<p>Overall, most of the mail didn’t change my college list one way or another. The only exception was Wellesley–I learned a lot more about the school and decided to apply after that. It was also nice receiving an invitation from several Ivies to apply…</p>
<p>I keep receiving Stanford Magazine. Most of it is dedicated to Humanities. Almost nothing about engineering or computer science. </p>
<p>@rhandco. He was national achievement semifinalist and now finalist, so the colleges didn’t need him to fill out info. Collegeboard shares the information and the title is enough to identify race. </p>
<p>Not just the have you visited and have you applied repeat phone calls, but the phones calls on a Friday night when we are at a loud basketball game. More of the "how is high school going, are you doing any extra curriculars?’ Do you have any questions? ". He answers because there is no caller id.
He politely stepped out of the gym and chats with them. </p>
<p>When I get mail, I look at the location and then see if I’ve heard of the school and already know if it’s not a good fit. It also depends on the type of mail, I’m more willing to look at an general information brochure than at an enclosed letter that says our school great, etc. I check to see if my major and what I want is available, then I’ll look more in depth at it. I’m kind of a college search nut though, so I chose the schools I applied to, looked at them, etc. If it’s mail from a school I’m interested in, I’m much more involved and care a lot more. When I visit a school, I take all the paperwork available, I love it! One of my favorite things about going. I love reading all the information and finding out more about the school. Email on the other hand, I could do without. Especially at this point in the process, I’m a senior, and schools email me telling me that it’s not too late to apply or that they’re extending my deadline…again, it’s like if I was interested and wanted to apply, I would’ve by now. </p>
<p>I think my son enjoyed getting all of that mail. He found it very funny how every college brochure featured pictures of students sitting together out on the grass. He joked that perhaps he needed to make a decision based on which school had the best grassy area, since he expected he would be sitting outside all of the time :)</p>
<p>It was a fun rite of passage, and he ended up with boxes of brochures, which we just recently dropped into the recycling bin. The unfortunate thing is that he received many brochures from really great schools that, even with scholarship money, were never going to be affordable and were never under consider no matter the quality of the program. Princeton’s brochure - well, coffee table book - stood out for its size and the obvious cost associated with sending out such a book. The rich Ivy League schools are different.</p>
<p>Yale sent me one and I framed it.</p>
<p>DS was negatively impacted by most. And the cheap swag did not help.</p>
<p>For S14 I kept all the snail mail in a box, almost all of it unopened. Last week I weighed it – 25 lbs (not counting sophomore year) – and recycled it. If anything, those colleges that sent the easily recognizable third-party-generated bulk mail were hurt because they didn’t put forth real effort. We did look more closely at the more creative mailings.</p>
<p>For S16 (still a sophomore) it is helping him get a little interested in the process although I also don’t expect him to gain much from it specifically.</p>
<p>
Yes, most classes are held outside, and are multi-ethnic.</p>
<p>You have to wonder if they would get better results by diverting some of those ad dollars to reductions in admission fees.</p>
<p>For me, the quality of the mail that I receive makes all the difference (emails are another story). It initially started with the excitement of just getting mail - I hadn’t ever been one to get mail, but when I saw my name on the envelopes from colleges my sophomore year, I was very excited. After a while that novelty wore off and I saw the mail for what it really was: junk. For the most part, very small schools will send me a postcard size sheet of card stock with some generic information on it, which goes straight into my trashcan. I don’t really want to hear about the “college visit days” or whatever that school throws onto the label. The only time I ever keep mail from a college is if they send me an actual informative packet/booklet/pamphlet that can truly benefit me. I enjoy reading about the different majors, professors, students, etc. at different schools to find what’s right for me.</p>
<p>On the other hand, there’s email. Email is just a pain. It’s all generic, very uninformative, and pointlessly clutters my inbox. That’s deleted right away. </p>
<p>So to summarize: send bigger, more informative packets because they actually help; don’t send little post cards for unhelpful events; and dear god, just stop the emails. The smaller stuff has little impact on where I’ve decided to apply/attend, but the larger pieces can really offer insight and help with the college process.</p>
<p>Now, for me, (the parent who is going to have to pay the bills), the giant, glossy, spiral something-like-40-page-bound-book a very, very expensive university sent my son was a complete turn off. It was all about a very small niche, combined major program, apparently one of only a couple in the country, which they tagged him for because of two unique interests he marked on the SAT plus an extremely high score on one sub test. The program sounded interesting, but we all sat around and laughed at the overkill of the publication. It was for a combined major that, if you were interested in doing that, you would already have been doing it for years, because that is what those kids do. And the $250,000 price tag for their program would not open a single door in terms of jobs after graduation. Those professionals are hired through networks that operate completely ouside any university system. (We asked several mentors about it, and that was their opinion). </p>
