<p>?>>…so it’s just not possible that some smart kid somewhere hasn’t heard of these colleges.<<</p>
<p>I think the vast majority of high-end kids at high schools all across the country have “heard of” the top colleges, but that’s not the same thing as having the awareness that they themselves are feasible candidates for those colleges and could actually go there. </p>
<p>Heck, my own daughter who went to Harvard (who was head of her class all the way through middle school and high school here in suburban San Diego) says it never once occurred to her to even think of applying to and attending Harvard until I suggested it to her near the end of her Jr. year of high school. She certainly wasn’t hearing about Harvard from the over-worked GC staff at her school. They were perfectly content to steer the smart kids to Berkeley and UCLA. Getting a kid into a UC (any UC) was their definition of success.</p>
<p>She’d heard of Harvard of course. References to it are everywhere in our culture. But again, hearing of some school and realizing you have a shot at getting accepted are two different things. </p>
<p>Now take me and my Harvard suggestion out of the picture and substitute some other parent who was less involved or less knowledgeable about the college process, and it could have easily been the case that she didn’t come to that realization about Harvard until 6 months later when she got a mailing from them after EA/ED time.</p>
<p>May not be an Ivy but still an important school. The email came in today.</p>
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<p>Coureur…I had the same situation with my D. She had of course heard of Harvard but it was not on her radar. She had thought about applying to some Ivy League schools but did not give it serious consideration until I suggested that she apply. She knew it was a very long shot but decided to apply anyway. Didn’t think she had a chance but ended up getting accepted. Hey, you never know unless you try:)</p>
<p>coureur, this is about mailers in late December. Of course, your advice to your D in junior year is the right thing to do and no one is saying that one shouldn’t be an informed parent especially in light of overworked or preoccupied high school guidance counselors. Nor is anyone saying not to apply, TessaR. I was simply saying that the last minute efforts tend to help the colleges vastly more than they will help to “discover” previously in the dark, worthy applicants.</p>
<p>^ erlanger, this might very well be true: “[T]he last minute efforts tend to help the colleges vastly more than they will help to ‘discover’ previously in the dark, worthy applicants.” But that begs the age-old philosophical question: If just one dark, worthy applicant goes to Amazing College because of the December mailing that is annoying to everyone who is already “in the know,” is that a bad thing? </p>
<p>justmytwocents, your post #215 addresses a situation well known to me at a podunk HS. CC’ers would be amazed to learn how many seniors and families are clueless and think this is a senior year project to move their child from HS to the local college they know best.</p>
<p>coureur and TessaR, your kids are so lucky you were informed! Thanks for sharing such great stories!</p>
<p>Yeah I know. Which is why I said that if I hadn’t told my daughter to apply to Harvard it wouldn’t have occurred to her until maybe when the December mailer came to our house - more than 6 months after I spoke to her. That’s the point - in spite of her having “heard of” Harvard, if I hadn’t urged her to apply the mailer would have been Harvard’s last shot at convincing her to give it a shot.</p>
<p>They also know where they live, no? In many cases they have much more detailed demographic info, depending on how forthcoming the student was at the time of testing. I doubt any suburban Chicago kid is receiving a mailing intended for the UP as others have implied on this thread.</p>
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<p>I do not agree with your supposition that a super high achieving high-stats kid needs to be from a town like Greenwich to be informed about these schools before December of their senior year. </p>
<p>I would bet most of the suburban kids who receive these mailing have already applied to a peer school of the sender. As I stated in an earlier post, I think these kids are the target as they are highly susceptible to panicking about getting rejected by their reach schools and therefore more likely to fill out last minute apps.</p>
<p>You may be right about your child but I am not persuaded that this is applicable to the population at large. Most high school kids may not be very well informed as juniors but they have a way of getting up to speed very fast once they start the process, no? How many super high-achieving high-stats kids really learn about these schools from mailings vs. peers and the internet (NTM parents, teachers, and counselors)? Of this IMO very small group of kids, how many are still uninformed in December of senior year?</p>
<p>I think you are left with a very small number of kids who fit this description. Are they the target of these colleges’ 11th hour marketing efforts? I don’t think so, not primarily.</p>
<p>Yes, it’s a very small group that is uninformed. But as I said, it’s not “being informed” about high-end schools that is the problem. Pretty much everyone in the US has heard of HYPSM and knows something about them. The trick is coming to the realization that you yourself can actually apply and maybe get accepted. That going to the Ivy league is not just something that happens to rich people on the east coast, or celebrities, or people in movies in TV shows. It can happen to you too. Little ol’ you - out here in your mediocre suburban high school, 2500 miles away from famous places like Boston, New York, and Washington DC.</p>
<p>That’s the kind of realization that the mailings are hoping to trigger. My daughter was never going to get that realization from her GC or teachers. It was either me or the mailers. For other kids at her or similar high schools, without parents plugged into the college process, it’s just the mailers.</p>
