Is anyone here being contacted by Harvard?
What do you mean? Are you referring to marketing materials?
We got a letter and packet from them, unsolicited, as well, encouraging my son to visit and apply. The cynical side of me says it’s because they want more top-tier scoring kids to apply so they have more to reject but that’s just me. I didn’t think we should take it too seriously…?
Harvard sends advertising material to many, many, many students. It doesn’t mean anything. at. all. It’s just advertising, no different from a commercial on TV.
Yeah, the trash can is your friend. Oops, that should be “recycling bin,” sorry.
These mailings mean nothing. To avoid them, have your kids (in the future) NOT check the box at the SAT’s. The mailings are computer generated based on some benchmark score and certainly help with “yield” rankings. Pay no attention, throw them out. If you kid is interested in Harvard independent of those mailings, great, schedule a visit,
We get a big kick out of the mail. S19 has received info from all Ivies. Beautiful, long letters that look like they are “special” and look books that came in separate mailings. We know they don’t mean anything. Even with super high scores and grades, those schools are a long shot of course. I just need to look on our Naviance to see all of the high scorers who got denied. We know he’s not being personally recruited that’s for sure.
I’m pretty sure we are getting mailings solely on S19’s PSAT score and because he checked that box!
Does it mean anything if you DON’T get information from the Ivies?
That you had the good sense not to check the box on your PSAT saying you wanted to receive mailings? =))
No, it means nothing either way.
Phew. Thank you so much! :))
Shouldn’t the box on PSAT be checked so the score could be sent for NMS qualification? My S19 did not receive anything particular from Harvard but got a nice nearly-100-pages booklet from Yale. We are not sure what scores prompted the advertising though. PSAT, SAT, ACT, AP?
^Who knows? My D’s scores weren’t very high and she still got mailings from top schools.
We got mail from Harvard after each daughter took the PSAT. It went into the recycle bin along with many other advertisements every day for two years times two daughters. Harvard was not nearly as persistent as some other schools in the area.
Harvard and Stanford and many other schools want more applicants so that they can turn down more applicants so that they will be seen as more “selective”. I am not sure if it matters whether you are a high scoring applicant – the low scoring ones can be rejected with less effort on their part.