<p>The last six months my mail box has overflowed with college view books. Why do schools like Stanford, Duke, and Princeton need to send these out? How do they get your profile? Do they really need to recruit? Grades are excellent and scores pretty good, but I see strong resumes denied for these schools all day long on CC. What is the point?</p>
<p>I agree - especially for those schools whose admission rate is under 10 % !!! My d received an unsolicited viewbook and info from Harvard - why do they need to market ?</p>
<p>It's ludicrous that the school's market themselves so aggressively, and then get offended if they feel that a student has been "packaged" -- which is just the same marketing that is so prevalent with the colleges themselves.</p>
<p>They do like every other college - they purchase mailing lists from College Board and ACT. I assume they select certain criteria (having scores within a certain range, etc). I suppose, to give them the benefit of the doubt, by doing this they may find some "hidden gems" of students. On the other hand, encouraging so many to apply keeps the applicant numbers up and the percent accepted very low.</p>
<p>It's the same reason Coke advertises. Everyone knows what Coke is, what it tastes like, what the can looks like. but they still need to spend billions advertising it.</p>
<p>Except when you buy a Coke you get to actually drink it.</p>
<p>D didn't even apply to some of the top schools until they sent her the applications in the mail unsolicited. She assumed she couldn't get in. There are a lot of kids that feel this way. Receiving the information for some is at times an affirmation that something in their record caught someone's attention enough to send them the info.</p>
<p>What bothers me is that sometimes the same school bombards you with mail. Often several times a week for months on end. If we are getting this much mail then everyone else is and I would be curious how much this costs per prospective student.</p>
<p>Some of the emails from the colleges are disturbing, if not vaguely threatening. "Why haven't you responded.." "Your application is late..." etc. The hard sell is ridiculous - These are schools my d has not indicated any interest in. </p>
<p>It is a good idea to set up a separate email acct just for the college board so that all the unsolicited email can be processed easily.</p>
<p>D is still getting them. Phone calls too, and she is currently a sophomore in college.</p>
<p>NE Mom -My D did set up a separate e-mail address for college applications. She just blows off the e-mails from schools she is not interested in either answering that she is not not interested (there is usually a take me off your list on the bottom of the e-mail) or using the spam filter.</p>
<p>csl - If your D is getting a lot of calls her PSAT must have been very high or she is an athlete.</p>
<p>Yes, I really noticed an increase in the quantity and quality of these mailings and emails this year as compared to a couple of years ago. This is both for schools where D expressed an early interest, perhaps toured but has not yet submitted an app as well as places where she never showed an interest. These mailings have indeed come across as more and more aggressive. Now, all of a sudden, we are being deluged with priority apps, no application fee offers, and a continuous stream of letters and emails just as NorthEastMom2 is describing. I don't remember any of this at all with the first child and the schools for which this is the case were overlap schools on their lists.</p>
<p>The reason D probably received a bit less than your kids is that her desired field of study narrowed the list of institutions quickly. She did get something from ever single top 100 engineering program tho.</p>
<p>Call me cynical, but I believe that many send these out enticing applications out of some that may not otherwise apply. This increases the number of those that apply and are rejected, increasing the school's perceived selectivity.</p>
<p>I don't think HYPMS and the other Ivys need to send anything out for that perception, nor do any of the other schools in the top 20. </p>
<p>We did receive mail from some top schools just to tell her that their BME program was just accredited by ABET.</p>
<p>
[quote]
If we are getting this much mail then everyone else is and I would be curious how much this costs per prospective student.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Not everybody gets the same stuff, although I don't know why.</p>
<p>My daughter was bombarded constantly with information from Carnegie-Mellon and Mount Holyoke (now that's a weird combination), neither of which interested her in the slightest. Her friends did not necessarily receive mail from those colleges, but one got stuff constantly from CalTech. Go figure.</p>
<p>The admissions office is run like a business and they try to improve their results every year. How do you measure their results? It's all in the stats: number of applications, percent admitted (the lower the better), average test scores of applicants/admits/entering class, etc. They can never say, "Well, this is good enough we can just sit back and let the apps roll in." I also found it extremely irritating when my son got emails from Yale.</p>
<p>NJres: Why? E-mail is the cheapest form of advertising. D gets them from Harvard, Yale and Princeton.</p>
<p>I have to agree with the captain. Top schools inflate their reject rate, increase their test scores by enticing the very good students (not the ultra elite) to apply and then gleefully reject them. If one school does it, then more start doing it. They all don't want to fall a spot or two on the US News rankings! In the mean time, the students are the pawns in this game.</p>
<p>Pete & Captain: That was one of the reasons that I started the thread "Do mal kids get into Ivy League or Top 20 Universities?</p>
<p>Some thought it twas a chances thread for my D, but in fact it was a chances thread for any kid whose stats were on the bottom of the 50percentile test scores (which is still incidentally over all the 95% an A student, but not #s 1-10 in a class and has normal ECs, that is no inventions, no top place winner in a regional, national or international tournaments . . . no legacy, average athletics or band) Basically a very good student.</p>
<p>The responses from parents were all over the place.</p>
<p>The only hook that D has is major. The schools are scrambling to equalize their engineering programs. In many schools the rate of female admission was still hovering in the mid to high 20s and retention was not too good.</p>
<p>She applied to S & the two NY Cs. HYPM wasn't a consideration. Her reaction to all of a sudden receiving their mail was didn't they have enough applications already. Why me and Why now. Actually, we have someone go to HYMS from one of the two HS in our district every year. They are usually in the top 10 students, NMSF when they apply and often have been on the Debate team.</p>
<p>Here's a Business Week article with some perspective on this process: </p>
<p>Online</a> Extra: How Harvard Gets its Best and Brightest</p>