I loved the cute pink box of candy hearts with a message of love that Northeastern sent to son for Valentine’s Day. Techie son gave no reaction though. Maybe that was a girl thing.
The repeated mailings of Univ of Chicago postcards about Swedish stuff like IKEA were clever, but I may have just been intrigued because I have Swedish family. U of C definitely comes across as interesting and quirky in their mailings and application essays. Son was not excited and did not apply, mostly because they don’t offer engineering.
USC brochures were the most beautiful of all. Happy students in sunshine, surrounded by beautiful gardens and architecture. I want to go there.
One college I had never heard of sent a large movie-style poster featuring my son’s full name. I liked that, because it was different and personalized.
Stanford sent an expensive, gorgeous book around the first week of January this senior year. Was that supposed to convince son to apply at the last minute? As wonderful as Stanford is, we knew that it would be a waste of an application fee.
GA Tech does a great job with their fairly simple but sometimes clever marketing emails. Same with MIT. Son read those.
I almost feel sorry for colleges trying to market to teenagers in this online world. where they are bombarded with information. Teen trends change with the wind, and it is hard to capture their attention when they are so busy.
And, families complain if they get too many emails and postal mailings. But then some feel unwanted if they don’t get as many as others. I remember one year when friends were saying that their kids had received emails offering free applications to places like Tulane, Clemson, and Rice. I was feeling slightly insulted that my son hadn’t gotten the freebies. But then, after asking him to search his email, he found them. He was just receiving so many college marketing emails that he wasn’t reading most of them.