Mail? What Mail?

Parents Forum
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<p>Hi, I'm new so this is probably a stupid question, but why are people complaining about mail? How do you get this mail, anyway?</p>

<p>My older S is a junior at Cal Tech, and got very very little mail when he was in high school. It was not a problem as he had his heart set on Cal Tech.</p>

<p>My younger S (junior in HS) is starting to look, and isn't sure what he wants as long as its a LAC. PSAT's last Oct = 240 (really!). He got his first mail today. His friends have all been bombarded with mail for weeks. </p>

<p>I want him to look at a variety of LAC's of different sorts, at least to begin. Hints?</p>

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<p>I think there is a question on the PSATs asking whether or not you want information about you given out to colleges. If you don't say yes, you won't get "mail". My daughter intentionally said "no" because she had seen how much mail her brother got and she didn't want all of that when she was a junior. This is asked again on the SAT so he will have another chance to receive mail when he takes those. He will obviously be named a National Merit Semifinalist, and will definitely receive a lot of mailings from that honor. Ask your son if there was a question like this on the PSAT form. Apparently, he answered all of the rest of the questions on the PSAT perfectly :)</p>

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<p>True, and they can put their email address on the PSAT form and if they do it comes to them online. My junior is getting quite a bit, mostly online. If you are not getting mail it just means you will have to do more legwork, more research yourself. You will do just fine, especially with this site!</p>

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<p>Send me your address and I'll mail you the surplus we receive :) Only kidding....what I would like to figure out is how to STOP receiving this mail.</p>

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<p>My son put MY email address on his PSATs -- HA! Just this week I started receiving emails from colleges & universities. I forward some to him. He told me he didn't want all the junk emails and figured I'd screen them for him. Other 2 kids receiving shopping bags full of school brochures, postcards, etc. Made for a lot of recyclables.</p>

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<p>S said no on PSAT and received practically no mail. Not even half a shopping bag.</p>

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<p>Both my boys put "No" on the PSAT form and all SAT forms because they saw all the piles their sister accumulated 4 years ago (she was foolish enough to mail back some cards with "send me more information"). They still get some mail, mostly from colleges they sent their SAT's and AP's. They also are getting mail from the colleges, if they started online application, and then decided not to continue. We also contacted some colleges with questions, and that had mailing "consequences", too. Several colleges and private schools, I guess, got son's name from AMC competitions (though... now that I think of it, they don't put the address on the AMC forms) or maybe because of his AP results, although he didn't send AP scores there.</p>

<p>I really don't see much sense in all those mailings, when all the same info is out there on the Internet... It's much better to read Colleconfidential. :)</p>

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<p>The mail can be particularly helpful if one is female and interested in the sciences or math or is a URM because there are some free or low-cost summer programs that one might be invited to. One also might learn information about special scholarships for students with one's background. One also might get invitations to be flown into colleges for special weekends for top academic recruits.</p>

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<p>Thumper: the mail stops when the kid matriculates somewhere. LOL</p>

<p>3boysnjmom: same hear, just this week I was invited to join the navy -- or, at least, spend a week in Annapolis, which sounds really great about now. The Chesapeake Bay in June is awesome.</p>

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<p>The mail can also be a confidence-booster if one is not at the very top of one's class, I suspect, and a little anxious about chances. I mean, if a college actually sends you recruiting materials, it kind of makes you think they're encouraging you to apply, eh?</p>

<p>I have no doubt Younger Son will check those "YES" boxes hopefully and then wait with fingers crossed to get some mail. Older Son got tons, and I think Younger Son (a much different type of student) will be pretty depressed, or at least disappointed, if he doesn't get any.</p>

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<p>DS is a sophomore in college. We still get mail here for him. It's not the volume we received when he lived here and was in high school, but we get it nonetheless. Very odd.</p>

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<p>Wyogal - you have missed out on the mail barrage - which may be a good thing ;). This approach worked well for us - buy a copy of Fiske's College Guide (the thick one) and/or Princeton Review's 35x Best Colleges, preferably both, because the perspective is a little different. Encourage your son to browse through these - we felt that our daughter needed a school that had very high level academics, so we took the PR and marked all the schools that had scores of 88+ academics, then had her look through the book - the thinking was that if the students themselves didn't give the school high rankings for academics, it probably wasn't all that great - this approach also fitted the amount of time she was willing to devote to her research. From that book and a few visits, she developed an idea of size of school, location (rural vs urban, etc), then she narrowed down the list. This website will also give you many more suggestions than you will be able to investigate. Good Luck, and congrats</p>