<p>My stats aren't stellar (3.85UW, 790CR/680M) but for some reason I've been receiving absurd amounts of mail from UChicago. I'm talking two or three times a week. I've gotten more than 50 pieces of mail from them (I piled them all up), including postcards with my name in Gothic lettering, posters, artbooks, full-color fold out campus photos, etc. And talking to my friends, they seem to feel pretty courted if a college sends three or four pieces of mail their way. I'm by no means a hooked student in any conventional sense, is this normal? Or did I manage to get my name copied down ten times on the mailing list?</p>
<p>There is no way my daughter has the stats to be accepted there, but we have gotten a ridiculous amount of mail from them as well. I find it bordering on offensive; clearly they are just trying to increase the number of applicants.</p>
<p>I have got a ton too. Maybe not 50 but definitely over 20. I planned on applying to uchicago before getting all the mail, but I find it in poor taste for such a selective school to so aggressively court applicants, knowing that over 9 out of 10 of their applicants won’t even get in. For a school so centered on intellectualism it seems surprising that they want students to apply because they got spammed with mail.</p>
<p>If the mail offends you in any way, call the admissions office and they will take you off the mailing list immediately and apologize. A family friend did this recently. </p>
<p>Either enjoy being courted a bit by a top school or absolutely get off the list. Uchicago is certainly trying to drive up their selectivity, but in the full contact sport of modern admissions, they must.</p>
<p>I do hope Chicago tones down their marketing once rankings/selectivity stabilize. This was justifiable a few years ago when no one had heard of UChicago, but certainly not the case today.</p>
<p>I disagree strongly. Admissions, for better or worse (I think worse, but this is the reality), is a full contact, competitive sport now between top schools. Asking UChicago to taper down marketing efforts would be comparable to asking Apple to ratchet down iphone ads, because past sales for the iphone were successful.</p>
<p>It’s not in the interest of the school to do anything but compete as strongly as possible. If UChicago slows on this front, it will only give its competitors time to catch up.</p>
<p>This may be a sad state of affairs, but it’s the world we live in now. You can lament the overall practice (and I do), but don’t castigate the participants. Unless all schools issue a moratorium on this, there’s no way one school can stand alone.</p>
<p>Chicago is probably the only top 10 school that advertises this much. It may even advertise the most out of all colleges in the entire country. I don’t see Chicago’s peers doing this, much less other institutions far off Chicago’s radar, and I think if Chicago is the one that initiates a new era of mass-marketing, it will be very bad for students. Alternatively, other institutions may agree that mass-marketing is in bad taste, and Chicago will be the only one doing this. More likely, other institutions are constrained by their budgets. Anyway, I’m not an expert on this…I’m sure the Chicago admissions office know what they are doing and what the consequences are, and I trust they make the right decisions.</p>
<p>While I agree that it may seem offensive to target students who stand no chance of admission just to drive up the number of applications, in the end, we need to realize that colleges are business entities. We can talk about the prestige of academia and intellectualism, but in the end it is a business. My son got the same emails and mailings from UC but decided it definitely was not the place for him, and so he never applied. Just because a student gets a lot of mail from a school does not bind the student to apply.</p>
<p>I think most other schools - even top schools - are constrained by budget. Uchicago had a massive admissions staff and a significant budget. (As an example, uchicagos college isn’t much larger than Dartmouth, but it has twice the admissions staff.)</p>
<p>Given the above stats, I don’t think other schools are light on advertising out of some sense of morals or the like. Rather, marketing and ads are expensive. </p>
<p>Remember, unlike many other top schools, uchicagos leaders - about five or six years ago- focused strongly on investing and improving the college. Recent trends are a part of that. If the marketing will lead to a class that is more selective than Harvards with a higher overall sat score, I don’t think any uchicago leaders will complain. Further, the news will not be well received in Cambridge or palo alto, etc.</p>
<p>I’m from Michigan and don’t think I have the numbers for UC but they are sending me so many materials. I am probably going to go to U of Michigan and hadn’t even considered Chicago. I did pretty well on my ACT and my GPA is pretty strong, but both are short of their averages. I am Hispanic. Other than that I don’t know what info they have or why they started sending me things.</p>
<p>Are they actually gunning for me or do they just want me to apply so they can have more applications and bolster their rejection rate?</p>
<p>Your friends probably have not taken the ACT/SAT/PSAT or did not put any/correct contact information on it. That’s where colleges typically get their mailing lists.</p>
<p>They don’t send to all but they send to a lot of you in the hopes that if you like what you hear, you will apply. </p>
<p>Your numbers may be average but if you have other pluses (which they obviously dont know) they are thinking you might just give it a shot. </p>
<p>Plus you’re a Midwesterner, so chances are if you like them and they like you too, the weather (which is a huge negative for some) won’t be an issue when you decide to accept. </p>
<p>If I were them I would market the hell out in the Midwest too.</p>
<p>We are in CA, and my daughter has gotten a ridiculous amount of mail from them. I find it offensive and annoying, as there is no way her stats make her a reasonable prospect. They are clearly just trying to get their application numbers up.</p>
<p>I think there may be three kinds of groups regarding the massive marketing materials. The first group likes it, believe it or not. My D liked it and she had collected all stuff UChicago had sent to her since she felt they were cute.</p>
<p>The second group does not care a Lot. They just shrugged and laughed at the materials. They may have thrown them away as soon as they get them or pass them to someone else. One of my D’ best friends gave my D some stuff she had received. She had never bothered to apply at all.</p>
<p>The last group really hates the marketing. They think they are wrongly targeted and manipulated to some extent. I have sympathy for that group. No one wants to be targeted/bothered/annoyed constantly. </p>
<p>Is there a way to let UChicago know that their marketing is not welcome? E.g., a click at the bottom of the email to unsubscribe from their mailing list? I cannot remember the detail. If it is very difficult to unsubscribe then there is a problem on UChicago marketing department. BTW the university could save some money if many people firmly say, “Thanks, but no, thanks”. Any thoughts?</p>