<p>I recently received an email from my Oberlin admissions counselor, saying that my application was complete (minus midyear report since my school just had midterms last week, but I don't know whether Oberlin requires that) and with a brief comment on my Why Oberlin? essay.</p>
<p>Indicative of anything? Anyone else receive a similar letter? I'm curious.</p>
<p>My daughter also received an e-mail from her admissions counselor saying her application was complete. In the “it’s a small world” dept., the admission counselor attended the same middle school in our hometown and would have gone to my daughter’s high school had his family not moved out of town. Today, she received a letter from one of Oberlin’s department chairs explaining her science department and all the research they do. I’m quite impressed with Oberlin so far.</p>
<p>we’ve been getting some stuff, too. I have to laugh, because I don’t know if this means that they’re courting us, which means they’re anxious about what we think, yet at the same time we’re quaking in our shoes wondering what will happen April 1st!</p>
<p>What a strange experience this all is…</p>
<p>I just got a letter from the department of mathematics talking about their department and giving some contact info. While I’m sure this is a good sign, I remember reading in the decision thread that some students who got personalized letters were rejected or waitlisted.</p>
<p>wow, crazypianist, you’re right. I went back to the thread last spring and saw this:</p>
<p>"waitlisted. Thank goodness she has four strong options. </p>
<p>I am really angry with Oberlin, though. They mailed her a letter right after she applied, a parent letter to us, letters from two professors and a personalized letter from the admissions counselor specifically saying how wonderful her essay was and how much they look forward to meeting her. That letter was…TWO WEEKS AGO! She is above their stats. My D quietly commented as she set the waitlist card down, “I thought they liked me?”</p>
<p>And this:
“rejected as well…citrusbelt, I didn’t get the personalized letter from the admissions counselor, but I did get the parent letter, department letter, ect. It is pretty cruel to do that, it got my hopes up.”</p>
<p>Boy, this is not good pr for the school!!</p>
<p>Relax. As a parent of a current freshman (we went through this a year ago) I advise you to feel good about the letters but understand they reflect the feelings/opinion only of the letter writer. I believe a committee makes the admissions decisions. </p>
<p>My daughter didn’t hear a word, not a syllable, from anyone at Oberlin until AFTER she was admitted (RD). Then the “praise” letters arrived, complimenting her on her extracurriculars and how they clearly indicate that she’s a perfect fit for Oberlin. Before being admitted, email inquiries to Oberlin received very pithy responses that were not encouraging. </p>
<p>We couldn’t figure out the College at all. She was out right REJECTED for a couple of special programs/opportunities that she inquired about and applied to. Okay, we thought Oberlin must feel she’s just adding to the reject ratio, that she was cannon fodder, not smart enough or impressive enough for a college like Oberlin. She was just another foolish hopeful. Around March, she pretty much decided to forget about Oberlin and go elsewhere. Then we took off for a couple of days to visit two other schools on “accepted students” visits. She had a decision to make and it didn’t include Oberlin. The Saturday we returned home there was a big white envelope from Oberlin in the mailbox. Accepted! Inside the envelope: a John F. Oberlin merit scholarship. None of us could believe it. Other schools courted her. Oberlin basically ignored her. Then “surprise!”</p>
<p>You never know what’s going to happen with this admissions game.</p>
<p>I"m sorry, but I think it’s bizarre that the admissions office asks its departments to send letters to applicants while they are being considered if it is not an expression of interest. It sends a message to the student that the school is courting their interest. Most schools send these marketing materials before the student applies, to encourage their application. That makes sense to me.</p>
<p>^
I’m with you there, partner. But we don’t know that admissions departments ask faculty and administration to write those letters. It is strange why that happens and then the kid doesn’t get in.</p>
<p>My D received praise letters and my wife and I received parents letters, including one from the president of another college, but in the end they did not demonstrate the same level of interest (translation: merit scholarship) as Oberlin did, despite basically ignoring my little girl until RD decision time. We assumed she would be rejected by Oberlin because she did NOT receive any attention from faculty, administration, admissions, etc., like other applicants.</p>
<p>actually, the letters do say that the Admissions office told them of the interest. When these letters arrived, we didn’t really look at them as a guarantee of acceptance, of course, but it is troubling that they would send so many letters as noted above and then reject the applicants.</p>
<p>Well, we won’t hold it against them (unless a rejection comes, of course!) :-)</p>
<p>D1 got a letter from a dept head, back several years now. We took it for what it was, additional info/ sales pitch, thought it was kind of nice that they were making a little extra effort. Did NOT think it connoted anything about admissions chances. She got in, of course, maybe if she didn’t it might have been something to get all bent up about.</p>
