<p>Any school we determine to be hounding us via e-mail is off the list, no matter how highly ranked it may be. I've been shocked by the dramatic increase in e-mail solicitation compared to when my son was in the college application process 2 years ago. The e-mails are stemming from D's recent PSAT sitting. She gave my e-mail on the form, thankfully. After S took his PSAT we did get a lot of regular mailings, but e-mails were mostly from non-competitive institutions.</p>
<p>Some schools I would have considered to be above the need to engage in this behavior are surprisingly over-the-top. An e-mail every week or twice a week when D has not shown them any interest is way too much IMO. Even if she had shown some interest, I still think it's excessive.</p>
<p>I'm sure we could unsubscribe in most cases, but I'm finding it more informative to allow it to go on so we avoid colleges whose administrations approved these tactics.</p>
<p>D1 checked off the "contact me" box on PSAT and we received hundreds of brochures and e-mails to the point of annoyance from some. D2 checked that she did not wish to be contacted and we received a few hard copy items and a small amount of e-mails.
While I enjoyed browsing through some of the brochures D1 received , I mostly felt that it was a huge waste of resources.
I did get the feeling that some of these schools were really trying to play the college rankings game by soliciting tons of apps. There were a number of "priority" apps included, no essay, no fee, etc. We didn't want to partake in the game.</p>
<p>PA Mom is right - your daughter asked for it. From what I can see over the past 7-8 years is the trend is definitely moving toward emails and away from mailing thousands of expensive viewbooks.</p>
<p>Years ago everything came in the mail - we filled cardboard boxes.
Personally, I would rather sit on the floor and empty a box and look at stuff together - than have my email box cluttered. My two youngest had everything sent to their email address and I never saw it - they mostly hit the delete button.</p>
<p>PAMom - yep i feel that way too about schools soliciting tons of applications to increase their rankings - we didn't play that game either. Priority or free applications still take time and energy.
On the other hand....
My #2 daughter - actually found her school from an unsolicited mailing of a viewbook. It was the only school I could get her interested in and she is very happy there....</p>
<p>I love the emails/snail mails that start Dear X, Thank you for your continued interest in college Y. What?! S never expressed any interest, never sent back an email, postcard, etc. One school even has our phone number and calls repeatedly reminding S that there only X number of days to get application in. Never expressed any interest in the school.</p>
<p>The champion on the irritating front in our house was Washington and Jefferson in PA. They sent an e-mail offering one of those priority/no fee apps, and then sent an e-mail almost daily for months offering extensions the deadline, extensions on the extension, and so on. At a certain point D decided not to unsubscribe, because it had become so comical. I always wondered how that school had an admit rate half of nearly of its peers. Now I know!</p>
<p>Many schools use a consulting firm or special software to manage email communication for them. They may have been told by third parties that to be competitive with their peers, they need to do this stuff. </p>
<p>I've sat through the presentations before...they show emails full of bells and whistles, couple them with data about the percentage of "click throughs" (students who clicked on a link in the message) and other stats about increased apps and better satisfaction scores on admitted student questionnaires (ASQs). I don't buy it...the barrage, IMO, makes students less likely to open emails,which means they could miss out on a really important one. For that reason, we've tried to keep the broadcast emails (those sent to the entire applicant pool) to a once monthly newsletter. Obviously, there are special groups that email applicants as well (Outreach, engineering, ROTC, etc.), so I imagine some students get 3-4 per month from us.</p>
<p>Simply hitting the "unsubscribe" link at the bottom of these emails could help send the message that the constant broadcast emails aren't necessary.</p>
<p>WedDad: thanks, that was absolutely hsyterical.</p>
<p>I don't think we asked for this. Requesting information used to mean you got a letter, a viewbook, maybe a calendar or special pamphlet a time or two months later, etc. I did not think it would mean giving permission to be assailed daily or weekly.</p>
<p>Besides, other than the PSAT form, D did not contact any of the worst offenders, among whom are:
Temple
Washington College
Drexel
Rensselaer
Grinnell</p>
