<p>Same to me. I have no chance of being admitted, yet they keep sending things in order to try to lure me into applying. What gets annoying is that my parents see it as a sign of them being interested, so I have to explain that I have no chance of going in and that they are just trying to get more people to apply, so they can deny more people and lower their admission percentage as much as possible.</p>
<p>It is really weird. With first child it was a weekly letter or pamphlet from Puget Sound. The kids in the pamphlets were never smiling which was strange. Second child it was weekly things from NYU. I mean at least 30 or 40 weeks of these things and she never even checked off their name for interest. Now my third kid also gets numerous U of Chicago letters, glossy pamphlets etc. I know I heard NYU did it to get people to apply and they always brag that more apply to NYU than anywhere else. But U of Chicago is considered up there with the ivies and my kid’s scores are not there. I counted 15 so far from them.</p>
<p>It’s hilarious and almost embarrassing. A school with a <10% acceptance rate is marketing this heavily for what reason?</p>
<p>I find it hilarious and amusing that some people would get so riled up with a successful marketing effort done by Chicago. Really amazing if you ask me.</p>
<p>They’re saying, “please apply, so that we can reject you to maintain our yield, and ultimately our high college ranking with USNWR” without saying it. I’m glad the posters are aware of this, based on these posts. Some kids however, really believe that they’re being recruited heavily by the school.</p>
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<p>This is what I assumed at first, but there’s no way average kids are going to be conned into dropping $75 to apply to Chicago, right? And aren’t they already like #5 on USNWR? Are they gunning for Columbia’s #4? Their ACT range was 24-36, maybe they genuinely want more minorities to apply?</p>
<p>My daughter, who does actually have the stats, has received at least 50 mailings, books, a poster, letters, articles, etc from this school. It’s crazy.</p>
<p>Tenth, Ego, and others,</p>
<p>Just curious, is there an “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of an email if you have received one?</p>
<p>I am wondering how easy or difficult to remove a person from the college’s mailing list. It will be a win-win situation for both college (any) and prospective students and their families. First the college can save money and effort not to market to unwanted people. Second annoyed people can have peace.
From another point of view I think college marketing is necessary. I remember someone here has said Apple was still marketing even it had big lead over its competitors. I totally agree with that person. College is not in ivory tower anymore these days. It needs peoples attention and it needs money. Image has something to do with it. We all know Mercedes-Benz and Apple (at least for now) are leaders in their respective industries. They are still marketing their products and keeping their images fresh. Why, maybe some UChicago Econ students can explain.</p>
<p>I do not think UChicagos aggressive marketing strategy primarily serves the purpose of driving down the admission rate (it has that intention to some extent, but the admission rate only counts 1.5% in the USNEWs ranking. 8.8% vs 13.2% has very small impact may be 0.0x). Its long-term purpose is to improve its branding. I think UChicagos name recognition is lagging its peers among the general public. After my Ds admission to the college the past year many people have asked where she was going. The results are very interesting. Most of high school students, recent college students and their families have known UChicago well and had great respect of it. But rest of general public has responded very differently. I have met about two dozen folks who have asked. Only a quarter of them have recognized it. When it was recognized it has received very positive remarks. Most of those folks are college educated though.</p>
<p>Some opinion says general public is not important. Only your future employers and graduate schools matter. I sort of disagree with that opinion. It is the ordinary people (now) who are applying colleges. They are not experts yet. They need to know what colleges exist and what their reputations (academic and others) are. If ordinary people do not know a college exists how can they apply to it?</p>
<p>But I will think a middle ground will be the best for the short-term and long-term goal of improving its branding. It does not need to blindly market to people who do not welcome the marketing materials. That will damage the long-term image among those folks. It may be a process question or an IT question to avoid market to wrong people (at least it should provide a feedback mechanism). I have done some Google search to find any hints regarding un-subscription and have not got any luck yet. Maybe there are already ways to unsubscribe but people are not aware of it or have not done so.</p>
<p>They’re probably trying to get more name recognition in the general population. They also probably also want to increase the types of students who are applying; I think they used to get applicants from a pretty narrow ‘type’ (nerdy, academically focused, etc.).</p>
<p>TranquilMind,</p>
<p>It is sort of crazy. But it is not too extreme in todays college application process.
