<p>I just thought that was really personal of them to actually take the time and hand write a part of the "congratulations" note from the regional admissions counselor. This is actually the first hand written anything from any college that I've gotten :D</p>
<p>Anyone else?</p>
<p>My admissions counselor sent me a happy birthday card this month!</p>
<p>Guess they’re afraid of losing you to another great college football team…</p>
<p>@Dad2: Sigh. I’ve heard of many “average” students (no athletic hook) being sent birthday cards and other handwritten notes. Not sure if all Stanford admissions officers do it, but the one for my region has.</p>
<p>Ooh, I want a Stanford birthday card! It’d certainly ease the pangs of rejection…</p>
<p>I got one too! It said something about my commitment to humanitarianism through biomedical engineering, which is what I wrote my essay about.</p>
<p>I think everyone gets a birthday card. I’ve seen many posts on Facebook and CC about it.</p>
<p>I love Stanford Admissions Office!</p>
<p>just out of curiosity what regions are you guys from?</p>
<p>Yeah i got a Stanford Birthday card too :D</p>
<p>Oh and the handwritten note. It was cute because my essay was about rifle shooting and so she wrote “Congratulations on hitting this target” which is an obvious reference to my essay :D</p>
<p>I’m from Orange County, CA</p>
<p>some call the admits instead of sending cards</p>
<p>^Yes, and some do all of the above. It’s the second-most wonderful thing about being admitted early. The first-most wonderful thing is, of course, having a relaxing and happy second semester of senior year.</p>
<p>I got a call from my admissions officer, an email, and a handwritten note, all referencing my essays and ec’s. I don’t have a “hook” (at least I don’t think so) and I’m not an athlete.</p>
<p>So if they do this hand-written birthday/congrats note, why can’t they mail us our rejection letters? :P</p>
<p>Unfortunately, my birthday is in October. No birthday card for me.</p>
<p>why waste paper on 31500 rejection letters?
they actually get something out of contacting admits</p>
<p>Those 31500 (or at least a good chunk of them) put their heart, souls, time and 95 bucks into their applications. The least Stanford can do is send a paper rejection letter. Juuust sayin’. :P</p>
<p>From what I understand, these birthday cards are sent to applicants in general. Might be wrong though.</p>
<p>I thought that they didn’t send paper rejection letters because they didn’t want to ‘rub it in’…
Maybe I’m alone here, but if I was rejected, I wouldn’t want a typed-up, printed reminder of that.</p>
<p>I’m with ya sunsun! Being able to hold the actual letter in my hands and then filing it away (or burning it) would help give a sense of closure.</p>
<p>If I get rejected, I’m making a shirt that says “I applied to Stanford and all I got was a stupid rejection email.”</p>
<p>They’re probably sending all this stuff because they want to improve their yield rate (which is spectacular already! around 70%).
They don’t get any yield rate benefits from sending paper letters to rejects.</p>
<p>So? It seems like a decent thing to do. Rejected people are still human, and many of them are pretty highly qualified in their own right.</p>
<p>wait so if you get a birthday card, does that mean you were rejected?</p>
<p>no. why would they waste their time doing that?
birthday cards only get sent to early admits</p>