We got that letter last week. It was more elegant than most. A slim envelope gets more style points than a clunky catalog. 
However, now that I know about the free Chicago T-shirt, I’m thinking my daughter has been shortchanged!
I wouldn’t say the Yale feeler has “no” value, selective schools probably will not send out mailings to students that have no chance of admission at all. However, they do cast a much wider net than the numbers they can admit and the mailings are typically based on a single data point, the standardized test score.
I am glad my daughter checked the box as she learned of some schools that are potential good fits that weren’t on our radar. She also got invites to apply to summer programs that we had never heard about previously. As for the rest, there’s a bonfire in our future on May 1, 2017, or thereabouts. We should start taking bets on how many s’mores it will fuel.
WUSTL wins for spam longevity - it started in her freshman year, how Wash U got her name is anybody’s guess. And her chances of getting in are only slightly less slim as her chances of getting into Yale.