My D had got many marketing materials during her high school senior year. Not only from UChicago but also from many top schools too.</p>
<p>At the beginning UChicago was not on the radar at all. Of course we had heard of it from USNEWS due to its high ranking there. And it was obvious in the city if Chicago according to its name. But we had known very little about it. What was its strength and what was its weakness no ideas. She had begun receiving some marketing materials (two dozen or so before her admission) in the summer before her senior year and she got excited about the school. So the number of materials had really changed her mind.</p>
<p>College application is a very hard and long process. E.g., UChicago requires two essays and an optional one in addition to the Common Application essays. If a student applies to 10 schools on average she needs to write 20 or so supplement essays. If one essay one day it will need 20 days on the top of normal busy schedule. Unless a student has known some schools very well or set on particular schools already some research is needed. For us the marketing materials are not a bad thing. We had reviewed the colleges materials briefly and done some deeper research to verify their claims. E.g., when we saw a UChicagos poster saying they had some 80+ Nobel prize winner affiliation we though it must be a printing mistake. How come did UChicago have that many? Then we had checked other sources and verified their claim.</p>
<p>In short if your student does not like UChicago at all after having received 50 materials it is probably time to unsubscribe from its mailing list. If your D is still making decision then digging deeper may help.</p>
<p>When you take the SAT, you may or may not check a box indicating you want to receive these kinds of materials from schools.</p>
<p>It means nothing.</p>
<p>If you checked the box and got over a certain score, all kinds of schools will send things to you.</p>
<p>I told my kids NOT to check the box!</p>
<p>Two years ago when my son was a senior we also received a ridiculous amount of mail from them. They hadn’t been on our radar at all, but when we were at a local college fair and they had a rep in attendance, I figured I’d give them a chance to sell us on the school. </p>
<p>I went up to their table (which didn’t have a crowd at the time) and their rep barely made eye contact with either me or my son. When I asked them questions the response I received was for their rep to simply point to their literature lying on the table, to which I responded, “I am CERTAIN we already have a copy of that at our house that was mailed to us.” I don’t think the rep said a single word to us at all.</p>
<p>If they are trying to court these students they should tell the reps they send to college fairs because from that point forward their mail went straight to the trash.</p>
<p>Wow jrcsmom that’s unfortunate about the personality of that admissions rep. I hope someone in the admissions office reads your post.</p>
<p>By the way, my favorite UChicago swag was the pizza cutter with the UChicago logo on it. It works really well!!</p>
<p>Hi we are not even Americans and received mailings - and not just from U Chicago I wonder how they found us? do they buy the ACT scores or SAT scores registration address or something? The school? They are not on my boy’s radar as they can’t offer what he wants - rowing and not club rowing</p>
<p>SAw the post above and noted my son likely checked the box ;)</p>
<p>Wait til you send your SAT scores – last year they sent free t-shirts to students after that. At least, my kid and several others who posted out here got them. And if you get accepted, parents and students get a lot of swag (shirts, scarf, pens, hats, coffee table book for parents at accepted student weekend, etc). I took the coffee table book, and my kid ended up attending another school – now really don’t know what to do with it! Ah, and as Kaukauna mentioned, the pizza cutter!</p>
<p>Oldladyandmom, if your kid checks a box when they take the SAT that they want to receive mailings from college, that will trigger mailings.</p>
<p>Alopez, there could be any number of reasons you were targeted and your friends weren’t, but generally speaking, it is active targeting, not just a shotgun approach. </p>
<p>By that, I mean that marketers select criteria to create their target list. Variables might include your percentile (eg. does your standardized testing put you in the top 5%, for example, of the national average? The top 2%? Or What school you go to (eg. are you in a magnet program or a program well known?); You may fall into a socio-economic demographic that they are seeking to reach (either end of this spectrum). Your postal code and performance of past students from your area can also influence your likelihood of receiving mail.</p>
<p>One particular magnet school in west Michigan is heavily heavily papered by Chicago…most notably the kids who were ever in any kind of G/T program.</p>
<p>Way back when my son was getting ready to go to college, I personally liked USC’s approach to targeted marketing. They were up front – in the first sentence of an introductory letter, it said “You were in the top 5 percentage of all students in the country…we’d like to invite you to apply for free” 
Direct, and got my son’s attention! Not that he applied. But I think he appreciated a) knowing WHY they were writing and b) that they were extending an invitation to apply for free. Seemed like savvy marketing to me.</p>
<p>My daughter started receiving mail from them toward the end of sophomore year when she took 2 APs (before she received the grades for the tests). She’s a senior now and the mail keeps on coming.</p>
<p>The answer is simple. They are looking for as many qualified full pay students as they can enroll before the college game collapses on itself.</p>
<p>skiblack, my daughter, who started getting mail from U. of Chicago as a sophomore (see above), goes to a very selective test-in high school where the majority of students are eligible for free lunch.</p>