<p>My D is a junior. When she took the PSAT as a sophomore (and got a 218), we got lots of snail mail about colleges. Now she is a junior and scored a 225. So far nothing in the mail, although two of her close friends got the exact same score she did and they're getting mail from Duke, Fordham, etc. I'm so irritated with her. She claims she "can't remember" whether she opted in or out of the Student Search Service. </p>
<p>Am I overreacting? Does this really matter? Will she miss out on any opportunities because she (apparently?) opted out? Is there a way to opt back in, or is it too late for that?</p>
<p>I seriously regret checking the box on the psat that allowed schools to send mail to me. The letters they send mean nothing, they send them to everyone. And it’s annoying as heck. The letters and emails continued to be sent to me until the end of freshman year of college. You should be glad she opted out of that, in my opinion.</p>
<p>You can contact any of those colleges yourself for information. Be grateful that your house isn’t being deluged with mail and email from colleges. Once you are on those lists, it is IMPOSSIBLE to get off.</p>
<p>Yes, as thumper said, you’re daughter hasn’t missed out on anything. What the other kids are getting is from the marketing firms employed by the universities. Lists are bought from college board and mass mailing sent. The college specifically isn’t recruiting them. It’s much more effective, and shows demonstrated interest, for your daughter to contact the school directly and request information. This can usually be done online. If they have a specific interest (architecture, nursing, engineering) some schools have mailing lists specific for these schools that are often a separate admit. They may have specific open houses held only once yearly, or special tours and information sessions. Getting on school of interest mailing lists, as opposed to a slew of random schools marketing arms distribution lists, is much more effective.</p>
<p>Great score. That likely makes her NMSF (National Merit) scholarship contender. Don’t worry about the mailings… it’s not a big deal now that internet research is so easy.</p>
<p>My D2 did not check the box, had a 233 PSAT. We had been through the process before, so knew that she could go out and sign up on the admission website for mailings from any schools that interested her. And it saved us from getting a ton of mail from colleges she was not interested in. No worries about it affecting acceptance, it has nothing to do with that. I do recommend signing up on the websites for colleges she does want to know more about, though.</p>
<p>Your daughter did the right thing. Please don’t be irritated! All the mail is flattering–for a while. But it means nothing. And it is dumb when people brag about what colleges sent them stuff and say things like “they must really want her.” No. It’s marketing. They have lists. Their cost per piece goes down the more they print, and their ROI is higher the more people respond.</p>
<p>Like others, I think your daughter proved that she’s smart by opting out of the mailings. It’s much better to research schools on her own (using Fiske College guide or CC’s search engine or some other method), going to their website and then if you want requesting additional information. In other words, you and your daughter want to be in control of the search rather than the colleges.</p>
<p>We WISH we had told our kid to opt out. Not only were we deluged with pointless mail from schools that had purchased the mailing list, but the lists were sold to others who target the ‘college bound crowd’ and so we got tons a junk mail from them as well. A forest died. Your D did the right thing. </p>
<p>Any colleges that she is interested in, based on her research with Fiske or any other guide, will be more than happy to add her to their mailing list and send her literature. Every college has a website with a place that asks is the viewer would like more information (and the floodgates then open…)</p>
<p>Totally agree w/M’sMom. Both of my kids received over 120 pounds EACH of college junk mail. (This was more than one of my sons weighed!!) Thank your D for saving trees!</p>
<p>If she wants to know about lots of colleges, send her here, grab a $20 book on colleges, or get online.</p>
<p>In general I think opting out is a good thing. The one scenario where I would want my child to sign up for the “junk mail” was if merit aid was a big driver of the college search … the college initiated contacts might bring an offer from an off the radar school.</p>
<p>I was REALLY glad our county accepts pretty much all paper products for recycling. It was ridiculous. Had I realized how much we’d get, I would have told the guys to opt out.</p>
<p>We put the stuff in boxes and kept a tally as each box filled and was recycled.</p>
<p>On a related note, you know when you are in a store buying something with a credit card and they ask for your zip code or phone number? Don’t give it to them. Some store clerks will say they “have” to have it to process the transaction, but legally that is not true. I will give it out if it required on a return, but on a purchase it only leads to one thing: more mail. There is a practice in the direct-mail business called “reverse append” that allows retailers to match credit card data to addresses or phone numbers. Victoria’s Secret used to be one of the worst that I dealt with (until I worked for a company that did direct mail but had a policy against this practice, calling it “unethical”). I was really proud of my daughter the other day when we were out shopping and the clerk asked for her phone number and she said “I don’t like to give it out.” Another way to solve this is to give a fake one.</p>
<p>OP, if your D makes NMSF she’ll get some mailings from schools that like to offer big merit to NM finalists. That occurs regardless of what your D checked. D1 didn’t opt in to the search and she still got these kinds of letters. </p>
<p>Ugh–what a waste of paper! The first couple of days is cute when your kid is in NMF territory, but after that, receiving 3-4 mailers a day is overkill, especially if your child has no interest in the school or does not have the GPA to gain acceptance. We’re saving them to in a banker’s box just to see how much paper these schools wasted. Some schools, like Ponoma, Macalester and Emory, send a mailer almost EVERY WEEK! My D requested to be removed from several mailing lists to no avail. She’s a junior, and like another poster stated, a forest of needless paper deluges our home weekly. Thank goodness my D does not take receiving mail from Emory or Vassar seriously and understands she does not have a snowball’s chance in h3ll of gaining acceptance in these schools. The kicker, my D already created a list, and already signed up to receive information from these schools where her stats put her in significant merit money territory. We also changed her email settings so the emails from specific schools go to a specific folder and not flood her in-box. She can give the folder contents a quick overview and then delete all the emails at once.</p>
<p>Like everyone else, be glad your daughter forgot to sign up, and thank your daughter for me for the tree she saved. Can yuh tell this irritates me.</p>
<p>^^ That’s the worst thing - when the elite schools send TONS of brochures and nice books to students they must know have little to no chance of admission. D got mail from when she took the PSAT in her sophomore year and a few additional ones joined the fun this year (her junior year): UChicago, Vanderbilt and even Penn (!) are the worst offenders. Adding insult to injury, she probably said she wanted to attend a small (<2500) rural college and none remotely meet even those two criteria.</p>
<p>As it is, D gets enough mail from the schools she likes. Beloit was a college that she wanted to consider but I think familiarity indeed bred contempt. She doesn’t think much of a college that sends her stuff almost daily for weeks on end.</p>
<p>Thanks everybody for setting my mind at ease. I think I’ll show this thread to D so she can have a chuckle at my expense. She’ll be NMSF (11 points above our state’s cutoff last year) and I just didn’t want her to miss out on chances at merit awards.</p>
<p>Part of the reason we got rid of our landline was all the calls that came with the college mail. Even some of the schools we liked really overdid it with the “personal” communication.</p>
She’ll be NMSF (11 points above our state’s cutoff last year) and I just didn’t want her to miss out on chances at merit awards.</p>