The Flood of Info-Letters: Does it improve your chances?

<p>My question is: if you get an info-letter from a school ("Dear ___, you're really cool and so are we. Here's a place to get more info.) does this mean they are more likely to accept you later? As in, is this a sign that you're approximately their target students?</p>

<p>I'm just asking because, as a sophomore who recently took the PSAT, I've gotten a deluge from some top ten schools, but not my dream schools - Harvard & Yale. I know these are based on PSAT scores (mine:229) and don't include other criteria, but nevertheless: does it improve your chances if you get info letters?</p>

<p>it doesn't improve your chances per se, but it does mean that you are the type of student they'd want to apply to their schools. don't worry, the dream schools will send their letters either soon, or def. next year (for example, princeton isn't really big on sending info packets until your junior year).</p>

<p>I got barely any from my top school, and I got accepted there with a decent scholarship, so I would say that just because you get a bunch of packets, it doesn't necessarily mean that they want you. Some schools tend not to give out packets unless you request them...less paper being wasted, less postage cost to the school...because I got to the point where if I haven't heard of the school or I know I'm not going there, I toss them before I even waste my energy opening them. If they were questionable, I'd keep them and open them when I had the time, then usually think, well what a waste of paper that was and toss it anyway.</p>

<p>I think the main reason they send packets is to get you interested in them. When you're a sophomore, you tend not to know much about colleges, yeah it's on the backburner, and almost everyone's heard of the top schools, but there are some schools that you may like even better that you've never heard of, and probably wouldn't think twice about if you didn't actually get some colorful, flashy pamphlets and viewbooks in the mail. Therefore, getting several viewbooks may just be the college's way of advertising itself. You don't know if everyone gets the same amount of mail from that college or if you're the only one who got 25 of the same viewbooks.</p>

<p>Hahaha, I remember this one college sent me 13 of the same packets, which contained the same stuff!! The funny thing is that I would usually get about 2 or 3 in the mail at the same time and they were usually postmarked on the same date, too!! Hahhaha.</p>