<p>There’s nothing “scammy” about a school trying to increase the # of applications any more than there is anything “scammy” about the pizza parlor wanting to attract more customers. No one is ever forced to apply. Time to take some responsibility for one’s own actions here.</p>
<p>I think the scam aspect is if you really believe that they are interested in you, and your qualifications, and that they think you’d be a good fit for the school (as their letters certainly imply). Truth is, they know very little about you and have no idea whether you have any chance at all at getting into or succeeding at the school. </p>
<p>So if the student applies there thinking “wow, they seemed really interested and they think I’m qualified!” and only succeeds in losing his application fee because he had NO chance of getting in … yeah, that’s a scam. It’s one that most of us should be savvy enough to avoid, but most people are savvy enough to avoid the Nigerian email scam - and that’s still called a scam.</p>
<p>“File” all the brochures in a box in the student room, but make sure to keep a SAT book on top of the pile. </p>
<p>Best way to ensure the materials will remain untouched. In June, bring the box to the guidance office for … final disposal.</p>
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<p>Anyone who really thinks that a form letter sent out from a school means that “gosh, they really think I’d be a good fit for the school!” isn’t very bright. What, do you think when the mailer personalizes it to “Ms. Mary Student, 123 Main Street, Anywheres, PA,” that someone actually sat there and typed in Ms. Mary Student’s name and thought good thoughts about her? Of COURSE they know nothing about you other than whatever demographic characteristics you have (you live in XYZ zip code, you scored such and such on your PSAT’s). </p>
<p>Gee, the BMW dealership who sends me mail based on my zip code doesn’t “know” that I am not interested in buying a BMW or I have a sick family member and don’t have the disposable income to buy a car right now. That doesn’t make it a “scam” because right now I can’t actually qualify.</p>
<p>This is direct mail, and it is no more or less personal than any other direct mail one might receive, and it is not “scammy” unless something is explicitly being promised and isn’t being kept. “You’d really like it at our school!” is the same kind of marketing fluff as “You’ll feel so sexy behind the wheel of your new BMW!” or “You’ll love our pizza!” I continue to be flabbergasted why anyone would single out college marketing as being different on any dimension. Colleges buy mailing lists of potential prospects. They hope to get those potential prospects to apply. Just like the BMW dealership buys a mailing list hoping to get people to walk in the door of the dealership. It is as simple as that.</p>
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<p>File them carefully. DS had great scores and got TONS of mail. I read them for awareness and potential scholarship info. He was too busy, so I just piled them in the kitchen til he had time. After a while I moved them to a footlocker, with the idea of doing a camping bonfire after hs graduation. A few years later I cleared out the footlocker and was dismayed to find two18th birthday cards… with checks… to late to cash them. Oh well.</p>
<p>Marketing, yes. A scam no. I agree, to keep the brochures in a box for reading–good bathroom literature. Sometimes good info in them that you can’t find elsewhere, like offers to apply without a fee.</p>
<p>I can see why someone would be fooled into thinking their kid is special. I would not call these parents stupid. There is a lot of detail in some of those offerings. DD got many mailings with free application and some spelled out the amount of merit aid she would get to attend. </p>
<p>Dd started to get some mail in her sophmore year and then even more her junior year. By the time senior year came around, it was an insane amount of mailings. She would also get 15 to 50 emails a day from colleges around the country too. The first month we started to get the mailings her senior year, I put all of them on the dining room table. The table was filled in the first month. I never thought colleges would spend that kind of money on mailings. </p>
<p>I don’t even think the college she is attending sent her anything until she showed interest.</p>
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<p>Bingo! That is the reason why the marketing brochures are piled up and later moved around in endless circles between the parents and the poor kids. Let’s face it, the bulk of the brochures and emails will be from schools that are not that interesting to the student. </p>
<p>Most of the CC uber-darlings are not prolific blind mailers. And when they bury you in paper, it is only to crush your heart in a subsequent December or April. ;)</p>
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And few that would say that about 17-year-old kids are very empathetic.</p>
<p>Few kids these days have ever received a letter in the mail, let alone one personally addressed to them and seemingly signed by a dean or someone else with an impressive title at a college. Furthermore these letters go as far as they can without crossing the line to imply personal knowledge (eg “we’ve heard…”) or to imply that if you just apply you’re pretty much in (“you’d be one of our strongest applicants”). Both these snips, BTW, are verbatim quotes from letters I’ve seen. </p>
<p>And it plays into wishes. Few of us have to hope the local tire dealer will agree to sell us tires or the pizza place will deliver our dinner, but many college kids are worried about getting in to selective colleges. Letters implying you’ve somehow moved ahead of the rest of the pack in admissions are not quite the same as ads for tires or pizza.</p>
<p>They are really interested. In your kids’s application!</p>
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<p>I agree that today’s kids don’t receive a lot of mail, but I disagree that they haven’t also seen ads and catalogs from J Crew and Victoria’s Secret and LL Bean and the car dealership and the pizza place that get sent to the home. Come on now.</p>
<p>This is straight forward marketing, albeit targeted. School will buy list from College Board. The College Board has computer files with the names and email addresses of high school students who checked the right box. Schools order the lists of students that meet the criteria they want - based on scores, questionnaire results, etc. It is a fairly crude example of what advertisers do in this era of “Big Data.”</p>
<p>It most certainly does not mean that any particular recipient has an edge with the Admissions Committee.</p>
<p>Luckily I’ve been on CC long enough to have a fairly good idea how this works. I was just wondering she came onto their radar. I didn’t realize she’d given her email through the PSAT.</p>
<p>DD isn’t interested in much outside the West coast, even though we’ve encouraged her to throw a wider net. At this point she’s far more interested in smaller liberal arts schools than the larger research universities, but that could change. And thus far, she hasn’t shown interest in any of the schools that have sent email. </p>
<p>I worry that this type of marketing gives false hope to other students who aren’t as savvy. More email in the inbox this morning. Thankfully it isn’t physical mail. My recycling is overflowing as it is. Here are some of the subject lines DD is receiving:</p>
<p>: We chose you to join a select group of high school students whose perspectives we would love to hear.
