<p>D2 gets emails, but no real mails. It is a joy of living outside of US. If we ever get a real physical mail from a school, then we will consider it as a real safety school for D2.</p>
<p>D1 sorted the daily college mail into 2 piles: the schools she was already interested in, and the rest. She looked over the first pile closely and found it mostly uninformative, though there were some pretty pictures from a few (Bowdoin comes to mind) that reinforced her positive impressions. But she never applied to those schools because she got into her first choice, Haverford, ED, and never looked back. Haverford, by the way, sent her maybe a postcard or two that in no way influenced her decision.</p>
<p>As for the second pile, most of it went straight to recycling, though some only after provoking a certain measure of annoyance. [D1, disgusted: “Yet ANOTHER mailing from Texas Christian. I am NOT going to any college named ‘Texas’ and I am NOT going to any college named ‘Christian’ and I am CERTAINLY NOT going to any college named ‘Texas Christian.’ They keep telling me I can be a Horned Frog but I don’t WANT to be a horned frog; horned frogs are ugly and kind of gross. WHAT ARE THESE PEOPLE THINKING, AND WHY CAN’T THEY JUST LEAVE ME ALONE?”]</p>
<p>I can think of only a few mailings that turned her head: Macalester’s whimsical postcards, though as a Saint Paul resident she was determined to go farther from home, somewhat regretting that Macalester wasn’t on the East Coast because if it were it would be on her list. Chicago’s sometimes quirky and offbeat mailings, like the postcard with faux-coffee “stains” boasting up the number of coffee houses in the immediate vicinity of the university. A couple of Pomona postcards cleverly boasting up the Southern California weather (e.g., a postcard arriving in the dead of Minnesota winter with a cartoon drawing of feet in flip-flops, saying “If you were at Pomona, this is what you’d be wearing to class today”). And Harvard’s oh-so-seductively misleading letter falsely implying she was just that special someone they were looking for, together with the actual application; clever, but a cheap trick that really should be beneath Harvard’s dignity. In the end, she didn’t apply to any of these schools, but these few managed to catch her eye and amuse or engage her at least for a moment, and (Harvard aside, once she realized she’d been momentarily “had”) probably made her think marginally better of the schools. Most, though, were really earnest. And really pedestrian. And really boring. And really indistinguishable.</p>
<p>Our son was very careful about checking (or un-checking boxes, as the case may be) about receiving college info when taking AP, SATs, and so forth. Consequently we had to deal with very little mail even though he is a top student with top scores and GPA. In fact, we didn’t know how good we had it until our daughter took the PSATs and didn’t check or un-check the requisite boxes. The email actually annoy me way more than the tons of mailings. Next time she takes a test I will stress to her the importance of indicating we do not want solicitations.</p>
<p>wow, thank you folks for using what in other circumstances might be considered to be questionable behavior bordering on the neurotic that is nonetheless intriguing enough to spawn a number of reality shows, but that here on CC is a welcome burst of levity and clarity about the college admissions process</p>
<p>You mean saving it all and weighing in? Honestly, I don’t get that at all. 99% of the schools were ones that my kids weren’t going to be interested in, so into the recycle it went without a second thought. It wasn’t even important enough for me to keep any kind of running tally of how much it was.</p>
<p>bclintonk - I do remember the U of Chicago coffee-stained postcard. That does stand out. All the others? Nothing memorable. And postcards are far better than letters - who opens letters anyway?</p>
<p>I was just thinking of this yesterday!! I was contemplating gathering all D’s mailings and sorting to see who was the biggest mailer…then I realized I should do the other 50 million things I do in a day and put the thought in the recycle bin!! </p>
<p>This Thread made me giggle this morning - I’m not as crazy as my kids think I am!!!</p>
<p>D got TONS of mailings, and most were tossed immediately. There was one I remember that stood out to both of us – CalTech. It was a long calendar with photos/illustrations on both sides – very clever. Did she apply? No.</p>
<p>How much mail do you people receive anyway?? Don’t you process your mail daily and immediately toss / recycle the bulk of it? I guess I’m just not sure why college mailings stand out as being any different from the majority of junk mail I get from various companies, restaurants, stores, etc.</p>
<p>First off - LOVE the research and the hyphen comment (funny!!)</p>
<p>I guess my D is the exception to the rule.</p>
<p>Not to say that there hasn’t been TONS of unnecessary mail. But, one school (to which she never remembers showing any interest) sent a couple post cards per week. Even after all her applications had been long completed, she decided it was worth a look. </p>
<p>It is outside the parameters of “wants” she mandated (distance, campus location, size, sports, etc), but at the last minute she decided to apply. It is now at the top of her list…go figure.</p>
<p>Without those mailings she would have never given them a look.</p>
<p>I wish I could say that my obsession was part of some grand experiment but it started out accidentally. We’d been away for a few days and the mail had piled up. I threw a few mailings onto a corner of the counter and told son2 he should at least flip through a couple to get a sense of the impending deluge. Two weeks later when the pile had only grown (it was a battle of wills that I ultimately lost), I threw the bunch into a paper bag and a college study was born. Stubborn acorns don’t roll too far from stubborn trees.</p>
