<p>My daughter has been receiving quite a bit of email from colleges since PSAT scores came out. How does she know if this is just a marketing ploy or if they really are interested in her. Is this a common practice? The weird thing is the emails are coming to her private email, not the one she put down on the PSAT. And her scores aren't all that exciting.</p>
<p>The issue isn’t are they interested in her… the question is, if she’s interested in broadening her reach from the 25 odd schools that kids in her class talk about and have heard of, the materials can be helpful in getting her excited about exploring new places.</p>
<p>HS kids are very provincial in many ways (as are some of their parents and their GC’s). If a kid in Nebraska decides to look at Bowdoin or Wesleyan, or a kid in Boston looks at Knox or Beloit all because of an email due to their PSAT scores- why is that a marketing scam?</p>
<p>It’s common practice. There is a box the kids check off on the PSAT that informs schools they are interested in receiving information. Colleges buy those lists based on attributes they want to see in a student. I started to save everything the kids got just to see how much they got over the years but have two LARGE boxes full, I tossed it. It just keeps coming and coming…</p>
<p>It is marketing, not necessarily a scam.</p>
<p>It’s probably some of both. Sometimes it’s a marketing scam where the school is trying to increase the # of applications so their acceptance rate goes down. Other times they really do want your child. </p>
<p>Check the common data set for the school to see if you think she has a decent chance of being accepted before spending the money to apply.</p>
<p>And, of course, it’s only worth applying if the school is a good fit for her.</p>
<p>I got a kick out of them when they used to come , at least the better schools. Come to think of it, many years later, still getting some …I guess they figure that graduate programs are on the burners</p>
<p>Not a scam, but don’t take it personally. They just want lots of students to apply, not just for the cynical purpose of increasing their rejection rate (and lowering their acceptance rate), but because they genuinely want to cast a wide net and then select the applicants they most want. They send these things out by the tens of thousands, slyly implying (though never quite saying) that your student in particular has come to the attention of someone in their admissions office. B.S. They bought a list from the College Board, and it may be based on certain PSAT cut-offs, but nothing more personal than that. But that doesn’t mean your student shouldn’t consider the college if it seems to be a good fit.</p>
<p>I knew I could count on you all to have the answers – thanks so much! DD has a fairly narrow field of interest at this point in time – physics and math – so she already has an idea of what she’s looking for in a college. As always it’s a juggling act between our budget, her interests and her stats.</p>
<p>My niece did well on her PSAT, commended. She got all kinds of high end college mail~ Ivy league schools, U of Chicago, exclusive LACs. Her SAT’s were not so great, good but no way near Ivy level. She got the idea from the mail that all of these schools wanted her and she had a real shot at getting in. She did not, it was sad. She really messed up her college applications. Be careful!</p>
<p>I know it’s a scam in our case. My daughter got low psat scores and keeps getting emailed by schools I know she can’t get into.</p>
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Feeling faint at the idea that “physics and math” is a narrow field of interest…</p>
<p>DD getting mail from schools we’ve never heard of, even on here.</p>
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<p>When your local drycleaner / car dealership / pizza parlor / J Crew / Victoria’s Secret / whatever sends you a catalog, are they “really interested in you”? Of course not. They bought your name off a list because you met certain criteria – you live within certain zip codes, you’ve bought their products before, whatever. Why would you think it would be any different for colleges? I don’t understand why anyone would think it was any different.</p>
<p>I think the “reason” people think it’s different is because when you then go to your drycleaner/cardealership/pizzaparlor/Jcrew, etc, nobody asks you to first fill out an application and write some essays and take a bunch of tests in order to buy their product.</p>
<p>Right or wrong, who cares? It’s not exactly the same thing, and it’s easy to see why kids and uninitiated parents might get confused. There is no question that your pizza parlor wants you to come on in and have a seat and buy a pizza. The same cannot be said for the colleges. </p>
<p>Maybe a better correlative would be, When you first graduate from college and a bunch of credit card companies invite you to “apply,” or when you get mail about applying to refi your loans?</p>
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<p>Pretty sure that a lot more students take physics and math in college as supporting courses for other majors (e.g. biology, engineering) or goals (e.g. pre-med) than actually major in physics and math. The set of colleges with good physics and math departments for students majoring in those subjects is likely a small subset of the set of colleges where the physics and math departments are sufficient for supporting courses for other majors or goals.</p>
<p>Our S got LOADS and LOADS of brochures from many Us each time he took a PSAT/SAT because he always had great scores. He wasn’t interested in most of those schools but did apply to a few–not all of the ones who had sent him tons of unsolicited mail even accepted him, much less made him an irresistable offer. The U he matriculated at did NOT send him any material until he requested it.</p>
<p>Schools want you and your kids to recognize their name. It’s not personal. It’s marketing. </p>
<p>My Ds enjoyed it at the beginning and they helped them start thinking about the processes. Later on it started getting annoying, but occasionally one they were interested in showed up. </p>
<p>The worst were the phone calls for obscure places. That crossed the line.</p>
<p>Colleges are interested in getting applications from students who might be good fits and who might go there. They find them through advertising, among other means. Buying the PSAT lists is one way of (roughly) targeting their advertising.</p>
<p>When my son was in high school, he went on a work trip through church, and got on some mailing list for the religious group that was sponsoring the trip. This resulted in a deluge of mail from religious colleges that wanted him to apply. Again, this was targeted marketing.</p>
<p>I still don’t understand the na</p>
<p>Just to add a little info, schools purchase PSAT names through ETS’s Student Search Service. Some schools set very broad criteria for their lists and spend a lot of money. Some schools set very narrow criteria and don’t spend very much. </p>
<p>The average counselor probably doesn’t even know the kind of criteria their school sets, they just know that they get names from Student Search. </p>
<p>There are a few others that sell names, but SSS is the original.</p>
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<p>Attracting more applications by direct mail may be good for the school but hardly qualifies as a scam.</p>