<p>Being the OP, it's kind of ironic that S and D got their PSAT scores back this week and our mailbox has been empty, other than the usual bills and credit card offers. S and D are wondering why they have no new PSAT-induced college mail. Let the onslaught begin again.</p>
<p>I'll split the difference on opinions: I think WashU is a fine school but I think they are aggressive, probably overly aggressive, in their marketing.</p>
<p>Twinmom, have no fear - from what I've heard, the real "rush" begins after Christmas, when colleges know juniors will start thinking about colleges. With two, your coffers will be brimming all spring.</p>
<p>What's interesting to me in looking through the obviously PSAT-generated mail that my daughter has received in the past two weeks is that much of it seems to be coming from schools that are in sync with what she is looking for: smaller LAC's with a quirkiness factor. She's actually received mailing from three schools on her list of possibilities which, of course, has excited her. She has also received the standard mailings from Tulane, U of Evansville, etc. - schools that definitely aren't a fit for what she's looking for. I'd love to know more about how schools determine who in the CB database should receive their mailings.</p>
<p>I find it strange that my daughter has never, if I remember correctly, gotten a mailing from Wash U. Is it possible that when colleges buy names, they buy only certain letters of the alphabet?</p>
<p>"But a Harvard student put into words for me what many feel: that WashU is overrated."</p>
<p>Hmmm, student at #1 rated school tells student at #10 or #11 rated school that their school is overrated. Arrogance must be acceptable these days.</p>
<p>Searchingavalon - I think they buy not by name but by geographic location. I assume that like other marketers, they even go down to the zip code - identifying possible high income areas. And, it wouldn't surprise me if they tag names from schools that have sent students to that school before. All this is just supposition on my part, however.</p>
<p>carolyn--what you say makes sense. Lots of kids from D's high school at least apply to Wash &U, though, and lots of kids from this area certainly attend; that's why I'm finding it so strange. It's fine, of course, that we haven't been deluged; I'm just finding something new to puzzle over to avoid thinking about the things I should be thinking about. :-)</p>
<p>I just realized something: IT HAS STOPPED! No college mail has arrived during the last week or so!!! I'm sur ethey don't know about the ED acceptance, so I guess it's just time for it to have stopped. Has anyone else noticed this?</p>
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<blockquote> <p>I guess it's just time for it to have stopped.>></p> </blockquote>
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<p>They are mailing it HERE instead. DD has received almost 30 pieces of college mail in the last 10 days.</p>
<p>Today's mail: One piece - Wash U.</p>
<p>I like WashU, my son really liked WashU (after being dragged by his mom to visit on the way to look at another school). It was in his top 3, and he almost went there (they offered a nice financial incentive as well as an honors type program). They are aggressive, but we just threw away what we didn't want. About 20 kids from our school apply there every year, and 3 or 4 end up attending. </p>
<p>My college freshman still occasionally gets college mail, and sophomore is starting to get it. I'm just saving it all for next year.</p>
<p>I got a sickening amount of mail from Tulane -- sometimes two or three letters in a day. I ended up applying because they practically begged. </p>
<p>The college mail was just overwhelming, and I stopped opening any of it (except from schools I was considering) after the first two or so weeks.</p>
<p>College mail is terrible, even worse though when the information on them is consistantly wrong. For some reason, all of these colleges think i want to study religion and nursin, both of which i have no desire to study at all. Also, some of these colleges have my email address wrong. Im suspecting that this info was provided to the colleges by the college board student search service but im not sure. Any thoughts? Is anyone else experiencing this? What should i do?</p>
<p>Having 2 children who have received this mail, I've developed a system. After the mail arrived, I left it out for the kids to see. Usually they didn't even open it since their first choice colleges didn't mail much. I saved everything but just dropped it into a box in the pantry. After my kids got into their first choice colleges - I threw it in the trash. I saw it as junk mail and reading it was not a good use of time. There are far better ways to select which schools to apply to. It was kinda interesting that my first received tons of mail from Univ. of Chicago and my second received tons from NYU - I don't know why. (They chose Davidson and Emory.)</p>
<p>Red-eye - My daughter has received some mail saying that her intended major is pre-dental. Nothing could be farther from the truth for a science-and-math hating person like my daughter. She corrected the information on the little forms they send and sent it back to all of the colleges, even those she's not interested in, just on principle.</p>
<p>All the mail that a boy in my daughter's school used to get thought he was female; he got a lot of mail from women's colleges. No harm done.</p>
<p>In nearly two years of college mailings, we never recieved a single piece from WUSTL. Having heard all the stories here, I kept waiting to get something from them, but nope. Weird. </p>
<p>Yesterday's mail brought another letter from UTDallas and Texas A&M, which offered to fly S out for their honor's day. The Texas, Oklahoma and Arizona schools are really after him to apply. Day before, there was a letter from an Arkansas dean and another postcard from Skidmore (this one said PAIN across the front and showed an athlete grimmacing... I think the cards are pretty cool and always read them.)</p>
<p>I'm just a sophmore in hs and i'm recieving a ton of mail and i didn't even take the PSAT's this year.... but ever since i got my PLAN results a few weeks ago i've been getting even more than usual.... I get most of my mail from WUSL, Sweet Briar (which I don't mind because the stuff they send is hand written), and now in the last weeks it's been Tulane and Drexel</p>
<p>i just got a mailing today from the naval academy asking if i had scheduled my interview....</p>
<p>i think someone stole my identity</p>
<p>I've got a sophomore and a junior who just took the psats and received scores in the semi-finalist range for our state. [And we're not in South Dakota or Mississippi, lol] Both marked to receive mail, both marked themselves as "A-" students, one marked an interest in nuclear engineering, one marked "pre-law," and so far we've received... nothing for the sophomore and three pieces of mail for the junior, all of which were from schools he replied to after last year's mailings. [And all said something like "If you continue to be interested... ]
I think we live in a bad zip code [we've got a great bowling alley in our zip code :-)] and we live in the vast wastelands in the middle of the country. Maybe thumper could forward some of her mail on to us?:-) The ironic thing is, we're not applying for financial aide for either of them, wherever they go, and we could really use some mail, especially from engineering programs, because I'm unfamiliar with those schools/programs. I just ordered an out-of-print, sort of gossipy guide to the colleges that I thought might help. [by Trent Anderson, anybody get that one?]
I even tipped the postman last week in case he just was stockpiling our third-class mail until after Christmas. We didn't get any college mail yesterday, but he was very cheerful when he saw me. :-)</p>