A suggestion. Have your child create a separate e-mail account for colleges. Use this e-mail account when testing or doing college visits etc. We created files for colleges we were interested in, visited, etc. You can just delete e-mail from schools you have no interest in. Have your child use their regular e-mail when applying for schools. That way they don’t get muddled in with the others. Surprisingly, you’ll get much less e-mail from schools you’ve applied to.
Get a large box for mail that comes in. Get a smaller box for schools you might be interested in. Empty the large box periodically.
Two ways of entertaining oneself with college mail:
For emails, make collections by subject line–“Rodney, you’re on my list!”–“Are you there, Rodney?”–“May we have your attention, Rodney?”—"Are you the student we’re looking for? (Student name has been changed, obviously)
One of my kids had a list of emails with stalker subject lines.
For snail mail–for one kid, we saved it all (threw it in a crate) until the decision was made, then used all the mail in a video to announce the college decision. There was LOTS of mail to work with–every color, geographical area, type of school. Most of it was unopened.
I would laugh when we’d get several mailings on the same day from colleges that had nothing in common but had clearly used the same marketing company. Bonus points to the very few schools whose marketing materials were especially creative.
We enjoyed getting all that mail and it did actually help our college search. I have a friend whose daughter saved it all and weighed it at the end just to see how many pounds and pounds were sent. Anyone want to guess?
So is there a way to separate which colleges have a genuine interest vs spam? He did receive an invite to CFAW offer which we might actually do. Also thought it was more personable getting mail from USC honors college. It is really getting out of hand…12-14 emails on average each day and the same amount of snail mail. At this rate with 2.5 years to go the mailman and every tree in the world is going to hate us very quickly lol.
“So is there a way to separate which colleges have a genuine interest vs spam?”
If it was my kid and he/she had 2.5 years to go, I’d get off most of the list. Too early IMO to have your life bombarded by this stuff. Take all mailings/emails as just marketing and none as genuine interest. All the schools know is a test score at this point so nothing is genuine.
Get a Fiske Guide and read through it and have your child read through it and develop a list of schools that interest your son.
Have the Fiske and we have visited quite a few colleges so far. Sounds like a good idea. Getting the info on USC honors opened us up to a school we had not considered up to now though.
Get prepared. The flood of information from schools will become overwhelming, especially if your child has a decent PSAT score. My kid used my email address in her profile and all of a sudden I started getting literally hundreds of emails, sometimes in the same day. The flood of mail that came to the house was crazy. At first it was nice. We would read them, and she would be excited that so many schools were interested in her. After awhile, it just became tons of junk mail. Most of which we just threw in the recycling can straight out of the mailbox. There were books, magazines, colorful brochures. I often thought that if some of these schools spent this money on financial aid, they would be in a much better position to offer aide to more students. I believe it is due to USNWR and that fact that standing is based on the number of students apply/number of students accepted. The more that apply that you reject, the higher the selectivity of your institution. Its a racket.
I get what you are saying but I am confused about 1 area…everyone is saying that he is receiving this now because of his PSAT score…which makes sense. However if a top scoring student is presumed to then be academically matched with top tier colleges then what is the point of some lesser colleges sending brochures etc…? If it is as you say to raise the number of applications what makes them think that a student considering top 20 say would ever apply and spend an application fee on a “lesser” college? They wouldn’t be rejecting top level students and a student wouldn’t be applying without the known outcome of acceptance.
Yes but then it becomes a matter of economics, right? So 1 student in 10,000(if that) would apply to Bard college vs Duke? Is that really going to raise their ranking?
First I am not experienced with college marketing, so this is 100% speculation – but I assume best intent and that what they really want is that one student to attend the school.
I do know that with direct mail marketing 2-3% response is considered successful. I found examples of this but they were all in private blogs or solicitive so I am not linking.
“If it is as you say to raise the number of applications what makes them think that a student considering top 20 say would ever apply and spend an application fee on a “lesser” college?”
EVERY student needs safeties and matches on their list. Plus, many students need/want merit based aid for college, something many top schools don’t offer. Additionally, not everyone chases rankings/prestige but goes on fit in environment and course of study.
Bard, to use your example, is a great college. Wasn’t the right fit for my kids but solid education. Certain programs like their Fine Arts and Written departments , to name two, are top notch and attract top caliber students.
You know, my high stat student keeps getting beautiful mailers from UNT (North Texas). Not on her radar as they don’t have her major, but what a nice prospective safety school for the right student. Maybe even for my S20. Safety schools often move up on students’ lists once they learn more about them.
