<p>Yes, but if a parent can save enough to fund full cost of a state school before the child is born, good chance they could save enough for any school if it was the goal by the time the child was applying.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Agreed with the need for the basics. If a student’s stats are low for the school, visiting every weekend with fresh chocolate chip cookies in hand isn’t going to make a bit of difference. The question is then how to get the best kids who will actually enroll. Imagine you’re a GWU adcom and you’ve got a bunch of high-stats applicants. Some of them never visited, never attended an info session at their high school, didn’t request an interview, and then submit a generic essay about how they want to go to school in DC. Others, well, show the love in some or all of these ways. And then you’ve got some kids with slightly lower stats who demonstrate that they really want to attend GWU. GWU has some nice juicy scholarship goodies to distribute, but it’s not an infinite supply. Mix that all together, and then voila, you get the RD acceptance threads from previous years where you have 3.9 UW/2200 students insulted that GWU, their safety school, dared to reject them. Those kids always make comments about how they don’t care, because they were accepted at Georgetown or Johns Hopkins, SO THERE. :rolleyes: In the meantime, some of those slightly lower stats kids not only snag acceptances, they might get some merit money to boot. </p>
<p>It’s not that a visit involving overnight travel is necessary. It’s making an effort to show that you care enough to have learned something about the school. Like others have said, the student should be able to explain WHY they want to go to that school. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Up until acceptance letters come out, selective schools are in the driver’s seat and it’s a seller’s market. Then the tables turn, and the prospies get sucked up to by the schools. I think we’re all looking forward to that part. :)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Redroses, </p>
<p>Saving for private school or out of state tuition isn’t my goal. I feel that money would be better spent on other things that are also important. If my kids should be interested in a more expensive school, I’ll certainly help them apply for various funding that is available to help cover the difference.</p>
<p>The time to show love is when you end up on a wait list. Schools do not like to make offers to waitlisted applicants unless they are quite sure the applicant will say ‘yes’.</p>
<p>Determining which schools take interest into account may be as simple as looking at the number of applicants. Anything over 10,000 (and maybe even 5,000) is going to prove too unwieldy for the university to track interest. There are two basic reasons for a large number of applications: high demand (ivies) and large student body (big stat U’s).</p>
<p>I suspect that showing interest in a school is just one of many criteria, that maybe for a kid that is borderline the interest thing might be a criteria.</p>
<p>I have another thought to throw out there, it could also be used in another context, one I have heard in the context of music school auditions. What would happen when a school gets an application from a student who is of such a high caliber, is so much above the average level of their typical application, that they decide this is someone using them as a safety? Could ‘show me the love’ mean “there is no way this kid really wants to go here”. In the music school context, I have heard of kids who auditioned at the high level programs, like NEC,Juilliard, etc, got accepted, yet didn’t get accepted at the less competitive programs, and supposedly they were told it was because it was obvious the student at that level wouldn’t go there…This is conjecture, but it seems like a logical conclusion in some cases.</p>
<p>That is the well known but controversial “Tufts syndrome” where schools will reject kids whose stats or achievements are “too high” because they assume the kid will get into a higher tier school and will go there and is just using them as a safety. There is certainly tons of anecdotal evidence that this goes on, and “showing the love” is supposed to be a way to overcome that perception by the school if you are a candidate that appears “too good” for them. Schools like Tufts, WashU, JHU, UVm, are some that are widely perceived to behave this way.</p>
<p>
lol. Yeah, right. That’s exactly what is happening. It couldn’t be that 100’s or thousands of those same messages are being sent. (And yes. Even if they seem “customized”.) You’d be wise not to count those chickens just yet if those schools are among the most-selective. </p>
<p>
Sorry. But to be blunt…this plan is doomed. Play the game or don’t. It’s your call. But don’t expect the system to change to suit you in time to help your kid gain an acceptance.