:I’ve selected you! (This was used by two different schools so far)
:Tulane University has selected you!
:Way to go, (insert name)!
:We’re very impressed with you, (insert name)!
:There is so much to love about TCU, and now that we recognize your strengths…
:You’re on our radar!</p>
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<p>Well, that’s the whole point. Why shouldn’t a school want to reach outside its traditional backyard for students? Why would someone “ding” them for doing so? It’s very odd how on CC it’s considered bad for a college to do something to make itself more visible outside its immediate neighborhood. Anyone else who ran a business wants to improve visibility; it doesn’t become bad when a college does it. </p>
<p>I don’t see anything objectionable at all about the subject lines you referenced. What do you expect them to say in their subject lines?</p>
<p>The subject lines aren’t objectionable, just somewhat misleading to those students (and parents) who falsely believe that they have a good chance to be accepted to somewhere like Colgate or Oberlin based on an email. </p>
<p>PizzaGirl: You seem upset that I brought up this topic. I’m simply a first time college to be parent who is trying to wade through the process. As I said before – we were stunned she was even getting email. Her scores aren’t terrible but they’re nothing special. DD is actually an exceptional student with a very high GPA, an EC “hook” who has done far better on practice ACT tests than on the PSAT. But these schools don’t know this and are marketing to her solely based on a ho hum PSAT score. I just find it curious.</p>
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And that’s quite a unique interpretation of what people have been saying in this thread and elsewhere on CC. Nobody has objected to colleges contacting students to get the word out about their school. What people find troubling is sending messages to HS kids dying to get into selective colleges that implies they are somehow special or have a leg up on the process. Maybe you’ve forgotten what its like to be 17, but for many getting a letter signed by a dean saying “We’re impressed with you, Shelly!” raises hopes. In truth the signature is robo-signed and in spite of the computer-generated letter there is not a person on the campus that has ever even heard of Shelly, but not many HS kids have the experience and sophistication to understand that.</p>
<p>I don’t buy that all these exceptional students who are looking at elite schools can’t figure out junk mail.</p>
<p>“I worry that this type of marketing gives false hope to other students who aren’t as savvy” - That could be true for some students (mine ignored it all). But it’s also a concern for parents that have not done any research yet. It’s good that OP has been on CC, knows the drill.</p>
<p>40 years ago when I got this stuff (PSAT based I think) it did sort of give me the wrong impression. But almost none of my other classmates seemed to be getting mail like this, or at least they weren’t talking about it. Plus there was no internet to find out about admissions. Info was fairly limited. That’s obviously not the case today.</p>
<p>Still, not all kids get the same mail from the same schools even today. My kid, a good kid, a great welder and machinist currently attending the local CC, but not exactly an academic superstar, didn’t get any (although he got some nice postcards from the military). </p>
<p>So if a kid wants to consider a Yale viewbook arriving unsolicited as a minor ego boost I’d say no harm done. Just don’t use it for planning purposes - ie, don’t say “All these schools are dying to take me, let me just pick the one I want and send one application in…” </p>
<p>Probably not a good strategy. :)</p>
<p>Yet another one who says it’s just marketing, not a scam. It is an ego boost for many kids but most understand that it doesn’t mean much and if the kids don’t understand the parents should. It happens everyday to all of us right down to “ads” that follow us on-line as we click around. If you express interest someone will find you. A kid that checks a box on a standardized pre-college test has “expressed” interest in college. A kid that researches colleges on some websites will be “followed.”</p>