I notice that I receive a lot of e-mails (and also mails in actual mailbox) from various colleges.
In the bottom they always say that they “got provided my e-mail from CollegeBoard Student Search System” or sth like that.
I got it from Duke University, Johns Hopkins, Wash U in St.Louis, UChicago, and several from my local colleges.
They commonly say sth about “we are impressed about your ability, we would like to keep in contact with you to get more familiar to our community” or sth like that.
Considering my SAT score, which is 2110, and which is relatively bad for those colleges that I got e-mail from, I do not understand why they are sending those e-mails to me.
Is it just because they are running out of applicants, or is it just a scam?
(I am not trying to brag about this incident, I genuinely am perplexed and want to hear a correct answer…)
Also, has anyone gotten e-mails like me?
They buy mailing lists from College Board, using criteria such as PSAT score, geography, etc. Not a scam per se - just targeted marketing- but caveat emptor: check your stats against their middle 50% to see if it’s worth giving them your application $$!
It’s also true that excellent students typically take the SAT more than once, and that your next score could go up 100 points for completely random reasons, with or without additional prep. Those schools can’t tell yet if that will happen to you. But it could.
We are not ignoring them…at least not ALL of them. For the emails, if you may be/are interested, it’s worth clicking around a bit, as it may show them you’re interested, so they can send you more emails and letters.
For now, anyway, it’s fun to see that mailbox full of stuff…especially when it’s not bills.
It never hurts to sift through them – if a school strikes you as interesting, then research it and see if it truly is a fit. In fact we didn’t really think about the college my S ended up at initially but we got a letter from them, looked into it, visited, and realized that in fact the school was a great fit. Of course only one of the hundreds of letters/postcards/emails turned out to be useful but still we are grateful that one letter did arrive.
The funniest part is sometimes you have NO IDEA about the school. I thought Wake Forest was some prep school for low SAT rich kids outside some city in the midwest and D kept getting mail from them and I kept tossing it. I know where it is now and it still would not have been a fit for her for other reasons.
It was only when we were awaiting decisions and would see other people who got into decent schools mention that they were rejected from Wake Forest that we realized.
Yes 2110 is a bit low for those schools without a hook. However, as others have said, I know someone who went from a 2170 to a 2370.
Don’t look at it like the the school wants you, it has no bearing on your chances of admission or of receiving scholarships. Use it like any other advertising to determine if you are interested in a school you might not have thought of. D received a lot of e-mails from schools she hadn’t considered and in the end she wasn’t interested in most of them. The advertising functioned as they intended as it did get her exposed to the names. A few of the schools were more closely considered. It’s an inexpensive way for them to get exposure.