See “100’s and thousands” of marketing pieces, above. The only demonstrated interest from them **that you can count on ** is an official acceptance and $ in a bag with your kid’s name on it. Other than that, it’s all marketing.
Maybe on this most basic of levels is where we differ. Maybe I’ve drank the kool-aid but I don’t see a college education as anything resembling pork-bellies. ;)</p>
<p>IMO, “Tufts syndrome” is just simply a way of saying “yield-aware” or “yield-conscious”. And if yield-aware is a disease, demonstrated interest is the most effective medicine.</p>
<p>There are many ways to show interest without stepping foot on grounds. Request to be put on email or snail mail distribution lists. Do attend regional school fairs and fill out interest forms. Contact regional reps if the school has them. Schools that track demonstrated interest (Emory is notorious) want to know you didn’t just fill out the application on a whim or that they are 1 of 20 schools you are applying to and they were not high enough on your list to get serious attention/fact finding.</p>
<p>“I have mixed feelings on demonstrated interest.”</p>
<p>“The time to show love is when you end up on a wait list.”</p>
<p>Sorry to repeat my prior post…but applicants need to keep in mind that there are schools that specifically state in their common data set that showing interest is considered as an admissions criteria. If a school is so open to state that showing interest is an admissions criteria – an applicant would be foolish NOT to show interest, or to wait until they are put on a wait list. Showing interest doesn’t have to be an on-campus visit…especially for a student who lives far away. But that student will need to make other efforts - as noted already on this thread - to contact people on campus(especially admissions staff), go to any “road shows” that take place near them, contact a local alum etc. </p>
<p>The challenge, of course, is the schools that say inerest is not considered…but we all think it really is. I have a child admitted to HYPMS schools, as well as a tier below – and, prior to admission, that child never visited any of the schools or did any contact other than the required alum interview. However, wrote greatl “why this school” essay (unique to each school) when it was required.</p>
<p>In fairness to Tufts, they have made a highly concerted effort to change their rep in terms of yield management. Some kids even have it as their first choice. ;)</p>
<p>A good friend of our applied to Emory and was under consideration for big $$, and was told by Emory staff that he absolutely needed to make the pilgrimage to Atlanta. If you are a DC-area student and can’t bestir yourself to get on the Metro to visit GWU or AU, don’t expect an acceptance.</p>
<p>As to mail from colleges, S1 got 124 pounds of college mail. He weighed under 120 lbs. at the time. This did not count the over 1,000 emails he also received. S2 got a little less snail mail as colleges have gone greener in the past couple of years, but nevertheless, it’s a lot of dead trees. My brother and SIL made a big to-do about their D getting stuff from Harvard – sorry folks, it’s just junk mail!</p>
<p>^ I don’t disagree that unsolicited mailings are the result of marketing. My point that personally requesting to be added to them can show demonstrated interest without going on grounds.
