<p>Both of our kids have pretty much ignored the mail other than if its from a school that they had visited or were applying to. We saved up all of mail that DS-2011 received and we ended up with 271 schools represented. With DD-2014, she just recycles it when it comes. The mailing champ for both kids is the University of Evansville.</p>
<p>I like to collect the actual legit brochures and info things, but the “letters” that refer me to a 5-Step College Plan or something like that I immediately throw away.</p>
<p>If anything, I think it’s a little cool to actually receive these brochures from schools I have become interested in through extraneous forms of research.</p>
<p>My son paid little attention to the mailings. About the only ones he took time to look at were ones that I found surprising that he may have received. For example, he got a mailing from Emory and I had him look. He would have been in the lowest 10% for grades and scores for their accepted students, but had Emory been closer (1000 miles from us), he probably would have taken a closer look. </p>
<p>Overall, I found most of the mailings came from school that would have been considered safety schools.</p>
<p>I liked the mailings. I think it’s fun to look through them, and easy to ignore if I’m not interested. They really had no effect on whether or not I applied to a school, except for the schools that offered me application fee waivers–I ended up applying to three of them. It was also interesting to see some info about schools that offered scholarships for the NHRP, but I didn’t end up applying to any of them.</p>
<p>A few things really bug us. It seems like zillions of schools have the “Top Five Things You Should Know About College Admissions” brochure to send out, and they all act like it is theirs specifically. The other thing is that the variety of schools is ridiculous. My son is getting material from most Ivies, Cal Tech, CMU, Stanford, etc., but he’s also getting a lot of junior college and random other college materials. I don’t get why all of them would send him info.</p>
<p>On average, he’s been getting 5 snail mail brochures per day and 3 emails per day. Most schools he just tosses as he wants to stay in the Northeast, but a very few, perhaps one every other week, he looks at.</p>
<p>So many trees killed for nothing.</p>
<p>All the mail I have received has not really influenced where I decided to apply. Once I got on the mailing lists of my chosen colleges, I enjoyed getting informative mail. But I never applied to a school because I liked their literature. And I actually did look at EVERY piece of mail I received. Of course I didn’t read it thoroughly, but I thought it respectful to at least open it and glance at it.</p>
<p>My son is turned off by two things. He is bi-racial so gets a lot of targeted mailings. He will glance through it and when he can find the same person (URM) on page 6 And page 11- he rejects it as poor marketing and trying Too hard.
Also, if The same school calls twice with the same information he gets seriously irritated that better records are
Not being kept I have explained many times that it is probably a work study student just doing their job. </p>
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<p>I’ve observed such duplication as well. It doesn’t seem to bother my son (since he’s reading so little of the propaganda anyway), but occasionally it irks me because it sends a message that suggests, “We don’t care about you nearly as much as we claim we do.” For instance, both my son and I were getting a lot of generic “Come visit us” mail (both email and snail mail) from Tulane for weeks AFTER he’d booked his tour and exchanged messages with his regional rep announcing the visit. </p>
<p>But way up in the plus column for me was a map that Tulane mailed to my son with the confirmation of his tour (date and time) written on it. The map was large and very detailed (e.g., there were actual drawings of each building to help make them recognizable when we were standing right in front of them). On the flip side of the map (people remember flip sides, right?) were driving directions, a list of nearby hotels, and some other useful information.</p>
<p>The other colleges on my son’s list confirmed visits only via email. Sometimes the emails included a link to a campus map but these maps were small and not as easy to read. The Tulane one was really great. It’s the first thing that my son has gotten from a college that I found truly helpful. I realize that there’s nothing cutting-edge about that Tulane map, but somehow I found it a very nice practical touch that allayed the confusion of arriving in an unfamiliar place.</p>
<p>Familiarity definitely breeds contempt here. D’s a junior and the mail is ridiculous. If an interesting brochure comes through, someone in our house will eventually pick it up and look at it (and then we throw it out). But if we notice a college/university sending us stuff on a weekly or daily basis (looking at you, Vanderbilt, Chicago, Tulane) then there is an automatic toss into the trash as soon as we see the name. We don’t bother opening it at all. Hopefully, Kenyon isn’t starting the same marketing method (3 pieces of mail in 3 weeks so far). Kenyon sent a very nice little booklet on the college preparation and application process that I really liked. But no, that didn’t convince anyone in the house to put it on D’s list.</p>
<p>We enjoyed the mail, but I don’t think any of it made a bit of difference in terms of the list of schools for applications.</p>
