<p>Each year, many thousands students may be visiting to many Ivy Colleges. For each school, students fill out a form telling school about themselves. After collecting this information do Ivy colleges maintain a database about a student? </p>
<li><p>Does all Ivy League school send routine mails (or emails) to each applicant home for thanking them to visit? Or some colleges do this while others do not do this as they think it is waste of time? Is this </p></li>
<li><p>How do Ivy League schools keep tabs on students who visited them? Just curious about it.</p></li>
<li><p>If all schools follow up and some school did not reply should we think that particular schools have no interest in the kid? </p></li>
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<p>I am curious as student received mails from some schools and did not receive mails from other schools. Trying to figure out that if a student did not receive any mail from a particular school does it mean apathy from school or simply too many kids visit that particular school and for them it is not important.</p>
<p>Communication plans vary from school to school, but it's safe to say that when a student fills out a card or form online, they're being entered into an inquiry database. The information gathered helps us target the right audience with our emails and publications (so engineering brochures don't go to performing arts majors, for example). Follow up communication (or lack of it) should not be seen as an indication of a school's interest in a student. </p>
<p>Most schools have student information systems that allow personalized info to be inserted into generic emails/letters so that we appear to be sending something unique to that student. Don't read too, too much into these things.</p>
<p>At some schools, the inquiry database is sold to companies who then market graduation googahs, "Who's Who" entries, credit cards, student exchange services, private college counseling, etc. </p>
<p>Monitor your mail, and you'll see it happen before your very eyes. (Put an error in your middle initial or something, and you can actually track it.)</p>
<p>I know a student who got a "personalized" note from an admissions officer thanking her for taking the time to interview with her, with a handwritten P.S. at the end.</p>
<p>The kicker: the student had never visited the school, had never even been on that side of the country, had never met the admissions officer! (Admissions rep had not visited the student's high school and student had not attended any "college fairs," so there was simply no way the student could ever have met her!)</p>
<p>Student had apparently gotten on some mailing list because of PSAT and I guess the college must somehow have gotten their mail-merge lists confused and accidentally sent her the wrong form letter!</p>
<p>(At least that mixup wasn't as bad as the cases of the colleges that accidentally mixed up their email lists for accepted and rejected students and sent a mass-mailing congratulating the rejected students on their admission and telling them about a special admitted-students event!)</p>
<p>At least that's what we were told back in October when we were there for a tour. Despite that, prospective students were given the chance to enter their contact information into a database, and computers were available for this purpose. I don't know how Princeton uses that information. I can't remember if D has received any mailings. Offhand I would say no.</p>
<p>Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Penn, and Brown couldn't care less if you visit. They certainly don't track it. Columbia does care and asks about all contacts the applicant has made with them on the application . We did not visit Dartmouth or Princeton so I couldn't say.</p>
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At some schools, the inquiry database is sold to companies who then market graduation googahs, "Who's Who" entries, credit cards, student exchange services, private college counseling, etc.
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A lot of that info is given out by alumni associations and by the companies associated with standardized testing. None of the schools at which I've worked have allowed those outside the recruitment process to have access to admission inquiry database.</p>
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I guess the college must somehow have gotten their mail-merge lists confused and accidentally sent her the wrong form letter!
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These sorts of things, while unfortunate, are bound to happen. In addition, well-meaning relatives sometimes put a child on mailing lists that will bring in the junk mail. Every once in a while, I'll run a date of birth report off our inquiry system and see a few elementary school children in there. While it's possible, I don't think many 2nd graders are putting themselves on our list.</p>
<p>I send handwritten notes and personalized emails to student and I try to put something specific about our conversation in the note to ensure they know that it's not a form letter.</p>
<p>'None of the schools at which I've worked have allowed those outside the recruitment process to have access to admission inquiry database."</p>
<p>Well, you obviously haven't worked at many. ;) But it is an easily testable hypothesis, and you can test it for yourself: put you name into an inquiry database at a couple of colleges, using a different middle initial, and watch your mail.</p>
<p>Didn't Cornell send out acceptance letters by mistake to several hundred applicants just a couple of years ago? The school then did "rescind" - they sent a letter explaining that the first letter was sent in error; I think they also called.</p>
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Well, you obviously haven't worked at many. But it is an easily testable hypothesis, and you can test it for yourself: put you name into an inquiry database at a couple of colleges, using a different middle initial, and watch your mail.
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Colleges do "blind inquiry" projects (signing up for peer institutions' mailing lists) all the time to keep tabs on others' marketing efforts. Submitting your name on a college's website won't get you on the lists for those "college bound" type magazines with the ads in them or Who's Who mailings.</p>
<p>The source of many of our mailing lists is the College Board's Student</a> Search Service. The colleges buy names from the CB and we don't share them (unless we're doing some group travel and one school is handling the mailings for all). The CB allows some non-school groups to buy names from them.</p>
<p>In addition, using certain college/aid search websites can lead to the spread of your information. There are also mailing list companies like American</a> Student List that gather information from a number of sources. Do a Google search for "mailing lists" and "college bound". You may be surprised by the results.</p>
<p>Colleges are obviously a big source of junk mail, but they aren't the sole source.</p>
<p>A lot may also depend on the university's "customer relationship management" software. Some add-ons to the admissions database make is much easier for a college to be in contact with you at the right time and do good followup.</p>
<p>I realize this sounds painfully obvious. But what may seem like a kind, caring campus may be a campus who made a very smart investment in good software!</p>
<p>In February 2003, Cornell intended to send a "welcome" e-mail to all early decision accepted students. By mistake, it was also sent to students that were either rejected or deferred in the early decision round. This e-mail was followed by apology e-mail a few hours later. Although the e-mail wasn't an acceptance letter, it was confusing to the rejected/deferred students. What a terrible blunder. <a href="http://chronicle.com/free/2003/02/2003022803n.htm%5B/url%5D">http://chronicle.com/free/2003/02/2003022803n.htm</a></p>
<p>To answer the OP's question... Cornell's individual colleges do take attendance when you attend an info session on campus and they do note interest.</p>
<p>I tracked the e-mails I recieved from colleges and the SAT/PSAT.</p>
<p>Since I own a website and domain name with a catch-all email service, any email address that I enter (i.e. <a href="mailto:anything@mywebsite.com">anything@mywebsite.com</a>) will go to my main e-mail account. On each form that I fill out, I put <a href="mailto:collegename@mywebsite.com">collegename@mywebsite.com</a> so that I can track where that college obtained my e-mail address.</p>
<p>It turns out that ALL the junk e-mails from "interested" colleges come from the College Board. </p>