Emails from Columbia and Princeton?!?!!?

Hi everyone!
I have been getting mail and emails from Columbia university and Princeton. I’ve taken the ACT and I got a 31. I don’t think they would contact someone with a grade as low as mine, though. I was wondering, could it be my ECs?

What was in the email? If they are saying something around “you should apply here!” or “this is why our college is good!”, then you are a participant in their acceptance rate game. Elite colleges spend hundreds of thousands of dollars each year sending mail and emails to students like you; who never really thought of applying to those colleges. But when they see the email they think “this good school wants me!” and they apply, paying the application fee and probably wasting it so that these colleges can have a lower acceptance rate and higher “prestige”.

Don’t look into it. They send them to everyone if they have test scores within some point of their range.

They want to get as many people to apply as possible so that they can reject more people and jack up their selectivity. Sorry to break it to you, but it has nothing to do with you personally. Don’t take their emails as a sign that they are interested in you. It’s just marketing.