NY Times article on wooing admitted students

<p>Posted in wrong spot.</p>

<p>Hmm.... Yeah, the stuff I listed was for Wash U.</p>

<p>I also got a paid flight to Grinnell, which I declined....and a half paid flight to Carleton, which I also declined. I got little things from all colleges, except Hendrix.</p>

<p>I'm wondering if it was a bad idea in hindsight....</p>

<p>For Drexel, I got free flight their and stayed in fancy hotel in downtown. Free food, free tshirts, free mugs, museums, philly game, duck tours...etc. But that was sort of part of a research program......</p>

<p>Part of it depends on how aggressive you are when applying....</p>

<p>Hmm. I was offered free travel to Brown, Swarthmore, and Princeton, but Princeton and Swat coincided.</p>

<p>UNC gave me a glass vase, a glass cup, a pen and a book for scholars weekend</p>

<p>and i got into wash u but didnt get air paid DAMN IT lol</p>

<p>and duke gave me a cool folder. and an email address @duke.edu if i enrolled. o and a free car decal</p>

<p>I got free trips and meals from Bowdoin and Depauw, but they did have some restrictions on flight days (not very harsh)... depauw also sent me 2 books that one of their alumni wrote</p>

<p>has anybody ever gotten anything from NYU?</p>

<p>i asked for aid to visit the school (on an admitted students reception day) and they said they couldnt offer any</p>

<p>theyre so bad with fin aid, i didnt even bother to call to negotiate w/ them</p>

<p>they sent me nothing but lots and lots of mail... :(</p>

<p>i wish i had applied to wash u now...</p>

<p>collegeohmy, NYU doesn't have a lot of money to give around. They're endowment is not very big. I was offered a spot in the honors program for which they gave me some merit money (I think about 16 or 18k/year) but other schools gave me more, in the form of grants. I'm not going to NYU.</p>

<p>i got a t-shirt from harvard at prefrosh weekened...i also got phone calls from a student and my interviewers before i sent in my reply card. it's kinda like leverage though...once you send in your card, they no longer need to impress you.</p>

<p>speaking of t-shirts - at a weekend for admitted students at MIT a year or two ago, t-shirts were distributed in shrinkwrapped plastic that said "MIT" on the front. When opened, the back had "...because CalTech can't take everybody." on it. Nice prank by the CalTech kids!</p>

<p>Recently, a contigent of MIT students showed up at Caltech, dressed as "movers," stole their cannon, and drove it to MIT on a truck.</p>

<p>There's something a little distorted in this whole thing: Lots of highly qualified kids compete for slots at a small number of elite colleges, then the elite colleges compete for a fixed number of highly qualified kids. This creates some odd kind of supply/demand equation and wonder if that might have anything to do with the fact that college tuition has increased at a rate far outpacing the rate of inflation.</p>

<p>...Cannon?</p>

<p>My daughter was asked by alums at a recruiting party about some of the kids that were undecided and had been accepted at her school. She's decided. They actually asked her which colleges the kids were considering. I'm sure they reported directly back to the admissions office. She was able to honestly say one had decided on Harvard, one was undecided between Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, and one they asked about had not actually been admitted by the school that made the inquiry, though she had applied. She was admitted to Yale and took it.</p>

<p>It just didn't sit all that well with me ... having adults debriefing my daughter on their admissions quests. These Ivies are really nosey about one another.</p>

<p>thecomisar: visit the Howe</a> & Ser Moving Co. page for more details on the relocation of a Spanish-American War cannon from Pasadena to Cambridge in March. Everything done nice and clean, with stealth and style. And what a lovely Brass</a> Rat (class ring) adorned the cannon during its stay at MIT! (And now resides in the MIT Museum, I'm told.)</p>

<p>When the couple-dozen Caltech students came storming onto MIT's campus one morning a couple weeks later to hoist the thing onto a flatbed, MIT students were waiting with music, photographers, and a grill cooking hamburgers, waving and offering helpful directions. Brute force on that leg of its trip. But the cannon was resident on MIT's campus for CPW (admitted students weekend), so the point was made quite stylishly. I believe those involved were not blind to the possibilities of this particular hack having some influence on admitted students. ;)</p>

<p>Dear mootmom,
prefrosh weekend, next year.
Amazing that alumni enjoy these stylish pranks, and help pay to fly out the 22 students to bring back the Fleming cannon.
Must admit, I found it sexist that the MIT female students posed in bathing suits by the cannon.</p>

<p>bookworm:</p>

<p>Have you considered that a cannon is the ultimate phallic symbol? :(</p>

<p>LOL Marite!<br>
Bookworm, there were a couple of guys in bathing suits in some of the pictures on another site. I think the females just had more self-confidence to pose in a bathing suit! And I believe part of the point was that there are a lot of attractive women at MIT.</p>

<p>Quite true, they were an attractive bunch. No, Marite, hdan't thought of that. Wow, will be hard to top a phallic symbol.
The Caltech kids called MIT security beforehand, and they let the MIT kids know. Took away the surprise at showing up at 4 am</p>

<p>In fact, the Caltech party actually made a phone call late in the evening to announce that they would be taking the cannon back. There's no need to steal back something that's yours ;-)</p>

<p>We did impress prefrosh at our weekend by telling them something we just found out a few days prior to the event -- namely, that Caltech President David Baltimore volunteered to make up the difference ($10k+) between what our trip cost and what we had collected. How many institutions (especially in Cambridge, MA!) can say that about their college administrators! :D</p>

<p>Oh, and regarding subtlety -- I'd put the t-shirt prank above the cannon, considering stealing the cannon was a repeat of a Harvey Mudd prank from twenty years ago. But certainly MIT gets points for execution.</p>

<p>stealing a canon from across the country can never be touched, and then having a cookout going when caltech picks it up is just icing... makes me kinda wish i went to MIT... well maybe its not that cool, but its still pretty BA</p>