“WUSTL loved my daughter”
WUSTL LOVES everyone’s daughter - and son. They don’t discriminate, except for at admissions time. ;)They are one of the worst offenders in sending out stuff. Environmental groups should target them. 
Yet, somehow they can’t make their Common Data Sets public…hmmmm
Do some of these colleges not even look at what grade he is in? One college keeps sending him an email with a deadline date where application fee is waived, waived essay, expedited admission decision, immediate scholarship consideration and a $500 priority award(upon acceptance and enrollment).
Is there a way to set up a new email at this point or too late? Prior to today the only colleges we had heard from was in regards to his football recruitment but that email is already on file.
Most of the time this is just mass marketing junk mail - they don’t look at grade level or anything for that matter, he is just a “mailing label” to them. Many kids take PSAT junior year which may be why he is getting application stuff now and later he will get pegged for hitting a certain level on ACTs or SATs, and automatically get put on a list. The colleges aren’t the ones sending these out…direct mail firms do. Colleges help determine message and the DM rolls with them - lots of them. DM firms are paid on frequency and quantity and open rates, so you can figure why they send so many. I went through the college app process several times in the last few years, and we never benefited directly or indirectly from them, but they poured in. Some were from the biggies, but many were from schools we never heard of and we never used one of the zillion fee waivers offered. But it makes many kids/families feel they are wanted and pay the $80 app fee to apply. And I did learn that NY has a ton of small colleges that I had never heard of throughout the state (along with many others throughout the country).
And if you have an athlete, these matter even less - don’t let them clutter up your mailbox…hit delete. You can still set up a new email - it is not too late, he will get more mail when he takes ACT and SATs.
The correspondence that mattered was personal emails and physical letters my kids received from real people with real intentions.
Your son checked a box at the PSAT. Yes it used to be snail mail, now it’s email. After my first checked the box and got flooded, I advised my other two not to check that box. No mail for them, not a single one that we didn’t directly request ourselves.
I don’t think the mailings mean much at all except your son’s scores must have met some kind of benchmark.
I’ve a funny sophomore. He was warned not to check the box on the PSAT but did anyway, though he did use a different email for it. He has gotten a kick out of the emails so far (and yes, a new batch started up today for sure).
Granted it’s due to schools he’s never heard of (that many on CC have). Franklin and Marshall? that sounds confused, it should be Franklin OR Marshall. Kenyon. What kind of name is that?
I can tell already he’s going to be the kid that requests info from a ton of places and we will be inundated.
U Chicago was the worst offender with unsolicited mailings at our house. BUT, we forgave them. Their stuff was far superior to anyone else’s. In fact, it nearly worked, because my D considered applying there. Decided it wasn’t right for her, but she loved the cool things they sent and to this day, kept the personalized folded postcard. It’s her name in big gothic lettering, with a line drawing inside meant to be colored in.
What’s annoying now is that she is still getting mail! She is in college now.
Every year there are dozens of threads about this. I don’t get it. It is marketing. No one takes other spam email seriously, but for some reason when it comes from a college there are endless threads about it? Today I received an email for “male enhancement.” I did not assume it was targeted toward me. I didn’t analyze where it came from or why. I am a female, but I would hope men receiving the same email would not obsess over why they got the email, lol! Can you imagine that train of thought?
Do you know why colleges continue with these marketing practices? Because a percentage of students and parents actually believe that they mean something. On some level it is effective in soliciting applications.
If you want to receive marketing materials from specific colleges simply go to their website and request it. If you receive material form colleges you are not interested, throw it in the garbage along with your other junk mail, and delete the emails. If the emails really bother you then unsubscribe and if all else fails block the sender.
We kidded with our DD…that she should apply to WUSTL and include the more than two dozen letters they sent her saying she was the perfect student for their school.
We wanted her letter to say…“I agree that I’m a top selection for your school…and your supporting letters are included!”.
She didn’t have an ice cube’s chance in hell of getting accepted there!
The OP’s situated happed to us a few years ago. One day we received roughly 10 letters and brochures from various smaller colleges. All of them followed the same format, with a link to the schools website along with a customized code to enter in order to receive some dubious award like “Top 10 Secrets of Applying to College” or “Six Secrete Reasons to Apply to College X.”
The colleges had nothing to do with each other, but the letters were clearly written and sent by the same marketing firm they had hired, and this marketing firm sent them all at the same time with the same format. They all went into the trash.
Just when we thought the emails and snail mail deluge was nearly over - S is a HS senior - we’ve started getting a whole new set of mailings addressed to our D, who’s a sophomore in college.
And the ones to your son will turn into offers to buy dorm decorations, sheets and towels, storage, move in help. You as parents will get offers to join the parents’ club, to send snacks for midterms and then finals, to buy a sweatshirt (not an official one but one with the school name and a generic crest).
Mailmen have to love college students.
Ten years ago WUSTL was the absolute worst. Hands down.
My kids continued to get college mailings from some schools even while IN college.
Like I said…once they start…it’s impossible to get them to stop.
Quick question…I understand why some of the lesser(per say) colleges might want to do this but what benefit is it to a school like WUSTL to send out not just emails but actual literature to a majority of kids who wouldn’t qualify academically anyway?
To get them to apply, so that the number of applications goes up, so that the acceptance rate goes down, so they can climb in the rankings.
^^^ok so off of that premise then why wouldn’t every top tier college do the same?
Quite a few do. Even Harvard reaches out unsolicited. Some have a little more scruples and different philosophies, leaning more towards an academic bent in their admissions offices and less “business” oriented.
Yes, even Harvard and Yale send out solicitations. H used to send out actual applications: I know a kid who received one.
I think that in some cases it is actually a good-faith effort to encourage students outside of the usual suspects to apply, in hopes of broadening their student body. In other cases, more likely an attempt to rise in the rankings, especially when accompanied by a program of offering $$ to high SAT/ACT scorers.
I still get the occasional paper pamphlet for college… and I’m in my 4th year of grad school! (No idea about email since the email I used in high school has long since been abandoned.)
The worst offender for me was some environmentally friendly school in the PNW. Their more-than-weekly paper pamphlets contradicted their “environmentally friendly” rhetoric in my mind :-w
PSAT-college board sells the lists. For example they can buy a list of students who scored above a certain threshold. Then they send out e-mails. I find it egregious especially when we get sent stuff from Ivy league schools or the like for a summer program that costs thousands of dollars. I think it can mislead some parents into thinking if I send my kid to this “prestigious” camp he/she might get a leg up on admissions. Of course there is no truth to that. We have gotten quite a few invitations to “prestigious” summer programs. One was something like “Future Doctors of America”. They mentioned a fellow student at my D’s high school that had attended previously.