Is anyone having a heck of a time getting colleges to honor the ‘unsubscribe’ click- through at the bottom of emails?
I have had some strangely snarky interactions (the snark is theirs, not mine) via email when the opt-out has been repeatedly ignored.
@Waiting2exhale The extra emails don’t bother me, but if you don’t like them I would just filter them to Trash. Alternatively, you can filter the ones you ‘want’ and forward to another email address or folder.
If your student skips all the background info when they register for the test and check the no marketing option, they won’t get bombarded. The marketing means nothing of value. They might miss out on some app season invitations (like steak dinner invites like USC does for their Top Scholar/HC invitations), but those types of invites do not play out to mean anything of significance other than marketing. Kids don’t need to attend those types of events to still be considered.
(After 4 kids, we finally learned not to be spammed the 5th time around.)
^We did that (made sure not to check the box for emails). It’s wonderfully quiet the second time around!
Here too. DS20 (99% scores) didn’t fill in any optional information when registering or on test day even when prompted by the proctor. We learned with DD17. They ask for tons of personal information including parents income range, parents education level, student course history, grades, interests, etc. We felt it was an invasion of our privacy since they turn around and sell it, making money from the tests, the sending of scores, and also selling personal information harvested from unsuspecting minors who are stressed out about a huge test. Of course yesterday ds20 comes home saying “all my friends are being recruited by Harvard and I’m the only one who didn’t get anything”. He thought it would have been nice to get that one!
Question (rant?) for those of you who know UofSC (Carolina). S20 and I are here in Columbia now. He is really loving UofSC. It’s a great fit for him and his first choice at the moment. He will have a strong application (4.0 UW, 33, good ECs and leadership) and will apply for Honors and Top Scholars.
Yesterday I spoke with an admissions officer about HS GPA weighting. UofSC gives extra weight to AP, IB, and Honors classes. S goes to a small, rigorous private HS where AP/IB/Honors are not offered. HS administrators have said the curriculum is comparable to IB, but they want to retain flexibility so they don’t do the official IB program. I told this to the UofSC AO, and he said that S would be given the standard GPA weighting, equivalent to basic level non-Honors courses. This has me very concerned, as average weighted GPA for Honors College admission is 4.7+, and it puts him in range GPA-wise for much smaller merit scholarships. I have frequently read on CC that colleges won’t punish applicants who don’t take AP/IB because they aren’t offered at their school, but this does not seem to be the case here.
Does anyone have any insight? We are going to an Honors College info session today, and I will ask how much the GPA matters in a case like this. I know colleges have to try to create a level playing field for applicants, and I know that’s difficult to do, but I’m afraid we may come up on the short end on this.
shrimpBurrito - that’s a hard one. But you’d think they’d have a policy if the school doesn’t offer above a 4.0; and didn’t offer weighted grades. You’d also think admissions would recognize that caliber of school. (is it in state?) Maybe ask how they’ve handled other schools like that. If it were me, I’d be all over that; because merit money is important to us. ** nice job to your kiddo btw.
D20 has been on pins and needles for days waiting for her SAT results. She woke up early this morning to log in and find out how she fared, but her scores are still pending. Does anyone here know about how long it will take pending results to finally show up?
@hgtvaddict D20 Pending here too. The reddit kids are saying that the next wave will come out late this afternoon/early evening (5-6 EST). Good luck to your daughter.
@janiemiranda thanks for the info. Good luck to your D20, too!
@bgbg4us We are not in state, and no one from our HS has ever applied to UofSC. If I’m not completely at ease after talking to reps at the Honors College info session today, I will go to our HS counselor. Maybe there is something in the school profile sent to colleges that indicates the level of rigor. Hopefully UofSC will look at it holistically.
We have had issues with compatibility before with UofSC. (Their required HS classes are very specific, and our HS does not offer them all.) Our HS counselor communicated with our local UofSC rep and figured out a go-around. If this college weren’t such a great fit for S I’d ask him to just ditch it!
I think going to your own GC is a good tactic @ShrimpBurrito. I would think if the school profile doesn’t state it strongly enough, your GC could state it expressly as part of your son’s recommendation.
@bigmacbeth: “Alternatively, you can filter the ones you ‘want’ and forward to another email address or folder.”
We’ve forwarded the ‘wants’ and deleted as well as clicked-through to unsubscribe for the ‘not interested’ bunch,
but the ones who are persistent are the problem. Going to have to work on that filtering skill.
By the way, your CC tag name has officially morphed to ‘Big MacBeth Guy’ here, with son. (Guy is an actual non-gendered term the way he uses it.)
@ShrimpBurrito I would ask your GC to call and speak to the HC admissions about how to ensure the coursework receives proper weighting. They will talk to your GC with a different level of communication than with you as a parent. I called and spoke with them directly as my dd’s GC and they were very helpful. The HC is holistic in their acceptances, and the essays matter A LOT. Do not let your student slide on the essays.
@ShrimpBurrito you are doing the right things now, but regardless I’m sure he’d get in the Honors College after a semester or two. Hopefully your GC and USC can work it out.
Thanks so much, @Mom2aphysicsgeek
My kids create a separate e-mail for college search information. We use it for the College Board/ACT, signing up for campus tours, etc. It is full of college solicitations but they are there for reference if wanted and they don’t fill the regular in box. You can go into College Board/ACT and change your e-mail or change your preferences (if you don’t want emails) at any time.
They create a third e-mail account that is only used for actual college applications. That one is important because if a college sends any information to that account, we know it is coming from admissions and needs to be read immediately.
“You can go into College Board/ACT and change your e-mail or change your preferences (if you don’t want emails) at any time.”
That has not shown to be full-proof here. The colleges who first received son’s information after he took PSAT/NMSQT continue to send mail to that, his personal email address, despite the change he has made with the College Board regarding notifications. It is those colleges which annoy.
@Waiting2exhale yes, I agree. The schools who grabbed your student’s data from the PSAT or before you changed it will still have the original email address. But we are only seeing the beginning of these marketing campaigns so, if you want to minimize the hit to your primary email’s in box, you can create a new account and change it now.
Interestingly, a college from the first batch at which he will tour over his break, but one to which he has not actually expressed any interest, sent him a fabulous email about their institutional programs for academic honors and funding.
Hmmm. Will have to see if he puts it in play after the visit.