<p>Is the efficiency of these mailings pretty low? Yeah, it is. I bet far more go to kids who have no chance or are just thrown away by kids who aren’t interested. But it’s still worth it.</p>
<p>YZ, I don’t think you are really listening to those of us who are telling you that in parts of the country across from the coasts, unless you’re in a particularly affluent area or have parents who went to those kinds of schools, a lot of those schools are still perceived “for other people,” and not a place that’s realistic to aspire to. I don’t think you understand how not-on-the-radar-screen the Ivies (etc) are to the vast majority of people in the country, who might have “heard of Harvard” in the sense that if you put a gun to their heads and said, “Name the best school in the country,” but don’t really think of Harvard as a destination to go to.</p>
<p>I wonder how they evaluate the efficiency and efficacy of these mailings. Standard direct-mail expectations would suggest that a 2% response on something like this (which requires effort, not just returning a pre-addressed envelope) would be incredibly good, and then of course only 5% of those who apply (if that many) are going to get accepted, and a little less than 4% will actually enroll. So a stake-in-the-ground expectation would be 1 enrolled student for every 1,250 letters, and that’s probably unrealistic. </p>
<p>Say 8 enrolled students for 10,000 letters. They can’t possibly expect more than that, and in all likelihood they expect less. After all, the students who would not have applied absent this letter probably have a below-average chance of acceptance (more clueless, less time to prepare their apps), and the average for unhooked students in the RD round is pretty tiny to start.</p>
<p>Does that alter anyone’s views? Are you offended they would kill that many trees to get so few kids? Kids who, after all, are going to be hard to distinguish from the kids who would have gotten accepted instead of them had they not applied? Or are you comforted to know that the only way to get those particular kids is to sent thousands of letters to people who will throw them out and maybe get annoyed?</p>
<p>Perhaps that is just it, jhs. Perhaps they are looking for kids who will be distinguishable from the kids who have already been accepted. Perhaps they might find one kid who would never, ever consider going east, perhaps a URM, an undocumented, a kid who lived in a homeless shelter, or…</p>
<p>If they find that one “jewel” per year (their definition, not mine), would that alter anyone’s analysis of the effectiveness of the marketing program?</p>
<p>^#231. As romantic as you make that sounds, what is really the reality for the average applicant? What is the profile of the vast majority of all recipients of the mailings and what is the realistic chance of each individual of being accepted when they decide to follow through with the time and expense to submit the late applications? And if one uninformed kid gets in, wouldn’t he or she just replace another with similar and very deserving credential since the pool of candidates with great stats is so large and since the goal of the admission is to build a class with certain demographic profile? It is not hard to understand that the number of additional late applicants is basically the number of extra rejections that the school will get.</p>
<p>I just don’t think that it is good that students now are applying to so many more schools as the acceptance rate keep dropping. Is this kind of system of continual race to nowhere really serves any great benefit to the educational system as a whole? It seems to me that the whole process has become so cut throat and ultra competitive that the extra stuff really serves no one except the illusion of grandeur within the process itself.</p>
<p>Good description, jhs, of how such a mass-mailing works.</p>
<p>The ancillary benefit of all these blanketed approaches is “PR”- that soft category that is better knowledge of the brand in broader markets and more deeply into those markets. </p>
<p>Alumni mailings are a bit like this: fund-raising is the TANGIBLE goal , but the touchy feely stuff is still worth something even if funds are not raised directly as a result: building better awareness of the brand, building the community, keeping the name in front of the spender/user, updating on news and achievement of the brand, blah blah blah…
The alumni type mailings help with BOTH attracting students and funds from BOTH alums and non-alums.
It is very hard to do a regression analysis to measure which mailing to whom saying what was the most successful at attaining which goal. So it is all lumped together and thought of as being effective in a variety of ways. AND because of this imprecision MORE seems BETTER.</p>
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<p>I do feel that these mailings to prospective students COULD be a little more TARGETED (how much more would this really cost?)given how incredibly selective some of these schools are, and how may excellent AND diverse applicants they already have accessed. I think these colleges see it as another shot at getting a student to DECIDE TO APPLY in the blink of an eye once he/she sees one or enough of these mailers… hmmmm… while spreading around their hallowed brand name to the unfortunate/uninitiated/uninterested LOL</p>
<p>I have another thought:
Do you think these elite colleges believe it is important to have proof of very aggressive and broad and de facto imprecise outreach activities (till the last minute!) to defend themselves (legally; image-wise) against (potential) accusations of discrimination, i.e. pre-selection and preference for certain types/populations and disinterest in other types/populations of applicants?</p>
<p>Well, if they’re sending thousands of letters to get ten additional applications, at least we know they’re not doing it to get the fees. It would also mean they’re not looking for more people to reject.</p>
<p>To be clear, I’m guessing they get 10-20 applications per thousand letters. So, not quite “thousands of letters to get ten additional applications”. But thousands of letters to get 10 admitted students, and 25% more thousands to get 10 enrolled students.</p>