Parent's Package

[jak321]

<p>

It is astonishing to me that more parents DON’T look beyond the marketing of any school, and just take a blind leap of faith.

Do you know most of the hundreds of thousands of parents of college bound kids? Or at least you have some sort of poll where most/some/any of them picked “just read one mail and saw one shirt and scarf and fished out the 250k”. No? Alright…</p>

<p>

All I am saying is that U of C is trying to tip the scales in an eighteen year old’s mind with this mailing. I don’t think we are jaded and unappreciative at all. I mean… should I appreciate a scarf, three t-shirts, two hats, a pen, and a decal in return for a commitment to spend $250,000 at their institution?

No! Absolutely not (I’m not being sarcastic now) The point of the marketing is NOT to convince you to commit to a college. It was never intended that way! If you go to the University of Chicago, its because you WANT to! Scarf or no scarf!</p>

<p>

Like you student, my kid will attend admitted student days at her top choices. And then we will decide based on both her feeling from those visits and other metrics/facts we have been gathering. But no one will be wearing t-shirts from any the colleges she applied to while we are doing it (she does not weat [sic] the t-shirt they sent her, either, by her own choice).

And I don’t wear it because I don’t like it! But people who do wear it, wear it because they are proud of the school, the same reason a sports fan would don his team colors! If you aren’t proud of the school (or aren’t sold on it yet) then by all means don’t wear the shirt. Just like some make a statement (of pride) by wearing it, make a statement by not wearing it.</p>

<p>

You can get past the scripted side, but I really think very few people do more than a little bit of this work. They just trust in what the college is marketing and how it feels. And sometimes that works out, and sometimes it doesn’t. Just don’t think you are above being affected by marketing, because you probably aren’t.

WHAAT?! Very few people do more than read a college mailer?! That explains why USNews is such a ghost town, why college pr0wl3r is deserted, why Fiske and Princeton Review aren’t able to sell any of their books… Because people just read college mailers! That makes sense.
(end of sarcasm rant)
But seriously! You’re using the arguement that students do not investigate into their colleges enough, and don’t go beyond college mailers, on a COLLEGE MESSAGE BOARD?! The very fact that I, and thousands of others, spend hours on this very site every day, runs counter to your opinion. Your very medium negates it…
And its not like each student just gets mails from only one college. They get similar marketing mails from several colleges! At that point they certainly begin to rigorously research colleges.</p>