<p>I've read college brochures and viewbooks for decades (and, I confess, even wrote some of them in a previous lifetime). But now that my own child is a junior in high school, I'm seeing them through a different lens. My son is inundated with propaganda ... both via email and snail mail ... and I've found that most of what he gets doesn't engage him at all or, in some cases, has a negative impact.</p>
<p>How about other parents ... do you see your kids adding (or deleting) colleges to or from their lists due to the materials that arrive in the mail? </p>
<p>And, if they are indeed, adding schools, is it because of what they're actually seeing in these publications or is it more likely because they believe that these colleges want them?</p>
<p>I’m a high school senior and unfortunately really easily impressed by advertising in general. I’ve enjoyed the snail mail propaganda (not the emails so much, because there’s usually not as much to read). But I don’t think the college mail has actually influenced me to apply to any schools that I wouldn’t have applied to otherwise (for the most part I didn’t get mail from the schools I applied to). I think I stopped believing they wanted me when I got a typo email that started with “Dear Firstname.” :-? </p>
<p>I’m a junior and have been inundated with the brochures. For me, I did not add or cross off any based upon the brochures alone. I also don’t open any of the emails that come from a generic email address.</p>
<p>We have a great college counseling team who works very hard to match students to potential schools, and I know that I am lucky in that regard. But they were the ones that really fine-tuned my list.</p>
<p>Both of my kids were turned off by the sheer volume of college mail. D threw hers straight in the recycling bin (or sent the emails to her spam folder.) DS is just letting his pile up. My husband, OTOH, is very excited about each letter than comes, especially if it’s from a “good” school. ;)</p>
<p>My S was impressed by the design of some of the mail pieces, but mostly because of pure design sensibility. However, he was drawn to a couple of other schools that we hadn’t thought of when making the initial list and applied there. We’ll see how that works out. The fun part was getting to see how many of the Ivies would send something - still waiting for Harvard!</p>
<p>Among the four or five snail-mail pieces that my son received today was a letter from Bowdoin. Near the top it said, “Bowdoin’s academic program is second to none. As one guidebook put it, ‘The workload is one step shy of overwhelming …’”</p>
<p>That was a deal-breaker for my boy. “Two steps shy,” he mused, “and I might have considered it.” </p>
<p>And, frankly, he wouldn’t have read the letter at all had I not thrust the stack at him and said, “Please do something with these.” Then I ripped open the top envelope myself. There are still at least a dozen unopened envelopes and postcards from colleges on the dining room table that have accumulated just over the past week or so. The cats like to surf on them. </p>
<p>Most of the mail from colleges went directly to the recycle bin. Both my boys had what they jokingly called their “stalker schools”. DS 1 got a ton of mail from RIT including a postcard showing the mileage from our house to Rochester which he thought was a little creepy. DS2’s was Vanderbilt. Both felt it was over the top. I’m sure the recycle guys are glad they’re in college now - their load has decreased a bunch!</p>
<p>It has made it confusing to me. Like all parents, we want the best for our children. But each brochure demonstrates that all of the schools are beyond my greatest expectations. So, either they are all great, or they really aren’t. I don’t know. Hope the next brochure will set me straight ;-)</p>
<p>I actually applied to some additional colleges as a result of advertising. At first, I loved just getting the mail, but after all the mail I got, I eventually stopped opening it. I got a letter from the Office of the President at Oklahoma and opened it as a joke, but it contained a full scholarship with stipends (as I am a NMF). That one letter prompted me to not only apply to OU, but also to Alabama, Kentucky, South Carolina, Baylor, and Drexel.</p>
<p>My D enjoys looking at the brochures, but they haven’t swayed her either way. What has made a difference is the schools that send handwritten postcards or make phonecalls. A few of these have made her take another look (or sometimes a first look) at a few schools.</p>
<p>lol I hated getting the mail and emails. I made a folder in my school inbox to store the college spam and it has now reached a size of 2500+. I did occasionally open the snail mail from one of the better schools. But the propaganda didn’t influence where I did and didn’t apply.</p>
<p>I didn’t cross off or add based on the propaganda, but like @JCCsmom, I kept a running tally of all the Ivies and other such schools that sent me mail, clearly just trying to get another sucker to apply to pad their numbers:)</p>
<p>My H and I liked looking through the mail at first, but that wore off. S wouldn’t look at all. I think some schools sully themselves by so much pandering (UChicago comes to mind).</p>
<p>I’ve followed two kids through the process, and into college. Not once did information that came through the mail affect the list or the weighting of different colleges on the list of schools to which they were applying. I enjoyed reading some of it.</p>
<p>In my son’s case, we knew plenty about the college scene, and there just couldn’t be a brochure that would make a lightbulb go off and say, “Hey, I’d better check out Cucamonga Tech!” He never looked at any of the brochures in any case. I did, however. And I read up on and consulted other adults about various colleges. But my son was too busy with debate team and other interests to pay much attention to the mail flow, which picked up wave after wave as new test results came in.</p>
<p>In my daughter’s case, since she was interested in art schools and we did not know that scene very well, we did more research than for my son. But nothing that came through the mail slot impacted the application list or priorities. Instead, it was her own research, scuttlebutt she picked up at summer precollege art programs, and information found online that helped to compose her list.</p>
<p>It was a pleasure to recycle the fileboxes of materials once the kids made their college choices.</p>
<p>My D was sporadically interested in the college mail. She encouraged us to open and read the material and we clearly enjoyed it more than she did. The really over the top view books that were oversized yet contained little real info really annoyed her. She thought it was so wasteful.</p>
<p>Personally, I’ve enjoyed looking through the mounds of college propaganda sent my way. I’ve always been very enthusiastic about researching colleges, so looking through the glossy view books was fun for me. I did not add any schools based solely on what they mailed me, but Bowdoin’s classy, matte black book did encourage me to find out more about the school, and I ultimately ended up applying.</p>
<p>The first few bits of college advertising I received really excited me because I didn’t know any better at the time. After it started coming in tree-fulls, I just started chucking them even if they were from a college I was interested in just because by then I had realized that it was all hollow marketing that wouldn’t actually help me make a decision and didn’t actually mean that the colleges wanted me. </p>
<p>I did briefly consider applying to U Chicago one day after receiving the latest of their many pieces of propaganda. Although while I’m sure it had some effect on me, the main reason was because I remembered that Steve Levitt teaches there and I’m a huge Freakonomics fan. I gave up after I saw the essays and the price tag, but for a brief moment they got to me. </p>
<p>My kids didn’t pay much attention to most of it. I thought the most interesting stuff was what Chicago sent my son after he was accepted EA. It really did make them seem different from the other colleges. It included the world’s most depressing calendar - it was very funny because when we finally got around to visiting it looked so much better than their calendar! The handwritten holiday letter making reference to his “Why Chicago” essay, was a particularly nice touch. I think my all time favorite piece of mail was from Harvey Mudd, which just said on the picture side “OUR NAME IS MUDD”.</p>
<p>Last year when I was getting piles of letters from schools, I got annoyed after about two months. Spring Arbor and a couple other schools sent me at least 2 letters a week for the ENTIRE school year. I kind of decided that if colleges needed to advertise that much to get students, they must not be very good in the first place </p>
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