<p>I am unconvinced that elite schools spend their marketing budgets on kids out in the sticks trying to “get the word out”. Comparing notes between relatives who are in small midwestern towns and looking around my well to do surroundings, it’s the kids in the well to do schools that get the unsolicited novels about school XYZ sent to them. Partly because it is the well to do schools that have the test scores that trigger the mailings, and of course the money to send applications.</p>