<p>Somehow, I've never found the burden of clicking on "delete" to be all that onerous. Even during the worst of the college marketing last winter I could clear my inbox of unwanted information in two or three minutes a day. I didn't feel at all assailed.</p>
<p>I thought this was an unusual opinion: "Any school we determine to be hounding us via e-mail is off the list, no matter how highly ranked it may be." That'll teach 'em, heh? No matter how good the school might be for your kid, they're off the list because of aggressive marketing? Doesn't make sense to me.</p>
<p>We get mail and e-mails addressed to a person at our address and e-mail and it's been going on for 2 years. The name of this person is not even close to our name. All the mail printed and electronic begins "Dear Bert". We laugh and laugh about it and wonder if we can claim "Bert" on our FAFSA as a 6th family member.</p>
<p>email is a lot better than seeing tons of paper and ink sent across the country via the postal service: every unwanted ten color glossy brochure is an exercise in wasted resources that we cannot afford environmentally as a society. Just unsubscribe. I never get irritated by legitimate businesses sending me an email as long as they promptly unsubscribe me upon request. I also call companies/colleges and ask that they stop mailing me catalogues, etc and find most are happy to do so. BTW, congratulations on your child's successful testing. It may open a lot of (college) doors for her.</p>
<p>The point is not that it's onerous to receive the e-mails and delete them or unsubscribe. The feeling I have about it is probably similar to that people had when doctors and lawyers first started advertising (I'm showing my age.) Call me old-fashioned, but I guess my sense is that education is supposed to be an honorable vocation and public service--not a business just like any other, whose products must be shamelessly hawked on the internet.</p>
<p>Frankly, I'm very surprised that certain top LAC's feel they have to do this. I see no evidence whatsoever that their number of applications has dropped off recently. To the contrary, and this makes me suspicious--kind of like I would be about that company selling a miracle vitamin supplement...</p>
<p>Btw, my reaction is the same to a college who inundates us with paper mail.</p>
<p>Got a call from [small college in upstate NY that isn't very selective] late Saturday morning wanting to speak to my daughter. I said she was asleep, which I think was true. If it had been Yale, I don't think I would have tried to wake her up, anyway; she's not very pleasant on waking up.</p>
<p>I was alarmed though; we get so much mail from colleges she has zero interest in!!! I wonder if they all will start calling us!!!</p>
<p>These colleges have to compete with all the big name schools and state universities for your attention. Their desire to attract potentially top students is a priority for growth and, most importantly, funds/money/endowments. In order to do this, they need to expand their applicant and alumni reach beyond the local community. They start by buying the PSAT scores list from College Board (a for profit company,they also want to make money). The idea being that you may not have heard of them, but they can offer what you are looking for in a college. They have their research done that shows a direct relationship between PSAT and early GPA with future potential. They need to start early to compete against the white noise of the "big" schools. This is not much different than schools recruiting for athletes in their sophmore and junior years. If you can get them interested, perhpas you can win them over. Making it easy with free applications, quick decisions makes it that much more enticing for students. Who needs the stress, this school already loves me. The schools are taking a calculated risk knowing PSAT and GPA that you will be fine at their school. </p>
<p>If it wasn't for these mailers, how many people know about Rensaeller, Randolf, Barton, and the numerous others noted on this thread outside of their local communities. What these schools are looking for are quality students not an application fee. Some children would flourish in a small school away from the glitz. I see nothing wrong in these emails, reading each one of them to see if there could be a match. I think it is great that the information is coming to us rather than trying to go out and find it. </p>
<p>The very fact that some students may be deceived into thinking "this school already loves me", is precisely part of the problem. Much like the post on Caltech, I think it could be kind of mean to lead a kid on to think that a top school like Brown or Swarthmore woud be interested in him/her, when in reality the student's credentials are much inferior to that of majority of the students at those schools.</p>
<p>atg4ever, you refer to GPA--how would the colleges even know my D's GPA? Was that also a question on the PSAT form?</p>