<p>I kept thinking, “Is this what our tuition would be going towards?”</p>
<p>As a sophomore that has watched older siblings get hordes of mail, I love getting snail mail now. It’s pretty bad…though I’ve actually been opened up to some that I might not have known before. I tend not to cross things off, though if I don’t recognize it and the brochure is uninteresting or they don’t have my program, I’ll just chuck it.</p>
<p>Emails are frustrating, especially since they almost never include concrete info about the school, they only suggest I “come check them out.” I have a folder where the majority of the emails are filtered into, and it has about 4000 unread messages (I probably read less than half). </p>
<p>Snail mail is nicer, but I don’t keep it unless it’s a top school that I’m considering. Viewbooks are fun, but postcards seem like a waste of resources. I don’t need colleges to remind me that they exist every two weeks when I have zero interest (or even if I am already interested). </p>
<p>In our house it depends on the child. No one appreciates the solicitation emails clogging their spam folders. My D liked it when she received mailings and brochures from the schools that she wanted to attend. However, when it was from some school she had never heard of, it became fuel for the fireplace. My S, on the other hand, sees right through it all. He knows which schools he would like to attend and ignores all of the mailings that try to peak his interest, especially from schools that offer surveys and quizzes when you click on a particular ‘personalized’ link. When I hand him the mail the eye roll is practically audible as he puts the letters in the recycling bin. He always makes sure it goes into the recycling. He says that this way they can be transformed into more useful things like acceptance letters. </p>
<p>I did well on some of my early PSATs, and consequently started receiving a ton of mail from colleges I had never even heard of. Later, when I was named a NM semifinalist, the volume increased even more.</p>
<p>I began to see some funny patterns emerging in the mailings I received. It seems like EVERY brochure has a picture of a student, laying in the beautiful green grass, studying on their laptop, or students and professors having class outside (in that place that is probably called “the quad.”) Also, every letter says something like, “the best way to know ___ is for you is to visit campus. Come to our preview day!” </p>
<p>Has anyone else noticed stereotypes like this?</p>
<p>I have a worrier in my family. I actually liked the fact that a school in our area which was reasonably well regarded and affordable called a couple times a week during dinner for a while. It allowed me to reinforce the message with our child that “you WILL get into college. See, there are colleges that need students. Although you guys all seem to think that the point of admissions is to reject you, in reality there are schools that need to recruit enough students every year and there are several for which you would be in the pool of desired students.” </p>
<p>On another front, my son’s friend is multiracial and very beautiful to boot (won a couple of pageants) and before she went to college, they were joking about how she would be recruited to be on the brochures because she has that “diverse” look that the colleges all like to broadcast. Guess what? We got a brochure in the mail last week with her picture on it! They were right! She looked really cute too.</p>
<p>I just feel flattered that I’m getting mail from colleges.</p>
<p>As someone who had no idea about the college process, receiving mail really helped me. I read through every viewbook that I received. This helped me see what there was to offer, and what I wanted in a school. I could look at the pictures and see if it “looked right” (which isn’t the best way to judge a school) or I could look at the stats and see if it was too big or too far or whatever. Most schools I could immediately find something that turned me off. But I still kept reading. I can’t remember if any of the mail actually influenced me. Maybe one or two colleges that I applied to had been put onto my radar. And also one that I had heard of previously that I was interested in. But the mail still helped me learn about different schools and programs and probably really helped me. Plus I liked getting mail with my name on it (although the mailman probably didn’t).
Although the “5 things you Need to know” and “college visit days” mail and emails didn’t help at all and probably turned me off.</p>
<p>Oh and I like to tell the story of how I opened up a large envelope containing a viewbook and a giant spider fell out.</p>
<p>Yesterday DS was toying with the idea of forwarding all other unwanted college emails to TCU as a little payback.</p>
<p>I really am surprised this topic gets so much air time. If you are not interested, throw it into the garbage unopened just like the rest of the junk mail that comes into your house from credit cards, car dealerships, charitable solicitors, etc. When my local furniture store, or JCP, or The March of Dimes sends me a personalized envelope/post card “inviting” me to shop or donate I don’t get mad or frustrated, nor do I feel that I am somehow special to them. It is advertising. Hello, colleges are businesses too!</p>