<p>No, Plainsman, your first instinct was right. There’s nothing random about it. Department chairs are invited to send letters to applicants who have indicated an interest in that department. These are not “love letters,” or indications of likely admission: in most cases they are sent before the application has been read or considered. They are simply intended to give applicants more information about areas of study in which the admissions office has reason to believe the applicant is interested.</p>
<p>with all due respect Dave72, this may be Oberlin’s intention, but they really need to think about the effect this has on the kids. This is all understandable before they apply, but afterwards, everything the colleges send is weighted with meaning from the applicants’ point of view. </p>
<p>the only school that had contact like this after the application, in our experience, was Muhlenberg, which followed up with admissions and merit offer.</p>
<p>I guess from a yield perspective it’s to Oberlin’s advantage to do this before decisions are sent, so if that’s what the school’s intention is, so be it, but I’m glad CC exists to warn applicants about this practice.</p>
<p>In fairness, D got letters from several other colleges–some of the “love letter” variety. They were quite different from the one that came from the department chair at Oberlin which seemed pretty promotional in nature. I don’t think it would have occurred to us to read any admissions chances into it.</p>
<p>We didn’t read anything into it either.</p>
<p>SDonCC: Did your kids decide to enroll at Muhlenberg? My D was accepted there too. It’s only about six miles from our house, maybe seven. We’re not originally from PA, so despite the proximity we knew nothing about it. On our visit, though, we were very impressed with the college.</p>
<p>No. Only my D applied there. She was fortunate to get into several of her top choices, and Muhlenberg was not one, although it did seem like a very caring environment.</p>
<p>interesting. my daughter got a couple of letters from oberlin department heads and i came online specifically to check this phenomenon out. she is very desirable on paper and has already gotten 3 offers of admission with really good financial aid packages. i interpreted it as someone did above, that they were letting her know that she was looking good to them so that she wouldn’t send in her admissions deposit somewhere else until she heard from them. I guess we will see in a month or so how true that guess is.
(she has a 35 ACT and 8.42 GPA, is dual enrolled, due to graduate from community college just before she gets her high school diploma.)</p>
<p>Did anyone get an email from Coach Jenkins? He invited me to the women’s basketball team. I replied by saying, “sure i will, if i get accepted”. His reply was, " let’s start with the obvious, invitation to the women’s basketball team is an indicator for acceptance’. I didn’t reply to that email as I am an international with average SAT score and have asked for financial aid as well. My chances are meagre. And I didn’t want my hopes up… after reading this post, my hopes are no where in the picture.</p>