<p>The way I figure it, the colleges these days are looking after themselves first, sensitivities of high schoolers/applicants second. My own alma mater sent mailings to my neighbor’s kid, induced him to think he had some remote shot and waste time applying there. At least that wasn’t Oberlin. I thought that was horrible.</p>
<p>I"m sorry, but I think these extra mailings make sense before the apps are in, but not after. One letter we got introduced the adcom rep to my S, which I thought was nice. The letters from the departments, though, I just don’t understand the rationale at this particular juncture. Especially from an environmentally sensitive school like Oberlin. If they’re not going to admit the kids, why are they wasting paper at this point on a sales job?</p>
<p>We ignored the bait from most schools that tried to get my kids to apply. I knew very well that those schools were sending materials to increase their applications, not because they were prepared to accept my kids!</p>
<p>Anyway, if Oberlin really does do holistic review, there’s no way that these mailings can mean anything anyway, because they couldn’t have gotten a thorough review of the applications that fast. </p>
<p>Whatever. I"m just glad that I was forewarned thanks to crazypianist.</p>
<p>“I"m sorry, but I think these extra mailings make sense before the apps are in, but not after.”</p>
<p>I would think so too. Either then, or after acceptances have gone out.</p>
<p>But I imagine that they had consultants advising them on exactly when these extra mailings would give the most benefit towards increading yield. So who am I to argue.</p>
<p>There’s no doubt that if the kids are accepted, these mailings will have been helpful. It just seems cruel to be sending them out and then rejecting the kids.</p>
<p>Gosh, I almost forgot. I read on another board that the reason for doing it is to keep applicants with very competitive credentials from committing too soon to other colleges that might give admission decisions sooner. For example, some of the public U’s and less selective private colleges provide admission decisions on a rolling admissions basis or a few weeks sooner than schools like Oberlin (my D found out about her flagship state U in December but Oberlin in March).</p>
<p>So, if your son or daughter has already been admitted to, say, Muhlenberg or Franklin and Marshall, and you are a strong possibility (but not a guarantee) for Oberlin, they don’t want you to commit to Muhlenberg or Franklin and Marshall before they know what their full RD admission class will look like, hence the love letters.</p>
<p>I’m sure Oberlin isn’t the only college that does this.</p>
<p>Colgate University does a similar thing. Dean of Admissions apparently sends letters to students right about this time. See this thread.
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/colgate-university/868788-letter-colgate.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/colgate-university/868788-letter-colgate.html</a></p>
<p>My daughter got an email about this time last year from the Oberlin admissions office asking her why she had not visited. We wondered at the time if this was a feeler to see how serious she was in the application. She replied that her father had attended and she knew other students, so she didn’t need to visit. She got in and is not a first-year. Other colleges that she applied to and did not visit wait-listed her, even though in some cases she should have been, number-wise, a clear admit.</p>
<p>Just a followup to what happened with us. After all these post-application letters, my kids were waitlisted. I have twins, and they each received different mailings. My D received letters from the chairs of two different departments and my son received a letter from the Dean of the College. Each also received a letter from the regional admissions rep, which was fine, because it didn’t single anything out personally but was just an introduction and an offer to contact him with any questions. My kids had demonstrated interest through a campus visit, an alumni interview and attending the rep’s visit at their school. </p>
<p>So, future applicants reading this: pay no attention to what looks like wooing after you’ve applied!</p>
<p>My kids declined the waitlist offers.</p>
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</p>
<p>Wow, I don’t understand that treatment. Maybe Elizabeth can shed some light on why these things happen as opposed to applicants who are completely ignored until the big white envelope arrives. One possible explanation is that promising candidates receive letters from departments for the majors they’ve selected. My D had no idea what she wanted to major in and said so in her application, so it wasn’t possible to identify an appropriate department head/chair to send her one of those love letters. But that’s just a theory of mine.</p>
<p>My D was totally undecided, but she got a letter from a department chair.</p>
<p>^
So much for that theory. 
Okay, here comes another theory. Applicants are randomly selected to receive “love letters” from faculty and department chairs. The love letter writers are also randomly selected, or its a rotational responsibility. Example: “Dr. Ryan, it’s your turn to write five letters this month.” “Do I have to?” “Yup. It’s your turn.” “Okay, where’s the box?” “On the corner table, under the pizza boxes. And close your eyes this time. No more cheating, you peeked at the names the last time you drew from the box. Thank you.”</p>
<p>Sound far fetched? But what else explains love letters to applicants who are rejected or waitlisted but no correspondence to many applicants who are accepted?</p>