? re: types of schools sending brochures to us

Parents Forum
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<p>My son also took the PSAT in Oct as a sophmore and is also getting a deluge. He DID check off the email box, and identified as AA. I can't say I've noticed anything....colorful....about the mail. OP, is your child a minority? He did ok on the PSAT ( not CC okay, just local ok), but we all laugh because the letters all tell him what a great student he is, but he can't seem to hit a 3.0 GPA.</p>

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<p>Yes, you can eliminate most of the college junk mail by opting out of CollegeBoard's Student Search Service. We've managed to dial our junk mail from a raging flood to a trickle.</p>

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[quote="<a href="http://www.collegeboard.com/html/privacy001.html%22"&gt;http://www.collegeboard.com/html/privacy001.html"&lt;/a&gt;]

Student Search Service: Student Search Service communications are sent by outside colleges, scholarship programs, and educational opportunity organizations. All entities who receive student information from Student Search Service are required to maintain strict confidentiality. We actively monitor these entities to ensure adherence to our guidelines. The frequency and mode of communication is determined by the entity which receives the student's name. Every communication from individual entities is required to contain specific instructions on how to unsubscribe from that particular institution. To unsubscribe from the entire program, call (800) 626-9795 or write to:</p>

<p>The College Board
11911 Freedom Drive, Suite 300
Reston, VA 20190-5602
Attention: Student Search Service

[/quote]
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<p>Ever since sophomore year, geek_son has been receiving way more junk mail and junk email than I have. Once I went to the mailbox service and they lifted down one of those big plastic mail-service boxes, full of college junk mail addressed to him. When he concluded his college search and mailed in his deposit, we followed the instructions above and began religiously clicking the "unsubscribe" link at the bottom of every junk email message. He now receives much less college junk, both electronic and postal. It works, but you have to be patient and consistent.</p>

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<p>My sophomore D got 5 pieces of college mail on Saturday, and 10 today. Then she checked the email address that she uses exclusively for college-related stuff, and had over 100 emails since the last time she checked! LOL! She is not impressed with the deluge, either. She says they all sound the same, and she would be much more impressed with a personal letter. Most are from very good schools, but a few from places I'd never heard of.</p>

<p>BTW, she did take the PSAT last year and this year, and did well for her age group.</p>

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Not surprising, since most of them come from a handful of college marketing firms contracted by the schools. I don't think the firms understand their targets very well. :(</p>

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<p>When I took the PSAT there was a little box that you checked if you wanted colleges to send you information.</p>

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<p>LOL - oregoniandaughter just said she has 267 emails from colleges in her inbox, as of right now.</p>

<p>geek_mom - I looked at the mailings she received today, and every single one was exactly the same general formatting. Obviously all done by the same marketing company. I know they want to get the word out, but that's a turn-off.</p>

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<p>My son has mailings from three schools so far. He's a freshman who just turned 14. And yes, WUSTL is one of them.</p>

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<p>@oregonianmom: Yup, a total turn-off for geek_son too. Those me-too messages from the turnkey e-marketing companies actually had the opposite effect: If he received one, he'd put the college on his "no way in heck" list. Kids are incredibly cynical about marketing messages these days, and one can't blame them for it. Unfortunately, it seems like a lot of college admissions offices aren't so sophisticated and are easier prey for online marketers!</p>

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<p>This just speaks to the insane college industry out there. Of course they want to attract and bring in great students and your child may be one of them (especially if s/he can help shift their mean sat score range). </p>

<p>But their bigger and easier goal, using a enormous advertising budget and hired consultants, is to bring in tons more applications- and any applications will do- so they can change their selectivity numbers. Schools that can become more selective (by increasing the denominator) get a jackpot of other benefits. It is just another big business and part of the game.</p>

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<p>S had 19 snail mail pieces in the mailbox yesterday. He opened them while we were driving somewhere; this was highly entertaining, as he'd adopt different accents depending on the location of the school, and abuse the pieces which were similar to ones he'd already received (which was most of them). </p>

<p>Some of the material stressed "diversity." We live in a black-majority school district which has an overwhelming black public school student population (he attends public school); if one assumes the diversity pieces are different from what would be sent elsewhere, I can easily assume it was our location/school that triggered these particular selections. </p>

