<p>My daughter is a sophomore and she took her PSATs in October, got the score (189) in mid-December. </p>
<p>Over the past 2 weeks she has received a deluge of mail from various colleges. Enclosed are letters-"we've noticed you" "you have caught our interest" "it has come to our attention that you would be an excellent candidate for our school". Two of them already offered 80% finanacial aid based on merit--and they don't even know our economic circumstances!</p>
<p>The other thing is, all the brochures we have received have mentioned "cultural diversity" and "vibrant student body". And the brochures all have photos of ethnic personalities (i.e. Afro-Am, Hispanic, Asian, etc). </p>
<p>I am wondering: would this be due to her PSAT scores? I did call one of them (Emory) and was told by the undergrad admissions person that yes, Emory targets a certain PSAT score(among sophmores) and sends out letters to those students.</p>
<p>HOWEVER, my daughter has friends with similar PSAT scores and they did NOT receive any solicitations from the same schools. </p>
<p>Or could it be due to our last name (ethnic) and therefore the schools are targeting my daughter's high PSAT scores and her (presumed) ethnicity?</p>
<p>I did read something a while ago online about this, what kind of brochures a student recieves, blah blah blah, but can't remember where. </p>
<p>we have received a few, but none offering any definite merit aid and most lac's i hadnt heard of, certainly not emory caliber schools. son's psat was 200 non-ethnic type name</p>
<p>Parent56, is your son a sophomore or a junior? </p>
<p>Also, several of the letters and brochures have "suggested" that daughter enter their colleges early--after 10th or 11th grade!!! in an early admission program. </p>
<p>Daughter has no desire to do this--she IS cramming courses because she intends to graduate 1 year early, at 17 (junior year). But her plan is to work full-time for 9 months and save enough money so that she can travel the world for the following 6-7 months, maybe teach in a small village school in the Amazon (she's been there before and loves it) or to do some outreach marine biology project in Latin America...</p>
<p>Anyway, D has been comparing the brochures and letters she has been receiving to those of her friends, and they are definitely different...It's as if there is more than one brochure, each targeted to a different group.</p>
<p>he's a junior but got some after taking it sophomore year and after junior psat. he also got some of the early college programs, i remember some from bard and one in california and world colleges but he wasnt interested in those either</p>
<p>My D, a junior, has been receiving solicitations from colleges ever since she got into High School, Emory, Washington University St. Louis, were included in that. She is hispanic, and had reasonable not stellar PSATs. She usually receives the "multi-cultural" version of the material the schools send out. She also has compared what she receives to other kids and she receives more than some that are the better students. Surprised about the 80% financial aid based on merit - I know some schools like Emory will lure you into to apply, but actually getting decent merit aid is difficult. We don't qualify for financial aid so are looking where she will likely get decent merit aid.</p>
<p>My daughter started receiving all kinds of mail from colleges when she started NINTH grade...no idea why. The reality was that many of the schools sending her information were schools where her likelihood of acceptance was pretty low. Most of it went into the trash. Don't read too much into what you get in mailings. These are marketing things that are designed to pique your interest in the schools. They are NOT even close to an offer of acceptance.</p>
<p>Good test scores will generate tons of mailings before she graduates. It starts with the PSAT, as a sophomore your D got a head start. Students can also fill out check off interest boxes that generate mail. Some schools will send many multiple mailings (some duplications, others variations of the same theme). The elite schools may send a simple postcard, some of the lesser schools trying to get the attention of top students may send weekly mailings. There was a thread about this some months ago. I finally recycled 2 full grocery paper bags full of unsolicited mail after son was away at college. Of course it is all advertising, college junk mail.</p>
<p>Any test scores will generate mail...they don't have to be outstanding scores. And it's virtually impossible to stop the mail. DS was still getting mail asking him to apply as a FRESHMAN when he was a college senior!</p>
<p>Well, this is all very interesting and some of it makes no sense whatsoever.</p>
<p>For example, why would some of the colleges send out mass mailings? I mean, if you are a crappy student with no chance of being accepted at Emory, why would Emory send out unsolicited materials--especially if they (Emory) can see from your PSAT scores that you are, clearly, NOT Emory material?</p>
<p>On the flip side, if you have great PSAT scores, why would a 4th- or 5th level (one step up from mail-order) college send you information? Why wold they waste THEIR money? </p>
<p>Don't these schools look at PSAT scores and (somewhat) selectively target their audience? I know my daughter "checked off" that she wanted her scores released to various schools...so I would think the schools would use these scores as filtering tools. I mean, the cost of these brochures and mailings must add up.</p>
<p>The other curiosity is the number and type of material my daughter has received compared to her peers. It seems to point to the schools selectively filtering by last name (presumed ethnic) which contradicts the UNselective mailings from certain schools that my daughter has received. </p>
<p>I was wondering if anyone knows about this...maybe someone who has had more experience in this area?</p>
<p>your daughter may have filled out her college preferences etc portion of the PSAT application differently than her peers. This strongly affects the type of mailings received</p>
<p>The more selective a school, the higher it moves in the various rankings which mean a lot to many people (even, it's rumored, some people on CC :) ). If all the mailings generate a substantial number of uncompetitive applicants, they're applicants who can be turned down thereby decreasing the acceptance rate, which in turn gets more qualified students to apply because they see that admission there is increasingly selective.</p>
<p>OP I know of zero colleges that do this. And I've looked at merit aid for a long time now.
