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<p>Duh. 10char</p>
<p>TY aleader. I hope you have a wonderful and fulfilling 4 years. I am sure that the circle which will be influenced by your attending Harvard–not merely your classmates but all of the kids back in your hometown who now KNOWS someone like themselves who made it to the Ivy League. </p>
<p>Hooray for Harvard (and all of the other colleges that mail as well). All of the mailings are well worth the cost if it means that people like aleader consider vistas to which they never even thought they pursue. And hooray for aleader for having the guts to try her hand–she like many other very very excellent candidates could have found the "thin letter " on March 30th. I love win-win outcomes!</p>
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And this is the point. Thank you for sharing! I’m glad you’re joining us in the fall.</p>
<p>I also don’t feel that francisvdahlmann was misled. He was waitlisted, no? The mailings might be misleading to someone with the requisite PSAT score but a 2.7, but waitlisting means that they thought he was very good, and that he came very close, and that he will probably be just as successful as Harvard’s incoming freshman class. I’m sorry that he didn’t get accepted, but I think he’s now underestimating how much of a chance he had. Waitlisting means that he was clearly very good.</p>
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<p>Can anyone confirm that a college knows a student’s PSAT or SAT scores (bought from the CB)? I thought colleges only get a list of students who scored higher than 214 PSAT, 2230 SAT or 35 ACT (made up examples) rather than their names and their scores.</p>
<p>It’s something you can opt out of. You bubble in a circle stating you want to participate in the “college match” program or something along those lines which will send your scores to colleges.</p>
<p>Yeah, lake42ks is probably right. I don’t imagine CB sends colleges peoples names and their precise scores. In all likelihood, what CB sends a college is a mailing list of people whose scores and other information available to CB fit parameters set by the college, and who have permitted CB to release their names to colleges. Not a spreadsheet showing that Jane had 760/800/740 and Bill had 750/750/760. </p>
<p>In fact, it’s entirely possible that CB doesn’t ever even give the names to the college. Often the way this works is that CB supplies an encrypted mailing list to a mailing company, and the college gives the company the pieces to be mailed (or the company produces them for the college). The mailing company prints out labels generated by the list and does the mailing, but neither the mailing company nor the college is able to retain a copy of the decrypted list. “Harvard” may not even know that it’s soliciting you; it only knows that it hired Acme Mailing to send out 10,000 recruitment packages to students who identified themselves as Hispanic and had PSATs higher than 170, or something like that.</p>
<p>I have a client who does work with the CB. JHS is absolutely correct in how it actually works. This is how most direct mail in this country is done. Just like “Harvard” isn’t aware it solicited you, “BMW” doesn’t know they sent you a brochure on their new car. </p>
<p>And anyone who thinks that a mailing from Harvard or anywhere else means anything other than someone-bought-a-mailing-list is naive beyond belief.</p>