Drama of your "big envelope" acceptance moment being replaced by electronic delivery

[Papa_Chicken]

<p>not just email, via podcast, too
[Marketing</a> Momentum: College Acceptance Podcast](<a href=“http://marketingmomentum.blogspot.com/2006/03/college-acceptance-podcast.html]Marketing”>Marketing Momentum: College Acceptance Podcast)</p>

<p>

Fitchburg State College is doing away with acceptance letters in favor of podcasts. The Wired Campus recently reported more than 1,000 accepted students will receive an e-mail directing them to iTunes for Robert V. Antonucci’s, the college’s president, podcast.</p>

<p>A year ago, I was at a University Continuing Education Association conference where the keynote speaker said if you’re not utilizing communication technologies that your students use, then you’re not providing their preferred option of communication and likewise, eliminating their communication with you.</p>

<p>With the college’s move toward podcasting, Fitchburg State College is making the statement that it understands how its students prefer to communicate. But, Wet Feet PR raises a good question of what communication is given to those who do not get accepted.</p>

<p>At the college where I work, Frederick Community College, we surveyed students on how they preferred to receive communication for their first semester, and surprisingly they overwhelmingly chose snail mail over electronic communication. Go figure?!

</p>

[Papa_Chicken]

<p>editorial of by-gone era responding to facts of the post #20 article:
[No</a> e-mails in the college of life](<a href=“http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08093/869748-154.stm]No”>http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08093/869748-154.stm)</p>

<p>

As it happens, the nation is now at the peak of the dreaded college acceptance (or rejection) season. But something is different. Many young people are searching their e-mail to find out if they have been accepted/rejected for college. My colleague Anya Sostek reported on the remarkable phenomenon of e-mail notifications in yesterday’s Post-Gazette.</p>

<p>Although not every college does it, I read the report with mounting sorrow for the declining glories of yesteryear. It used to be that kids could find out if they got into college by the size of the envelopes the mailman delivered – large being good news; small, bad news.</p>

<p>This is civilized. The business of picking a college is like a courtship for both parties – one that could possibly lead to a lifetime relationship. Like a courtship, it should not be begun/ended with a curt electronic communication. It requires envelopes of appropriate size.</p>

<p>Many things in life require envelopes of appropriate size, or at least proper notes on paper or parchment befitting the gravity of the occasion.

</p>

[Kelowna]

<p>

One of my son’s friends got a text message on his cell phone. He was in class at the time and all the kids thought that was cool. I think the school was DePaul in Chicago. He’s decided on Boston College.

</p>

<p>I thought that was really cool, very in tune with how today’s teenagers communicate. They do not check their e-mails that often anymore, unless it is a blackberry ;)</p>

[casehopeful]

<p>hey I’m Colleen Hosler, and that was me mentioned in the article haha!</p>

[Narcissa]

<p>i’d TOTALLY rather have the mail. so much more exciting =D</p>

[Anon_Person_1]

<p>as a HS junior, I feel like while email would be anticlimatic, that checking a website is by no means anticlimatic. anyone who’s ever frantically checked for SAT scores knows the feeling-each refresh is another “trip to the mailbox” and your heartrate is on overdrive.</p>

[Johnson181]

<p>I really liked the online thing this year. I got my WashU decision on my birthday, and clicking the ‘click here to see your admissions decision’ made me so nervous - but the acceptance was great.</p>

<p>The only school that sent the decision in an email was JHU. Ironically, it got caught in the spam folder and I didn’t get it until after I had gotten the big envelope in the mail (over a week after the date…).</p>

[BAfromBC]

<p>When my D received a "thin’ envelope from Amherst, initially, I assumed it was a rejection, but it was, in fact, a lovely acceptance letter stating that the “fat” envelope would follow in about a week. I guess parents of my generation should realize that the old rules no longer apply and that there is no uniformity in how decisions are delivered. </p>

<p>Still, I think holding that letter in your hand is a bigger rush and more ''real" than reading an email…but the young’uns may disagree!</p>

<p>My D said she thought I was crazy when I framed the letter, but several times thereafter I caught her looking at it in some state of reverie. I think in the end that she preferred the letter to an email, as well. ;)</p>

[MommaJ]

<p>I’ll never forget the day 4 years ago when my son’s ED acceptance arrived. He wasn’t expecting it on any particular day and was working late at the school newspaper. We called him and said we were coming by and he had to meet us outside the school to pick up a new key since the door lock had been changed that day and we were going to be out for the evening. He was annoyed at the interruption and he grumbled his way out to our car and held his hand out for the supposed key–and we whipped out that fat envelope! His jaw dropped, he grabbed the envelope, and then danced his way back onto the building. A fun moment.</p>

[MidwestMom2Kids_1]

<p>I think “checking the website” is the safest and thus the best way for kids to get their admissions decisions. Regular mail can be lost or misdelivered by the carrier, and email can end up lost in the spam.</p>

[rusty333]

<p>An e-mail from Kenyon next to a p***s enlargement add in my spambox is all I got for Christmas ;p</p>

[standrews]

<p>How about the drama of receiving a skinny, waitlist envelop followed 5 weeks later by a phone call informing you that you are being offered a spot?</p>