<p>I'm not sure if this is the right forum, but I wonder what is up with college marketing these days. My 10th grade daughter began receiving in-state college literature weeks before we had her PSAT scores, which are good, but not outstanding - 190something. Months later, she is now getting several letters/packets daily and that many or more emails from pretty selective schools from all over. I don't remember my son, a high school senior, getting this much literature so soon and had similar 10th grade PSAT scores. </p>
<p>Are colleges trying for even higher applicant volume? I can't imagine these particular schools needing more applications, as they're already unrealistically selective with teen and single-digit admission rates. Why do they do this so early? My daughter is 15 and hardly able to differientate authentic interest from marketing ploys.</p>
<p>I hate to think of the money spent on production and postage of this material when schools are cutting positions and programs. What is an appropriate response?</p>
<p>The same thing happened to us – when my D was a sophmore, after she had taken the PSAT. I turned to another mother at a school event and asked if they were getting inundated with university marketing material from numerous prestigeous schools. She replied “No”. (I felt a little pompous for even asking.)</p>
<p>My D turned had a high PSAT score and was a National Merit Commended Scholar (not quite a Finalist) so subsequently I assumed that’s where they got her name. Or maybe because she goes to a good college-prep school.</p>
<p>I don’t remember the scoring for PSAT but I’d assume that’s why you’re being contacted. I just know most kids don’t get the volumes we got. It filled a big box.</p>
<p>We only replied to ones she was interested in.</p>
<p>getalifemom,
I have twins and one checked the “send me stuff” box when he took the PSAT’s and the other did not. Guess who’s getting lots of useless snail mail? And he hates the size of some of the mailings because he thinks it’s ecologically unsound.</p>
<p>I’ll have to ask her about checking boxes to receive info. I have advised her to never give out her email address, but to use mine. We, too, are concerned about all aspects of the waste involved. Most of the glossy publications we cannot recycle.</p>
<p>Sophmore year my son got swamped after the PSATs. This year he got a few at the beginning of the year and they are picking back up again now. But it’s nothing compared to Sophmore year and his scores have only gone up.</p>
<p>There must be a method to the maddness but I don’t understand it.</p>
<p>Yeah, get ready for the onslaught. Some students have reported saving all their college junk mail until graduation, then finding that it weighs more than they do! :eek:</p>
<p>As to the timing, pugmadkate, my workplace has mailing campaigns at certain times of the year – I imagine most colleges are the same, especially since so many of them seem to outsource marketing to the same handful of companies.</p>
<p>Most of the junk mail comes from CollegeBoard’s Student Search Service (SSS), which is opt-in at the time of standardized testing. CollegeBoard sells opt-in students’ contact and demographic information to colleges for targeted marketing purposes. If you want to, you can opt out of after the fact as explained in CB’s [Privacy</a> Policy](<a href=“The Privacy Center – College Board Privacy Center”>The Privacy Center – College Board Privacy Center)</p>
<p>geek_son discovered his dream college and several potential alternates through the junk mail they sent by way of CollegeBoard’s SSS. So although there was a lot of worthless junk in the mailbox too, the SSS served a useful purpose for us.</p>
<p>Regarding email… I set up a separate email address for all of my son’s college contacts. Set it to forward to both my address and his, which came in handy when “real” email came in from scholarship agencies or the colleges he was truly interested in. Both of us filter all the college email into separate folders, and I tell him to check his when something important has come in. The nice thing about this setup is, after the whole season is overwith, I can set a strict spam filter on the address without affecting his personal email.</p>
<p>Oh… and the “unsubscribe” links in those junk email messages do work. :)</p>
<p>Is it common in your area to take the PSAT in 10th grade. The public schools around here traditionally have students take the Practice SAT in October of the Junior year. Or did your kids just take it as 10th graders for practice? In which case I guess it was the Practice Practice SAT. Whatever, if you check the box the deluge will begin.</p>
<p>At our high school, kids took the PSAT as a practice for 9th and 10th graders. It didn’t seem to matter whether they checked the box or not…our kids started getting stuff freshman year. Part of it may have come from CTY participation, but I’m pretty sure most of it was PSAT-generated. Then, when the SAT comes, especially if your kid scores pretty high, you’ll have days where their college mail outnumbers your bills and junk mail!</p>
<p>At our school, kids take the PSAT in the 10th grade, which evidently is paid for by the school (public). The school then pays (at least my son’s year) for the top 50 scoring students from 10th to take it their 11th grade year. Also, our school just this year began advertising that for any student scoring over 650 on any section of the SAT (and similar on ACT) it would reimburse the student upon taking the test again. My son submitted his scores and receipts, but unfortunately, we’ve not seen any money.</p>
<p>Why would the school do that, i.e., encourge kids who did well on the SAT to take it again.</p>
<p>I’m also curious: I understand the College Board shamelessly peddling personal information to the colleges, but I can’t imagine they’d provide scores too.</p>
<p>My daughter started getting mail before starting high school. I’ve concluded the reason is she is hispanic and started taking the ACT in the 8th grade … and the overall ACT scores weren’t great, just the English part.</p>
<p>At our school, all tenth grades must take the PSAT (and it’s free). Anyone in eleventh grade may take it if they’d like. It’s only like $13 and the qualifications for a waiver are really easy - basically if you request a fee waiver, you’ll get one, since the school has a certain number of waivers but only 15-20 juniors take the PSAT anyways. I started getting a ton of mail by January in my sophomore year. I couldn’t have been happier! I have two bins in my room: read, recycle, and keep. Most get recycled. Of the rest, some get read (but I don’t always get to it very quickly, so I have a bin for them). Of the ones I read, I keep the ones I like and then recycle the ones I don’t. I have about 9 inches now of pure brochures that I’ve kept. I know I’ve gotten at least one hundred letters and dozens of other brochures that I’ve tossed.</p>
<p><strong><em>Why would the school do that, i.e., encourge kids who did well on the SAT to take it again.</em></strong></p>
<p>Administrators cite statistics that indicate students scoring over the 650 mark improve with repeated testing. The idea of prepping for SATs is almost non-existant so repeated testing is a form of prep. Our school is large but rural and mostly non-competitive. I believe less than half go to college and of those who do, half or more attend community college. Our area is home to a somewhat highly educated military installation, though, and trying to become or give the appearance of becoming more educationally competitive. A former state representative from our area chaired our former governor’s education committee and worked tirelessly to bring up the standards and expectations in our school system. Opportunities within our high school are steadily increasing and the push for higher SAT scores is most likely to give credibility to these improvement efforts.</p>
<p>The PSAT that “matters” for possible National Merit Scholarship consideration is the one they take in Oct of Junior year. Most College-prep high schools have the kids practice taking it in 9th & 10th. It’s just practice. At our publics,taking it in 9th & 10th is optional.</p>
<p>As for SAT, my D took it twice and really rocked it the second time around. Her first score was good, her second … great. Almost all the kids in her school took it twice, at the various sittings. I’m not sure I can see a negative to it, as the schools consider the highest score. Same with ACT…</p>
<p>My daughter took SAT’s in 7th grade in her impact group and started getting college mail shortly after…seemed exciting at the time, but irrelevant in the grand scheme.</p>
<p>A sophomore scoring in the 190s might well be in the ballpark for a National Merit as a junior so I don’t think the mailings are completely out of line. Most sophomores though would probably be better off not checking off the send me mail box.</p>
It might get worse.</p>