School Telemarketing

I received a call on my cell phone from a telemarketer today regarding my opinions about private schools. The source was obviously from Peddie as almost all of the questions were about this school with some questions specifically about Peddie.

This seems rather odd and I don’t think that I would have given permission for them to contact me for something like this. They wanted to speak to my 13 year old son, which was also rather strange.

Is anyone else getting telemarketers?

We definitely got a call like this (for another school, but not even one daughter had applied to, IIRC) a few years ago when older girl was applying.

Sometimes schools will commission marketing studies of applicants, to find out how applicants perceive them. In the past, we’ve fielded calls from St. George’s and Exeter.

Did your child apply to Peddie? If he took the SSAT, indicated interest in the school by contacting it, but didn’t submit an application, that would make him an interesting student to call, to find out why he didn’t apply.

If he did apply to Peddie, the marketing firm the school hired got the dates wrong. Calling before March 10th is guaranteed to ratchet up the family nerves.

Yes - applied to Peddie and he really likes the school. This is a major reason why I did not want them to contact him.

To me, “telemarketing” means trying to get you to buy something… this sounds like it was just a survey?

I feel like part of the motivation of the “survey” was messaging - almost like a “push poll.” For example - “Are you aware of specialized signature programs at Peddie for students interested in science?” The whole thing was odd and probably not appropriate for March 7th, especially not for a kid.

@heartburner I totally agree. I think I would tell them what I tell all telemarketers, sorry we don’t participate. Click

Both son and I received similar “survey” phone calls last year after the end of the admissions cycle. I strongly suspect the school was Deerfield or Choate. Can’t be sure, but the questions were designed to find out why we turned down one school over another. They asked the same set of questions to my son and I on two different occasions, so they were speaking from a script.