I’m a UChi grad and DD’s first time on campus was when, as a 1-2 year old, she attended the wedding of my best college friend in Bond Chapel (right on the Quads if you’re not familiar). As she grew up, she had no interest in attending UC as wanted to do her own thing. I kept my mouth shut. Then she started getting mail from them, and went from rolling her eyes to chuckling to looking forward to opening them. One day, much to my surprise, she told me she thought the school was really neat and wanted to apply.
Now she has an admission in hand. Would not have happened without the mailings.
BTW, she was quite perturbed that her BFF, who has no interest in UChicago, received a t-shirt while DD did not. Maybe they’ll send her one now.
This is all part of their effort to drive up application numbers. It isn’t unusual to get 20 emails and a dozen mail shots. Happened to me and many at our school.
They are trying to get the name recognition with applicants that other top colleges automatically get though their sports programs or simply by being in the Ivy League athletic conference. Everyone has heard of Notre Dame, but not everyone has heard of UChicago despite it being a much more academically prestigious university.
One of the students I was working with was inundated with mail, emails etc. When he didn’t complete his application, they actively followed up, encouraging him to do so and reminding him that there was no application fee (he needs significant FA). After talking it over, he decided to apply. He was then rejected. While this isn’t surprising, it was crushing for him as he believed (despite my warnings otherwise) they really wanted him. This differs from when Ted O’Neill was in charge. He didn’t believe in leading students on and would provide very frank advice. And when his AOs said they were interested, they were.
@exlibris97, was the outreach by the AO specifically tailored to him or just a template letter/e mail sent out to everyone? That would certainly be a big clue. Welcome to marketing. And it’s not just UChicago. My friend’s daughter who had SAT superscores in the 1800’s was receiving stuff from Harvard encouraging her to apply. As long as people keep buying and believing the rankings and seeing colleges as the end game then this will continue. Students and parents have to stop treating college admissions as some sort of competition to get a trophy. I saw this attitude over and over again. My D applied to UChicago but for all the right reasons. Students should not apply if they cannot articulate intelligently why they are applying to every college on the list
Maybe, but that isn’t the point, the point is that they advertise that the bottom is pretty low which encourages regular students to apply that really have no shot.
I would agree with that, and UChicago is taking the hits because of its evolving admissions policies over the last few years. The other top schools, like you said, have been doing this for a long time.
