"Year after year, colleges mail high school students brochures with information on academic programs, student-to-faculty ratio, campus culture and how to apply. Schools know who to reach by obtaining data from high schools, test administrators and other places.
While the practice of buying student data from test administrators isn’t a new concept, a recent report says schools like Northwestern encouraged applications from students they had no intention of admitting to boost selectivity …
"… Applications to Northwestern rose from about 14,000 in 2001 to over 40,000 in 2018. While the number of enrolled students has remained the same, the admissions rate has decreased almost 20 percentage points to 8.5 percent.
A decrease in acceptance rates is one contributor to Northwestern’s rise to the No. 9 spot in the U.S. News & World Report rankings." …
My daughter is a high school senior now and I can tell you that we get a LOT more in the ways of brochures from WashU, Northeastern, Tulane, Fordham, USC (Southern Cal) and several others before Northwestern.
1999 US News Rankings had Northwestern at #9 - so, basically the same ranking as 20 years ago. Ranking was #14 at worst post 2000.
Agree with @NewJeffCT… My D is also a HS senior. She applied ED engineering to NU. She is a very high PSAT/SAT/SATII scorer and gets tons of marketing mailings/emails from other schools and very little from NU (which she visited several times, talked to many reps, etc.). I think she got one large brochure mailing from them - that’s all.
After her natl. merit selection, she was inundated with mailings from lots of schools - everything from scholarship letters from big state schools, to multiple letters from places like USC, Princeton, Harvard, MIT, U of Chicago… The marketing definitely ramps up with the natl. merit (compared to my other 2 kids who were not merit finalists). My D was even a bit disappointed that NU hasn’t reached out to her as much, when many other schools have.
If Northwestern University wanted to boost applications in order to become more selective, then NU would just make application requirements test optional as the University of Chicago and many other colleges & universities have done.
In addition to NU, Stanford University, Vanderbilt University & the University of Chicago are some other elite schools which purchase SAT test takers’ info from the College Board.
There are legitimate reasons to buy such information beyond increasing application numbers in order to reduce a school’s acceptance rate. These reasons are set forth in the Wall Street Journal’s Wednesday, November 6, 2019 edition.
Yes, lots of mailings from Vanderbilt and Stanford as well. Also, U of Minnesota has sent us numerous mailings announcing they are waiving all application fees, essay requirements, rec. letters… I’m not sure if this is a universal effort to increase their app. numbers/selectivity, or maybe this is some targeted marketing toward high-scoring female STEM applicants.
My D did apply to Minn. engineering and I think the ease of their application process helped as she may not have applied if the process were not so streamlined. Anyhow, I’m going to check out the WSJ article - interesting stuff.
Interestingly my DD didn’t get anything from Stanford or NU, but she did from every Ivy, UChicago, and Vanderbilt. She didn’t apply to Stanford and NU, but she did to some of the Ivies and UChicago after visiting a few of them. Ended up at UChicago. Marketing can be an effective tool. In all fairness she had no interest in any California schools from the get go.
Totally agree with the above comments. My DD applied to NU ED - we really didn’t get much from them. Duke, on the other hand? Every day she gets an email and we received incessant mailings. UChicago as well. And Wellesley - holy cow - constant.
Marketing to potentially qualified students to apply is legit, however, sending mailings to anyone with the sole purpose of alluring more to apply just to become one of the denominators is kind of immoral imho.
