harvard-7 of 8 rejected and 1 waitlisted. This is a HS that offers 24 AP classes and a “service project” in Central America.</p>

<p>Mineola HS-MIT rejected the salutatorian, a science whiz with near-perfect SAT scores.</p>

<p>JFK HS in Bellmore-8 of 9 rejected at Penn, all 7 applicnts to Wash. Univ. St. Louis rejected, (probably the school we get the second highest number of mailings from). </p>

<p>Duke rejected more than half of the 1381 valedictorians that applied. </p>

<p>Univ. of Miami-20,000 applications for 2000 spots.</p>

<p>Binghamton had so many early action applications that it couldn’t process them all and had to put off decisions until springtime.</p>

<p>My own nephew was his class VP, ranked something like 39 out of 750, and had a 4.3 weighted GPA. He was rejected by NYU Stern and Univ. of Miami. Admittedly, his SAT scores were low. I believe he didn’t even break 600 on each part. He was accepted to UT-Austin because he was top 10% of his class and a TX resident, so it was guaranteed. And my sister had read “Acing the College Application” by Michele Hernandez, paid for SAT classes, and had him take SAT 2 tests. Now UT-Austin is not even guaranteeing admittance to the top 10% of TX HS grads anymore because there are not enough slots with out of towners applying and recruited athletes.</p>

<p>I post these stats not to scare anyone, but to encourage people to apply ED if there is a school they like. And also to demonstrate how the whole culture of record applications and low admission ratios plays into the US News rankings and parents/students obsessions with the top ranked 10-40 schools.</p>

<p>Anyway, this book, along with “The College Application Mystique” (Bill Mayher) provides a good alternative view to some of the other, older “how to” books like “A is for Admission” Michele Hernandez) and “Getting In” (Katherine Cohen).</p>