<p>My S did add one school to his list for a time based on mail he received from them. They kept on sending it again and again, but he didn’t mind because he found it appealing (unlike many other schools that stalked him). But he dropped it at the very end because its location was “just too ******* cold!”</p>
<p>29happymom26, my son is multiracial too, but only some sites ask for that information so he gets a handful of “college guide for minorities” mailings but more generic mailings. It is rather interesting to see the angle colleges take in the minority-targeted mailings vs. generic (like, if they are so diverse and supportive, don’t they want to sell that to everyone?).</p>
<p>Late August '13, D and I visited several schools in the Midwest on a 6-school road trip. It was the hottest week of the year and temps were in the mid 90s+. Our first tour at Purdue was 90 minutes in the blazing sun. No offer of water before or during the very long outdoor tour, but lots of letters and brochures mailed to our house. Indiana U. next day offered free ice cold bottles of water with large IU logos pasted on them, plus snacks to take on our tour again in the blazing heat. For all of the money schools spend on expensive brochures and mailings, don’t you think spending $0.25 on a bottle of water to a real prospective student (there in person touring the campus) would be money better spent??? D and I were so impressed with the attention to detail and true welcoming spirit at IU. D has been accepted to both, but there’s no question in her mind which school made a great first impression.</p>
<p>Spygirl gets a lot of email and snail mail. And none of it has had an impact on her college choices. Montana State tops the list of the most mailings and view books. We now joke if she hasn’t received something from them in the mail. Some weeks she’s received 4 or 5 brochures. She has never shown any interest in the school, but somehow landed on their radar.</p>
<p>My oldest son just tossed the mail that came for him–he had a pretty good idea of where he wanted to apply from the get-go. He is now a college sophomore (although, ironically, at a different school than he picked originally–he transferred after freshman year.) My youngest son is currently a senior who received very high scores on the SATs and the ACT, so most of the mail that has come to our house in the past few years has been for him. LOL…It’s been interesting to watch him sort through it. He is very analytical and thorough–planning to major in aerospace engineering–so you’d think he would lean towards the high-tech solicitations. But no–he made it very clear that he would reject any college that only sent him an email or a postcard directing him to their website. He WANTS the viewbooks and the brochures. And to his credit, he gives his full and serious consideration to each and every one that comes to the house, no matter the “prestige” or (perceived lack thereof) of the school in question. It’s fascinating to watch him as he goes through each one. I watched him glance through the Princeton, Harvard, Brown and Yale viewbooks and put them into the recycle pile while giving his full attention to the brochure from Illinois Institute of Technology, for example. And he ended up applying to and getting accepted to at least one school that hadn’t been anywhere on his radar before he received their admissions materials in the mail–Case Western Reserve. We live in New England; we didn’t know very much about CWRU at all before receiving their materials. Right now, that school is in his top 2 on his list for the fall. So I think the viewbooks do work, at least on some kids. </p>
<p>My son is also a total throwback when it comes to the admission notifications, too. He refuses to check the portals on the websites for his decisions. He says he wants to wait for the letter in the mail, like we did in the old days. It drives me crazy, since I want to know right away! </p>
<p>I’d say it was a mixed bag at our house. Both DDs collected the mailings and went through them to narrow things down - three piles: no way in heck, maybe, and this looks cool. One ended up attending a school from which she received no info, and the top choice for each was also a no-mailer place. </p>
<p>agent99–Montana State was the first to send mailings to D and it’s been relentless ever since. D never expressed interest in attending. I wish they would have spent the money they wasted on marketing materials to us on scholarships for those really needing the $$$…but, I’m sure it works or they wouldn’t do it. Now that I think of it, I do know one family that visited MSU because of all of the attention showered on their D.</p>
<p>@amiable: your son’s luddite ways may get him in a pickle. Colleges generally expect kids to check their online portals. They don’t knock themselves out to mail accept packages that hit your doorstep on a target day like they used to. After the first set of indications goes out, it may take a while for snail mail letters to be sent. My alma mater only sends reject notices to kids who don’t check their online portal some weeks afterward. It’s a “green” thing</p>
<p>@momofwon - The never ending stream of attention from Montana has clearly worked with some. A friend’s son is a junior Montana State and is very happy with the school in every respect. One of Spygirl’s friends will be attending in fall. </p>
<p>So glad the selection process is coming to an end. D tosses everything in the recycle bin without opening (except from the colleges she applied to). What a waste of precious resources… Not to mention all of the emails, phone calls… </p>