[quote]
My daughter is a sophomore ....she took her PSATs in October...(189).</p>
<p>....Two of them already offered 80% finanacial aid based on merit
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Would you share who made these unsolicited offers? I'd certainly like to add them to my list.</p>
<p>This post makes me sad. I just realized my daughter has only received 3 or 4 brochures this year and she's a junior. They must be tied to test scores :(</p>
<p>Toledo, don't worry about it. Did she also include an email address? My dd has gotten way more emails than snail mailings. </p>
<p>Many of them are such a joke. She put creative writing as her main interest and has gotten several saying she would be a good fit for their engineering department. I don't think anybody reads the students' details. As was mentioned upthread, colleges want to increase their numbers of applications.</p>
<p>Well, I have to say that I think the marketing departments are engaged in the full on court press for the class of 2011! </p>
<p>I have a DS1 - class of 2009 - who had very solid 10th and 11th grade PSAT scores. While he received some email and snail mail after the sophmore PSATs, it was zilch compared to the deluge that DS2 has received in the past two weeks. 17 pieces of mail last Friday alone !</p>
<p>This is my second time through this and the deluge is ridiculous. We also had a mailbox full last Friday, and again today. Well over thirty mailings on those two days alone. Is there anyway to make it stop once it starts?</p>
<p>My kids both wrote my email address on their forms and I'm getting all the emails from colleges. Some schools last year were emailing me every day. If you don't respond it seems to trigger another email. The emails don't really bother me since it's easy to press delete or forward them to my kids account. </p>
<p>My second child's PSAT sophomore year was about 25 points lower than the older child's score but the younger is getting the same mail. So I am assuming either their score cut-off is lower than his or they send stuff to everyone.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Is there anyway to make it stop once it starts?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Not that we ever found. BUT if you find a way to stop the unsolicited mail, please post that method here. I'm sure there are many folks who will thank you.</p>
<p>I just figured out the other day that, what with PSAT, SAT I, SAT II and AP tests, my Jr S already has six test records with College Board, with 6-7 more coming this year, and possibly 3-4 his Sr year (if he decides to take the AP exams.)</p>
<p>So, theoretically, the marketing arms of colleges have already seen how he's performed on six tests, and will have 13 to look at during the time of admissions decisions. </p>
<p>Are they looking at these at all? Who knows? He just listed basic info about himself, along with the thought he might major in physics. The email and snail mail (sometimes both from the same school) he's received in the last two week period has been all across the map, literally. As best as I can recall, these are the colleges wanting to "touch base," in no particular order:</p>
<p>PUBLICS
U of Washington (Seattle)
Ohio State U
U of North Carolina (Chapel Hill)
Humboldt St U</p>
<p>PRIVATES
U of Southern California (went on a tour)
CalTech
Kettering U
Grinell U
Vassar U
RPI
Hofstra U
Stevens Inst of Tech
Southern Methodist U
Willamette U
Rice U
Washington U
Colgate U
Hamilton U
Harvey Mudd</p>
<p>Meanwhile, he's so California centric at the moment, will it matter?</p>
<p>Curm - My memory is hazy four years after the fact, but I think Cedar Crest College was one school that offered D a full tuition scholarship in an unsolicited mailing. I'm pretty sure there were others as well, virtually all from obscure colleges. I can't be certain because I've long since pitched the boxes of brochures. In any case Cedar Crest's 75th percentile ACT was six lower than D's score, so the college didn't make the "Well let's check it out" list.</p>