<p>My son will be a junior next year -- and is already bombarded weekly with mailings from colleges. I know that it will continue to get worse.</p>
<p>Can I just pitch it all -- or should we keep some of it?</p>
<p>He has a tentative list of about 25 colleges right now -- but my thoughts were that he could just request info from colleges once he narrows the list. Does it work that way?</p>
<p>What about demonstrated interest -- a few of the schools he might apply to look at demonstrated interest -- but are they really looking for that interest early in the junior year or can he reply to mailings and email later on, once he knows he is actually interested?</p>
<p>I am cleaning out the desk drawers today and hoping I can throw away all this junk!</p>
<p>I just saved the mail from the schools she was interested in. I showed her the mail from all the schools; she decided if she was interested or not. There were a couple that she hadn't thought of that piqued her curiosity, so the marketing worked to some extent.</p>
<p>Now that she's gotten in, she still wants to keep the stuff from the schools she applied to! I may never get to throw it away (at least not until we move)!</p>
<p>We pitched it all. What you need to know about a college is on the college's Web site. </p>
<p>I must admit, though, that a friend of my daughter was intrigued by a mass mailing she received from one university about an unusual program offered there. She investigated the program further, decided to apply, was admitted, and will be enrolling there in the fall. So sometimes the mailings do have an impact.</p>
<p>I agree w/ Chedva; as a Junior, your son could not possible be interested in every college that send hims materials. Keep the ones that he's interested in, toss the rest. If it turns out he's interested in one that earlier got tossed, it's easy enough to order the materials online.</p>
<p>Yesterday, we went through and tossed everything DD didn't want. Basically, we kept the most important acceptance letters and all of the mail from the University she's attending. Anything with her name, address, DOB, SSN, etc. will get shredded. Everything else went into the recycling.</p>
<p>in our house we will give our kids their college mail ... and they will decide what mail to keep or toss. I will be happy to provide advice to them if asked.</p>
<p>Neither one of my kids would look at any of it really. So, for first child I dutifully saved it all, then threw it away when we were done.</p>
<p>For second child I threw it all away except for a few schools I knew he'd be looking at. (Should have thrown it away maybe.)</p>
<p>Kids use the internet! Most of that stuff in the mail lacks true substance - it's mostly marketing stuff. For the really hard questions (What sequence of course would I have to take for X major at X or Y schools?) you need much better resources. Pretty pictures only go so far...</p>
<p>So, bottom line, probably doesn't matter what you do with it! :D</p>
<p>my son will be attending school in Wales next year -- so he would only be able to look at it on vacations (and he probably won't even look then).</p>
<p>I think I will just keep those that relate to programs he might be interested in and schools I know are on his list and pitch all the rest -- two grocery sacks so far!</p>
<p>My kid did not check the PSAT in junior year and she still gets tons of stuff, the problem is we shred everything in our household with our name so it's become a huge task.</p>
<p>He seems to inundated with brochures for small lac's in the midwest -- a few are on his list to consider, but it seems like the better way to pick a college is by reading CTCL type books, lists of colleges known for a particular subject and recommendations by teachers, college counselors and peers -- not by a brochure that comes in the mail. Sound reasonable?</p>
<p>Look at this way: if you toss everything, within four months you will receive at least one more copy of everything you tossed (and in the case of Washington University in St. Louis, at least nine more copies). If interested, the prospective college student should peruse what he receives but it makes no difference if he does not. Info is available on line and if you really want info again you can usually order it on-line (and end up getting at least three more copies as a result). We kept everything out of a morbid interest to see how much stuff we would actually get. We accumulated numerous copies of promo brochures which showed us great beaches for southern and western coastal colleges, picturesque falls and springs for colleges in wintry areas of the Midwest, and twelve students in that obviously small class that undoubtedly exists for some unknown course at universities whose usual freshman class size was 500. Over close to a two-year period, the stuff ended up filling ten storage boxes (which is now all disposed of). Also note that once you end the onslaught by becoming a high school graduate who has already chosen a college, you will start to be blessed with promo materials seeking to have you transfer to another college.</p>
<p>Before you toss everything check with your schools guidance office and see if they, or possibly another school, would like to have the brochures.</p>
<p>I've adopted the read/open/recycle approach--the vast majority of the letters never even get to see the inside of our house! The only mailings that I would keep is stuff from colleges that I had decided on visiting/applying, and even then a lot of the stuff was crap, anyway. So...nothing is important! I agree with the other posters...it's all about the internet and maybe the stuff that you get from visiting.</p>
<p>Kid #1: I carefully preserved and filed all college mail, organizing it carefully by region & type of school, keeping the box(es) with the mail readily available in our living room.</p>
<p>Kid #2: Left the mail for her to sort through, tossed just about everything. As soon as she was certain that she was not interested in a particular college, I would email that college with data from the mailing label and request that she be removed from the list. Strangely enough, even Washington U. quit sending mail when asked.</p>
<p>Here's an idea: collect the more substantive pieces (booklets, not postcards) in a mailing bag and mail it to the guidance office at the nearest urban (or rural) public high school where they don't have sufficient counseling resources. Call first to find out if they'd find the information useful.</p>
<p>You know what I slightly regret? THe minute he picked his college, I threw all the other acceptances into the recycle bin. Now I'd hold on to them a little longer. Irrational, I know.</p>
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<p>Can I just pitch it all -- or should we keep some of it?>></p>
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<p>We gave it all to the kids. The kids went through it and chucked most of it. When the unsolicited mail started coming (DD started getting it in 9th grade...and NO she had not taken the SAT or any other test like that for that matter) we just tossed it...immediately. Both of my kids STILL get mail about undergrad school. It never ends. BTW...DS graduated from undergrad school yesterday. The LAST thing he needs is undergrad college mail. There is no way to stop it.</p>