<p>I love how the ivy league (and other schools) deploy all these marketing techniques to get more students to apply so that their acceptance rates to go down, but at the same time all you here from these admissions officers is that they're mortified as to how competitive things have gotten in recent years...</p>
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They are willing to lose that money to get the apps because it helps with their ratings and ensures a large pool of applicants from which they can choose.
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<p>At the very least, the latter reason is operative. A college can only keep its reputation, or indeed its very existence, if it enrolls a lot of good students. So the colleges have to encourage lots and lots of applications, to be in the position of choosing the best possible group of students to admit. Then most colleges struggle once more to preserve "yield" among the group of students they have admitted who have also received offers of admission from other colleges. It's expensive to recruit good students. A lot of colleges try to show love to high school students early and often, hence the flood of recruiting letters.</p>
<p>yup its all a marketing scheme...more applicants=increased selectivity=more rejections=more desirable. yeah the ivy leagues are evil.</p>
<p>Its all a marketing scheme, and its pretty deplorable. Your parents get letters every month offering them credit cards, to refinance their house, etc. and they don't think for a moment the head of Citibank or Wells Fargo has taken a personal interest in them and told their secretary "write this family and tell them we want them as customers!" </p>
<p>But colleges send out letters by the basket to kids that aren't used to this kind of marketing campaign, letters that are written to make it seem like some adcom has personally reviewed their file (although its never clear how they got the file before the student applied) and wants them. So you see sentences like "We're very impressed with your accomplishments so far!" and "You'd be one of our top applicants.", etc. The whole letter is written to make it sound like you're a recruited athlete and they just can't wait to get your app so they can add you to their class.</p>
<p>And so of course you see posts along the lines of "doesn't it mean something?". No, it doesn't. I can pretty much guarantee you that no living person at the college sending you the letter has ever even heard of you; these letters are all generated by marketing companies hired by the colleges, and even the signature is machine-written. All it means is you've taken the SAT or ACT and your info is available to the marketing companies.</p>
<p>Colleges don't throw away money. If they are sending you a letter, that means that you are on a list that makes them think you might be an appropriate applicant to that school. As others mentioned, it may be your scores, or some other characteristic like where you live or the school you attend. It may also be some other kind of list--my son receives many letters from Christian colleges, because several years ago at a retreat he filled out a form with his address.
I don't think any schools are just trying to get applications they can reject, but some of them may be willing to spend the money to cast a fairly wide net to try to reach potential applicants.</p>
<p>Sometimes the colleges may actually be trying to recruit to you. I may just be overthinking this, but I'm from the Mid-Atlantic region, and all the letters from the so-called "selective" schools I've received are in the Midwest & the South, which may indicate to me that they are looking to "recruit" students from all areas of the country. i.e, I got letters from Carleton, Rice, Emory, Washington University in St. Louis, Tulane, University of Chicago...</p>
<p>I found it really strange that I hardly got any letters from "selective" schools in the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic though. Maybe my scores weren't good enough? I dunno.</p>