My son and daughter, a few years apart, get very different mailings. Not sure what is so different about them other than gender. Same HS, same score on ACT (although son did go up 1 point after take #2). She got so much stuff from Augustana; he’s gotten nothing. He gets a lot of Kenyon, but also gets Iowa State. And yes, they both got lots of U Chicago.
Most enticing mailings to me: the ones for schools I sort of wish I had gone to (Williams!).
And the one’s recruiting for sports! Those seem more real/personal.
After my son my two daughters got zero mailings because they didn’t check the box at the SAT’s. I think they would have been a huge distraction and the waste in terms of paper and postal services is staggering. The mailings don’t mean the colleges want you, don’t mean much at all, just marketing and manipulation of statistics like acceptance rate.
@booajo, My twins don’t always get the same mailings, either. It’s hard to figure what prompts them. But so many of them are completely generic. You would think that if they were spending the money they would say something to try to distinguish themselves from other colleges. If they can’t, or don’t care to try, it’s very telling.
My daughter only keeps the brochures of colleges she might be interested in-probably less than one in ten.
She has put them aside in a box for reference in case she decides to apply and needs a quick reference guide to help her with the “Why_____” essays.
Brochures did nothing for my kids or us parents. Neither kid spent even a minute on college guides. Information on line was more than sufficient, even in the late 1990’s when they were applying. I did most of the general research and information gathering. Nonetheless, I dutifully put all the mailings – including application forms (no common aps for my kids) – in a file box. And so the forms for the roughly 15 colleges that they applied to were useful to have on hand.
We have gotten a few mailers telling us about info sessions that are happening in our area. Those are greatly appreciated! And thanks to CC we are on the lookout for mailers with free application vouchers. I do shake my head though at the postcards with generic slogans that tell us nothing useful. (“BOUNDLESS.” What does that mean?! :-< )
Edit: my D is saving all of her college mailings. She’s planning on some sort of ritual when this is all over.
We got a brochure from SUNY Oswego this week letting us know that there will be free ice cream after some tours this summer. I’m ready to jump in the car, but alas, my son was not persuaded.
:-<
A couple of years ago we received a postcard for the Harvard/Princeton/UVa/Yale road show addressed to our dog. I guess at some point one of us must have used the dog’s name when filling out something college related (maybe the NACAC college fair registration?) and the name/address was sold.
At any rate, I still have it on the magnetic board next to my computer and it still cracks us up.
@ChoatieMom The dog is almost as uncommunicative about her college thoughts as her 2-legged brother (my rising 11th grade son), but my DD did pick one of the colleges on the postcard.
Perhaps mailing to canine family members is a new stealth marketing ploy?
the best mailing is the first one you get! if a college gets a jump on the other schools by even a day and is your first one…they will stick out in your memory. after a while you get so many it is overwhelming. and I was not a stellar high school student and I got tons. even with low psat and sat scores.
I had an LOL moment when a naval CPO texted me on my cell to access my DDs. how cheeky is that? How does the navy get my personal phone number? One up on mailings for sure!
I got a lot of texts and calls for my daughter. If she used my phone number on something (we had no land line), the contacts came through me. I had to tell many coaches and recruiters that she wasn’t interested in their school.
We did learn about a lot of schools by mailings. I’d never heard of Sweet Brier, Oglethorpe, or Converse. When my daughter’s game schedule comes out, I often think “Oh yes, I remember that school from the mailings” but there are always new ones I have never heard of.
