Hello I’m currently a HS junior. At the beginning of December of 2014, I got two university letters in the mail saying to enter a specific web code for me to enter. sure enough I enter the codes the universities sent me by mail and saw my name in bold letters greeting me on the code site. Both schools asked for my proper email and my mom’s as well. Those two schools send letters to my mom claiming that they were impressed with me(I’m not even an A student). They got my contact information from National Research Center for College and University Admissions. Anyways they’ve send some email to my mom at least 3 times with my name on the headline like “Jose’s college future…” or “Jose is headed to success” with the letters stating that I’d be a great fit to their school. So I would like to know if this is truly a real recruitment letter. oh btw I haven’t took the ACT/SAT yet and I’m from Texas(no harvard, yale, princeton just schools here in texas)
no it is just marketing trash
No. Plan to get about 25 to 30 more of those after you take the SAT or ACT. They will all be almost identical. Really, I sometimes think there is a company that colleges hire to do all this for them.
Enter the code if you think you might want to learn more about a school, but it means nothing at all about whether you’ll get in or not.
Oh, and if you don’t want to get these letters and emails, do NOT check the student search box when you register for the SAT.
wow that is messed up…
This is all marketing.
Set up a separate email account just for college stuff. Do NOT write down your or your mom’s real email address, give this address instead. I would NOT check the box saying you give ACT/SAT to release your email address to colleges (more marketers!).
Last, if you do not want emails from a particular college, you can unsubscribe from their mailing list. The info is at the bottom of the email.
Think for a minute and ask yourself why any school would recruit you as a junior who is “not even an A student” and hasn’t yet taken the SAT or ACT.
Prepare yourself for the marketing onslaught. Don’t let it go to your head that Stanford sent you a brochure.
^ Or UChicago. They send so much stuff out, its impressive the EPA hasn’t been contacted about paper shortages. They literally send textbooks of advertisments
I second using a separate account for college marketing. I used one of my separate, but still well used, email addresses, and I’m still trying to clean up the mess. It’s worth creating a whole separate email for.
However, for common app stuff and for colleges you apply for, use your primary email or one that doesn’t spam filter. Definitely worth it.
Colleges send you emails for two reasons:
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Advertising - for colleges that you may not know about, but that you would match academically. They would like you to learn about them an apply.
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To get more people to apply - for colleges that you HAVE heard about (Harvard, Columbia), they keep their rankings partially based on their acceptance rate. The more people who apply, the more people they can turn down. So they send email to people who really have no chance (but are still pretty good).