I graduated from the Citadel with that Citadel Scholar’s scholarship. Most miserable four years of my life, but I came out debt-free, so it was probably as good as having worked two or three jobs during school and coming out debt-free. The plus side is that after the first year, you got three meals a day. I heard several family members survived on ramen through college, but I never went hungry.
The college classmate who tossed the unsolicited Citadel Scholar admission offer ended up graduating debt free from our alma mater debt free thanks to generous FA/scholarship package similar to what I received(possibly more generous considering his better HS GPA/estimated class rank). And that covered room and board so neither he nor I starved.
So are you saying the Citadel didn’t provide 3 meals a day before? That doesn’t sound right judging from what I’ve heard from colleagues who attended the Citadel or other military themed colleges like VMI.
When my DD took the ACT as seventh grader for Duke TIP program, she had to fill out registration information online that IMHO was digging for “marketing gold”. Funny getting mailers for a 12 year old. Many many questions about interests, future plans for study, school info, preferences… I’m a former marketing exec, and I know this data is useful… Find it interesting that they can make so much $$ from selling the data & still charge a lot for testing!
It means nothing. I’m a sophomore in college and I still get emails from undergraduate admissions offices.
“Seems like they could be wasting 10’s of $1000’s on kids who have no hope of getting in, then, Erin’s Dad.”
@AbsDad , re-read @eandesmom 's post, skip points 1 and 2, focus on point 3 and the last sentence. That is all you need to know.
It’s all about the denominator in their admissions statistics.
Case in point, the University of Chicago; a wonderful school. I have a few relatives who attended.
But it’s been said that they have been obsessed the last few years in catching Stanford’s admit rate. So Chicago will send you posters, t shirts, frisbees, and information packets that seem like something you should have to buy at a bookstore to encourage your application. They send all of that crap and more to pretty much everybody. It means absolutely nothing, and I cannot tell you how many people we know who bit on that bait, only to watch their kids be crushed with a fancy rejection letter. There were some we knew who were not even in the zip code academically, and they sort of convinced themselves that maybe Chicago sees something in their kid. Chicago is among the worst in this category.
“Without evidence, I refuse to believe it is part of some secret conspiracy to separate students from application fees or worse, to purposefully break their hearts.”
@Postmodern , I was surprised to see you wrote this.
No, it’s not a conspiracy to disappoint. That’s absurd.
It’s marketing and it’s about getting applications so as to drive up rejections and drive down the admission rate. It’s relatively simple and obvious. UChicago makes that clear. They bombard kids with crap who really and truly have ZERO chance of getting in. They want the app. @TheatreGoddess is spot on.
Northeastern is another school that has by all accounts manufactured their way up the rankings with this approach, among many others. There is an article that confirms how obsessed their President is with the US News formula, and almost everything he does is with the aim of pushing one or more of those variables. This guy openly interviewed for the article and was unabashed about his intentions. No shame whatsoever about it.
There’s no conspiracy … it’s all out in the open.
If you were bombarded with pamphlets from Mercedes, BMW, Porshe, Tesla, would you feel they were sent in order to just to make you feel bad because you couldnt afford them?? 
NO they, JUST like the pamphlets, books, emails, etc, etc from colleges, are MARKETING materials, plain and simple. And the application fees do pay for the cost of the marketing materials.
sheesh…
^exactly @menloparkmom .
fortunately or unfortunately, education operates in the market place like everyone else.
@MiddleburyDad2 , I agree with everything you wrote, including that they want to drive up the number of applications.
What I was referring to was specifically the idea that they were doing that to get extra $65s from kids that they know have no chance. A dollar figure was mentioned above me. I could have made that more clear I guess.
I don’t even believe it is that sinister WRT driving the number of applications for the rankings – yes they know they will reject most, but they don’t know who,specifically that is who in advance of the marketing. Coincidentally, just yesterday I was reading an old thread from a parent who was not familiar with U Chicago before the mailings, and now the kid happily attends…
Again, I agree with everything you wrote, including that it is out in the open. I can’t remember the last info session I went to that didn’t mention USN by name.
@Postmodern , ah, got it.
Yes, I agree. I don’t think it has anything to do with money for the app. fee. I assume that the cost of reading and processing the apps and the app fee are some kind of wash. And of course all that quality mailer crap costs $$ too. That whole marketing endeavor net net winds up costing them a lot of money.
“I don’t know that all the colleges are just being cynical and trying to up their application/acceptance ratio.”
Yeah, I think that’s pretty much what it’s all about.
…ignore, CC is being weird…
I wouldn’t read anything into it. University of Chicago is famous for the amount of bumpf it sends high school students. It also has a very low acceptance rate, so many students are enticed to apply only to be rejected.
As if to add the punchline to the joke, and complete the thread, S18s Harvard letter arrived yesterday! lol… Good thing CC keeps us informed.