I have a current junior. I have already had three kids go through this process and this is the first time we are getting tons of calls from colleges, most of the time from colleges that would be huge safeties. Is this a new marketing technique? Why so many phone calls? If this is supposed to be another way to entice a kid to consider the college, it seems too invasive.
Is this a new thing?
No it is not a new thing it is called telemarketing.
Your kid probably gave information out to colleges when he/she took the ACT, SAT, PLAN, an AP test, etc. I know I did, and that was a huge mistake. I’m a sophomore, and I’m getting so many emails. I can’t go one day without getting something in the mail.
That’s what the delete button is for! And caller ID.
We got all kinds of calls and texts and emails. We got many in March after all the acceptances came out and I assume the schools thought the kids might still be making decisions. My kids had long before committed, so the calls were quickly dealt with by saying they had already decided. What I was surprised at was how many there were at odd times, like when the kids were in (high) school or very late at night. It was almost like the schools didn’t understand time zones or that high school kids weren’t available on a Tuesday at 10:30 am.
^^^“It was almost like the schools didn’t understand time zones or that high school kids weren’t available on a Tuesday at 10:30 am.”
The college I’ll enroll in does this every week. They call and ask my mother, who has a hard time speaking English, “Is (my name) available” or “May we speak to (my name).” I mean come on, it’s not like I’m going to stop coming to school in the middle of my senior year…
Pretty soon they will start sending door-to-door missionaries to people’s houses unannounced. “Good morning! Have you heard the Good News of Bowdoin University?”
I guess marketers have learned that it doesn’t actually matter how intrusive or unnerving your campaign is, it will still get your foot in the door. (Think back to the last time you saw a commercial that was deliberately obnoxious. You would think that annoying your potential customers would be a no-no in advertising but apparently not…)
I think that the volume of calls and letters and emails is increasing more so than the methods of contacting students. For instance, my older sister (by 2 years) and older cousin (by around 10 years) and I all did pretty well on standardized tests, and we all signed up for mail from colleges. We never really threw away our college letters and passed them on to the next kid in case he or she wanted to look at college letters from the past. My cousin got mail every other day, not too much, only a couple of calls, and from sophomore to senior year she had a small grocery bag worth of college letters. My sister 8 years later got emails and mail every day, as well as calls every few weeks. Her collection of mail from sophomore to senior year was a pretty hefty Macy’s bag. Only two years later, I received a flood of mail and emails, and was called every other day sometimes by colleges. My collection of college mail fills up three large garbage bags.
So, I don’t think it’s new; it’s just MORE, and too much of it.
People should counsel their kids not to indicate a desire to receive informational materials when they take the SAT etc.
It’s part of the game in trying to increase the number of applicants so they can claim a lower percentage of admissions and thereby appear to be more selective so that they can get more and stronger applicants.
My daughter did ED in Dec…but just this week she is getting calls from colleges. Maybe this is when kids who didn’t get into their preferred colleges start looking for alternatives.
Sometimes it works. My daughter decided she wanted to look at a school after having a phone conversation with someone from the admissions department one afternoon. She ended up apply and has been accepted, although I don’t know if she’s going to go there or not.