Many schools are not going to notice. The ones that care about demonstrated interest track this. The ones that want your attention, want it before they admit. If you end up on a wait list and want to move on in admissions, it simply makes sense to show interest at that point…or they will give the spot to the student who wrote to confirm continued interest and whose GC called and sent an updated transcript. Go ahead and stick your heels in while you don’t agree with the system. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.</p>
<p>^^ True! So can sending back some of the goofy postcards that one receives in the mail (Carleton sent these, and we know they wanted to feel the love). Both my kids got the postcards from Chicago, but never sent them back and were accepted anyway – but they both went to two in-school visits from the admissions rep as well as the local area lovefest.</p>
<p>There are some schools (Claremont Consortium, Pomona and a couple of other LACs, etc.) who do group presentations in major cities. These can be good things to attend and get your name on their attendance/mailing list, etc. Check the schools you’re interested in – CMC posted their group tours on the website long before we got a postcard.</p>
<p>It’s perfectly understandable why many schools want to see “demonstrated interest.” They’re in a highly competitive market, competing for the best students. The most valuable thing they have to offer in that competition is a place in the entering class. They can only make so many offers, and they don’t want to waste them on kids who, for whatever reason, are unlikely to accept. They also want to manage their yield, both in the interest of meeting (i.e., neither undershooting nor overshooting) their enrollment target, and in the interest of keeping their acceptance rate low, in part because it matters at least a little in the US News rankings which many prospective students and their families use as guidance on the relative desirability of colleges. So they try to identify not only the best qualified candidates, but the best qualified candidates who, if offered, are likeliest to choose to attend.</p>
<p>There are lots of ways to “show the love.” A campus visit is obviously nice, but there are time and money constraints on how many of these a student can do. Colleges understand that and undoubtedly take distance and financial factors into account. But if you live nearby and never visit the campus and don’t show up at any of the campus open house days scheduled for that purpose, it’s not unreasonable for the school to infer you’re likely less interested than your HS classmate who DOES show up. Short of a campus visit, they’ll look at your application essays and whether they show some real understanding of and appreciation for unique features of the school; whether you attended an info session they went out of their way to schedule at your school; whether you stopped by their table and signed in at your local college fair; whether you signed up online to be on an e-mail listserve; whether you asked for an optional alumni interview in your hometown; and on and on. And of course, at the end of the day nothing says “I love you” to a college as much as that ED application, the only truly reliable indication of undying, “You’re my one and only” devotion you could possibly give them.</p>
<p>Go to the schools web page and ask to be added to their junk mail list. If the school comes to your school, you should go to the meeting and shake hands with the regional rep. If they are at a local collage fair, go meet with the rep and ask a question that might get you remembered. Maybe get an interview with a local alumnus set up through the admissions office. That’s showing a little love. Not everybody can get on a plane or a train and spend a day on the campus if it is far away. These schools want some geographic diversity and some economic diversity. They are not going to give you the cold shoulder just because you can’t make it to campus - if you live far away.</p>
<p>I certainly understand that some colleges consider demonstrated interest when deciding whether or not to admit someone.</p>
<p>However, is there reliable evidence that colleges award merit scholarships based in part on demonstrated interest?</p>
<p>APenny, I doubt my one data point is “reliable” enough for you but a few years back my kid racked up a sizable amount (read: a whole bunch) of competitive merit scholarships. I’d say that demonstrated interest mattered a great deal for the biggest scholarships at the smaller schools (LAC’s). And less at the few small-ish uni’s in play (Case and Miami). </p>
<p>In fact, when she expressed greater interest in a couple of her LAC’s, they upped her scholarship amount substantially from their initial merit award.</p>
<p>Now, she showed the uni’s some love, too. Just didn’t visit.</p>
<p>I will say at the school my son is eligible for merit aid, we are considering a visit to meet and greet with dept head etc. He’ll need aditional departmental scholarships to stack to make the OOS venture doable. Flip side is, this is his safety. We want to make sure he’s not overlooked for these awards if they think an OOS kid with high stats will go elsewhere.</p>
<p>Our GC said on geo diversity, love can be important even in the face of “it’s too far to expect a visit” because if an ad com can’t see any obvious explanation for why in the world a kid from one environment would want to go a far distance from home to a distinctly different setting, they may not waste an admit.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well, there’s anecdotal “evidence,” if you can call it that (and remember what they say, “the plural of ‘anecdote’ is not ‘data.’”) But I wouldn’t call it “reliable.” </p>
<p>The anecdotal lore says some colleges do attempt to calibrate merit awards to demonstrated interest. But they do it in a a way that doesn’t always translate into more money for more interest. Show little or no interest and they may offer you no money, figuring you’re probably not coming anyway, so why bother? Show some love and they may show you some money. Show more love and they may show you more money. But show them endless, undying love, and they may show you little or no money because they figure they’ve already got you hooked and their money is better spent on persuading someone with slightly less (but still substantial) ardor. Rumor has it Emory operates that way, making individual calculations as to how much merit aid they’d need to land each admit, then spreading the available money around to help them land the strongest class.</p>