<p>I have received letters from colleges in the past, but recently I got a really big and heavy packet from Washington University In STL, and another ginormous one from University of Chicago.
My grades are fairly good ( 3.9 avg) Im in a lot of extracurriculars, but what really sets me apart is that I'm a caucasian male who lived in china for over 9 year and i've spent a month each in Cambodia and India. but the colleges couldn't of possibly of known that so my other theory is that I got the packets because I come from a low income family.</p>
<p>Are the packages just advertisement ? They are very intricate and it would seem expensive to ship those out to everyone, but maybe that's just the inner dreamer in me speaking.</p>
<p>Should I be hopeful and apply to these elite schools when the time comes? Will my life story help my chances?</p>
<p>Those colleges are known as marketing machines which means they send out an enormous volume of packets. Do not take it personally any more than your parents would take a publishers clearinghouse sweepstakes personally. Those colleges are great colleges but they have moved up in the US news rankings significantly because US news uses admit rate as a factor. So the more kids that they can get to apply and reject the higher they go in rank. To be fair, they would love to find interesting kids who might not have otherwise applied. But this is pure marketing materials. They get lists from all over the place, they don’t know anything about you. Base any hope on your gpa and sat being inline, then your story comes into play.</p>
<p>They most likely got your information from when you took the SAT or the PSAT. Some do send it based on your “score range” but it is uncertain. Others simply send it to most college-aged junior and seniors. It costs them less than a dollar each to make these, and with some of their budgets it wouldn’t be a bad investment. If you think you have a shot, you can always apply. Just don’t bank on only those schools. Make sure you have a good range of matches, reaches, and safeties. Do research on the schools you want to go to, interview (if possible), write good essays, and hope for the best. WUSTL and UChicago are incredibly selective schools, so it is really difficult for anyone to call them their match or safety. Good luck</p>
<p>The mailings etc. mean absolutely nothing in terms of admissions. My D got a zillion things from UChicago in particular – she was a very good student but didn’t quite have the stats to get in that school nor did she want to go to college in the Midwest so she never applied. It is just advertising and some schools are particularly aggressive. It is up to you to decide if you are a viable candidate, if the school is a good fit, and if it makes sense to apply.</p>