<p>Carleton College had a nice "we're here, just letting you know" letter, without marketing hype/e-quiz/etc. St. Lawrence is offering a hat in return for a reply of some kind, which made my kid perk up. (Freebies!!) And he said he'd reply to Swarthmore, too, in addition to St. Lawrence, but I don't remember now why he'd said so.</p>

<p>I asked him to keep a list of the colleges from which he gets emails, and I'll keep a list of the colleges from which he gets snail mail, this just to satisfy my own curiosity over time! :D</p>

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<p>53 college emails yesterday. And strangely most are from LACs - PSAT stated engineering. Total waste.</p>

<p>Sadly, the three-times weekly email from a lovely school nearby that was a good match is about to be spam filtered. </p>

<p>Hopefully schools will soon figure out they are wasting their money.</p>

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<p>Ha, owlice -- geek_son did the same thing with his junk mail! His Swarthmore accent made me laugh until I had to pull the car over because of the tears streaming down my face.</p>

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<p>geek_mom, perhaps our kids are twins-separated-at-birth! </p>

<p>Grinnell has an office in Virginia; I had to tell spawn to look at the school's address, the goose!!</p>

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<p>Twins separated at birth? Hmmmm... I think I would remember that! :eek: That's too funny about Grinnell. If he really likes Virginia, maybe they'd let him room at their office!</p>

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<p>No special fondness for Virginia, not from this side of the Potomac, believe me!!</p>

<p>I'd never even heard of one of the schools he got mail from: Hampden-Sydney College. It's in Virginia, as are a number of other schools from which he got mail yesterday: William and Mary, Virginia Commonwealth U, U of Richmond. I could maybe, possibly, perhaps see W&M as being a maybe to explore further, but I'm certain that Hampden-Sydney is of no interest whatsoever, and not because I've never heard of it, but if for no other reason than its a men's college!</p>

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<p>As far as I can tell, there is no apparent logic to which schools send their marketing materials to which kids.</p>

<p>When my daughter was in her junior year and early senior year in high school, she was deluged with mail from two schools -- Carnegie Mellon and Mount Holyoke. I can't even imagine a kid who would be interested in applying to both of those places; they are so very different. Yet they both had my kid in their sights -- even though she had no interest in either of them.</p>

<p>I must say, though, that marketing isn't always pointless. A friend of my daughter's received a mailing from a program and college that she had never considered -- the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. A lot of other kids got that mailing, too (including my daughter, who had already decided to apply to a different school within Cornell), and most of those kids immediately threw it out. But this girl was intrigued by what it said in the letter. She investigated further and decided to apply. She was admitted, she accepted the offer, and she absolutely loves it.</p>

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<p>S2 has heard twice from Hampden-Sydney. Sorry, folks, but my S is just not the old school southern gentleman sort!</p>

<p>Some of you probably heard this last year, but over the course of 10th-12th grade, we weighed all the college mail that arrived at our house bearing S1's name. By the time we were done, the total was 124 pounds. At the time, S1 weighed 117. I stopped keeping track of emails at 600 -- and those were just the ones that came to the family email address.</p>

<p>If we get snail mail to equal S2's weight, we will have a serious, serious problem with global warming, my dear CC friends! He's a defensive tackle!</p>

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<p>I really don't think some of the schools screen their mailing lists very well. My D absolutely BOMBED her PSAT math section (by CC standards, anyway, she was only 52nd percentile). She wants to be a psych major, and I think she indicated that on the test. Today she got a mailing from Rennselear! And a few years ago the Univ of Dayton was convinced that my son had indicated an interest in their Early Childhood Ed program - ummm, that's a no both (Early Childhood and Dayton)</p>

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<p>Still on son's at home bulletin board (3rd year away now)- a red postcard from UW- Madison (our state flagship school) saying something about we got them, and they're good written over red on red test scores. Plus a postcard from Yale, he never visited it on his east coast trip. Those were nice, one time hints. Threads like this bring back memories of the joys of having HS kids...</p>

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<p>I agree with CountingDown. The waste of paper is horrible for the environment. </p>

<p>I don't believe those letters come from score on PSAT. My son, a sophomore, has been receiving them by the ton. Some colleges send him up to three letters at the time, all of them bearing different versions of his name. For example, one letter show his middle initial, the other one doesn't, and the last one has letters missing from his last name. If it was from info put on the PSAT, you would think the letter would be adress correctly, and one would be enough. I would not be surprised that info are being collected over the years, and are being sold to these schools.</p>