<p>I emailed Alfred University to ask for a college catalog that they provide. Two and one half weeks later, I emailed them again after not receiving the catalog. They responded with ," Sorry for the delay in the receipt of your catalog. We send out catalogs when we get a total of 75 requests in order to save money...."</p>
<p>Is it me? Is this the most brain dead marketing decision that you have seen a college do? Here we, as parents, are considering taking a tour of the school, and this idiotic school waits weeks to send us information in order to save pennies! Don't they realize that if they get one extra interested student, they would get an extra 100K or so in revenue over 4 years? I can't fathom their decision to do this. It is inexplicable. This is what happens when you let the accountant control the decision making and marketing process.</p>
<p>Wow, even if that was the reason, I sure wouldn't announce it; it makes them look so penny-foolish.</p>
<p>We toured several colleges where they didn't want to give you the catalog, said something to the effect of that was more for students after they were admitted. </p>
<p>(I won't name name as it's been a while and I'm not positive anymore which they were).</p>
<p>I don't know what a college catalogue is myself. I had some difficulty getting print versions of course catalogues and had to buy them from several schools. It is so much easier to mark/dog ear/notate etc. I was glad I finally got them but I have not an idea about the "college catalogue" are you speaking of ViewBook???</p>
<p>I was advised to offer to buy one.....usually it came no cost but I think these are becoming more of a problem. Did you contact the bookstore? I found many were available through the bookstores. Also you may offer to accept one from last year say through a department....that may be more available.</p>
<p>Of course, most schools now have their full course catalog online anyhow. Although I must admit, Alfred's website is one of the least readable I've ever looked at - are you sure you want to consider a school for graphic design that uses 5 point type on its website? :)</p>
<p>I hate the online course catalogs/college catalogs. But then again I hate e-books. I find the hard copy catalogs to be much more convenient (if bulkier) to use, as hazmat indicated. And at my alma mater, it was very important to be able to gain access to each year's catalogs -- something that I assume is not doable if it's constantly updated online. </p>
<p>Basically, the catalogs contained graduation/major/minor requirements and we were allowed to use any catalog that was in effect on or after our matriculation date to establish graduation eligibility. So if the requirements changed in midstream (either the general requirements or the requirements for major/minor) you didn't have to rely on constantly staying up to date -- or even worse, relying on your advisor to stay up to date -- to avoid last minute crises (i.e. "what do you mean I need 3 more hours of Math and every class except Advanced Number Theory for Engineers is full?!"). I still have the LSU College Collection Vols. 1979-1983 somewhere.</p>
<p>When my daughter was applying to Alfred last year, I don't recall having any problem getting materials from them. They don't have majors in specific categories of art. We were told that they have a more broad studio art approach and that they look at it as more of a concentration than a major. That said, here is a link to their online catalogue.</p>
<p>Sometimes it's the postal regulations that may determine how a college will mail out catalogs. Course catalogs are usually oversized books, not standard envelope sizes or such, and the P.O. may want a school or organization to "bundle" the mailing before they will take it for delivery. I have vague memories of having to do this kind of bundling when I was a student worker in admissions (even for viewbook mailings) and also having to stamp 'book rate' on the catalogs too so that the correct postage costs would be charged to the school.</p>
<p>Nowadays, depending on the size of the school, much of this work is contracted out to a mailing company. But for small schools, they may still do much of it on their own.</p>
<p>I actually wanted the whole year's catalog as to see what the total course offering are and not just fall 2005. They offered to send it to me. I just thought that the letter that they sent was pretty lame at best.</p>
<p>Actually a lot of colleges charge for course catalogs. (Princeton charges $2 and we all know they're not poor). But if you visit, you can get one for free.
I guess it deters people who are just getting catalogs for the sake of it and now actually reading them? Saves trees...? heh</p>
<p>taxguy, I have to agree. If they offer to do something for you, they need to follow up. If they don't send these items out until there's a total of 75 requests (which in this electronic age could take a while), they should have told you that up front</p>