How common is it to receive letter from admissions asking you to apply, out of the blue?

[gibby]

How common is it? Well, if the numbers haven’t changed since 2011, your 11th grader was one of 80,000 students who received unsolicited information from Yale: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-05-13/ivy-league-solicits-students-to-boost-selectivity

Consumer groups said that the nonprofit College Board, which owns the SAT college admission test, and its nonprofit rival, ACT Inc., are making money by selling personal details about teenagers. The companies collect information on millions of test takers and both sell names and information to colleges at 33 cents a name.

Yale, which admitted 7.4 percent of applicants this year, cut its mailings by a third since 2005 to 80,000, Jeffrey Brenzel, dean of undergraduate admissions, said in an interview.