<p>LOL, vinceh! My stubborn-son acorn still has the parking permit from an LAC we were going to go visit but ultimately decided not to, as well as some information from another LAC that would have been his second choice had he not gotten into his ED school, up on his bulletin board. My cries of “why do you have a parking permit for a visit that never materialized – throw it out!” go for naught. Of course, there’s an element of annoying one’s mother that goes a long way …</p>
<p>We recycled all college brochures and only open those that my D had any interest in. She had a good idea of where she wanted to go so was never tempted by any mailing. One of her friends kept all college mails coming his way and reported that it overflowed a couple of grocery paper bags!</p>
<p>A couple of colleges stuck in my mind:</p>
<p>NYU: the worst offender. Some days, at least 3 of the SAME mailing was delivered to our house, due to slightly different spellings of her name. I thought of sending a cease and desist email but thought better. They probably would bombard me electronically on top of everything else!</p>
<p>SVA - School of Visual Arts: this one I actually kept. School sent a 2-inch thick catalog, weighed in at 2 lb 11oz with the cover made of thermal sensor material, with instructions to “Please apply human touch on surface to reveal information”. The kids take turns pressing various parts of their…hmmm… bodies to make impressions. Gross! But the catalog itself is pretty neat - they are full pages artwork of the school alumni, both famous and unknown.</p>
<p>Oh c’mon PG, it’s fun for people. Keep in mind that until high school teenagers get very little snail mail. They’re not the ones who go through the junk mail, and this particular junk mail is addressed to them personally, not just “Resident”. </p>
<p>Like storytimes’ son, D1 made sure not to have her info released, and got very little snail mail. She (and we) did really like the U Chicago (totally unsolicited) and Macalester (expressed interest) mailings. Postcards do work better. </p>
<p>A reminder to any parents of 9th or 10th graders about to enter the fray: set up a separate email account just for college matters. Otherwise, your child’s regular email account will be overrun.</p>
<p>My D is a junior. We have not been inundated with college mail, although some of her friends have been. When she took the PSAT, the PLAN and the ACT, she made sure not to check (or to check, I’m not sure which it was) the box that would result in an avalanche of college junk mail. And it worked. I think she’s only gotten two small pieces of mail from colleges other than those few whose mailing lists she signed up for. Maybe it’ll pick up next year, but I doubt it. I pity the postman who delivers the college mail to her best friend’s house and the garbage man who takes it away - D’s friend did check the “send me tons of mail” box and an awful lot of junk mail has gone into and out of that house! They didn’t save most of it, so no weighing has taken place.</p>
<p>ST - Great idea about the separate email account! I just shared that tip with my daughter and we both rolled our eyes in frustration that we hadn’t thought of that!</p>
<p>As far as college mail, either stick it into box or pitch it, do notpay too much attention to it. Why to waste precious time? Kid will decide on many factors and eventually will be dealing with phone calls. Mailings - we have pitched even from Harvard and Princeton, because D. did not consider them at all, some others went into box without too much thought.</p>
<p>I recall being inundated by college brochure mailings with my first daughter. Huge piles of them. I don’t recall her looking at them and they did not influence her college list building which was entirely independent of any mailings received. We got lucky with the second daughter. She only got ONE college brochure in the mail, Harvard. I think this is due to the fact that she did not take the PSAT in 11th grade. </p>
<p>While we never used these brochures, I have to think that some people are influenced by these mailings enough to apply to these schools or otherwise schools would not engage in these mailings. Didn’t work with our family but must be effective in some households.</p>
<p>My “favorites” were the postcards from University of Central Florida</p>
<p>The one addressed to S pitched the weather, growing athletic program, new recreation facilities, short distance to beach, night life in Orlando, nearby theme parks,… </p>
<p>The one addressed to “parents of S” talked about high quality academics, library, career resource center, expansive choice of majors, …</p>
<p>MiamiDAP and soozievt, I agree that the mailings seem pointless, but if they are, then why do they keep coming? The oversized postcards I can understand - a couple of pictures, reference the academics, and just maybe you’ll get a student or parent to go visit a web page. But I don’t understand the repeated mailings of 4-color heavy stock brochures some of which run to 50 pages in length. I just wonder how much time, effort and money went into these mailings. This seems to fall under the “Well if they keep doing it, it must be working” category of marketing.</p>
<p>^Well, for the same reason that we have commercials on TV for all kind of products. MARKETING. Just wait until your kid will need to talk to coaches on the phone. I am glad, that D. did not care too much about Varsity Sport at college, but she was contacted by several and one of them she did apply (before coach called actually), but end up going somewhere else.</p>