If you read this piece on how a marketing consultant who specializes in higher ed marketing thinks about birthday emails, you might feel a little less warm and fuzzy about receiving one. It’s really just one more crass marketing device.
http://www.uofadmissionsmarketing.com/2014/12/best-practices-and-examples-of-birthday.html
A couple of interesting quotes from the piece:
"intparent, I am an alumnus as well. What I mean by “chasing” is aggressive to the point where it can be considered harassment. Merely sending out email once or twice a year notifying alums of the different initiatives that we can contribute to is hardly “chasing”
Alexandre: I concur…I receive two mailings a year and zero calls. Sometimes I send a check, sometimes I don’t. For those confused by mailings, I suggest that they become familiar with the garbage can…not the icon on the desktop…the real garbage can.
I have never found Michigan’s solicitations to be annoying. Now Cornell, on the other hand, is constantly asking for money even though my daughter is just a sophomore there! I really couldn’t believe it when three months into her studies they were already asking for money. Apparently the $$$ tuition they get from us isn’t enough . . . :-S
We get probably 8 solicitations per year. My ex’s still come to my address. We get a couple each from LS&A, Ross, the Alumni Association, and the Marching Band.
Possibly because in the end they would regret admitting someone who would make such a big life decision based on a damn greeting card
intparent, if your ex and you are both double degree holders from Michigan, it is no wonder you get bombarded with requests for donations from Michigan.
Again, I am by no means making a decision based on a card! That is incredibly stupid (sorry if I offended anyone by saying this). But I have friends who didn’t apply because UM didn’t reach out, which, again, is a very stupid reason not to apply. If anyone is making a decision based on a card, then they need to talk to their guidance counselor to reevaluate their priorities.
I have to completely disagree with the OP. We are in-state, and the Michigan admission team has been super about visiting my son’s HS, answering questions, assigning an admissions person to his HS etc. etc. The UM admissions director came to his school and held a parental information session for 90 minutes. The admission counselors at his HS are very plugged into Michigan requirements for grades and ACT/SAT tests, and have been talking about it to both the parents and kids since early in 10th grade. Michigan sends lots of E-mail communications, postcards reminding him of visiting dates, scholarship applications and dates, etc. etc. He did get some brochures but nothing like Chicago and Yale which seemed to send a shelf’s worth of glossy brochures all by themselves.
My son received several phone calls from students at Michigan engineering inviting him to apply and answered many of his questions. That is the most valuable communication of all - mostly unbiased, student to student. For most students at his school Michigan is their target, reach, match and safety school. It was only after visiting 20+ colleges with him that we realized how impressive Michigan is. They impress by their people, students, facilities, great tours (anyone take the engineering Segeway tour?) and location (Ann Arbor is just a great town).
Sending excessive amounts of mail is a waste of resources that a state school like Michigan doesn’t need to do. They are actively trying to reduce costs on campus.
I also think Michigan does not send too much mail or make too many calls for fundraising; it’s just about right. A lot of it is targeted by department for a specific purpose : LS&A raising money for museum renovation , Nursing raising for the new building fund, Business for the speakers fund , Athletics … well… they have lots of needs. (My wife and I both have 2 degrees from Michigan so we probably get a little more than most)
TooOldForSchool, I don’t think the OP was referring to the University’s efforts to communicate with applicants. Michigan is actually very good at answering phone calls and questions. Alumni also volunteer to contact prospective students to encourage them to apply, and if admitted, answer questions regarding their experience on campus. From that point of view, I think Michigan does a great job of engaging applicants.
Are you from a feeder school? If so, you will likely be contacted by an U-M alumni student recruiter in your neighborhood after you’ve been admitted. U-M has hundreds of alum recruiters all over the country. Alum recruiters call on admitted students, staff college fairs, host spring receptions and summer sent-offs, etc. More importantly, they provide local contacts for prospective students who want to know more about Michigan.
My D got invitations to several events after admitted. I don’t think UMich sent any less mail to my D than other public flagships after admission offered. I do remember Purdue sent more invitation, e-mail, and even a follow-up phone call. While Northwestern was almost totally silent.
Hm. I guess I’ve sort of been wondering about this, too. I had never heard of Michigan until I was researching colleges to apply to as a transfer my sophomore year of uni. I only knew about it because it appeared consistently in rankings for top science/math schools. Only then did I look into it and learn more about it. But that’s not the same as constantly hearing about the school “brand” from your peers so that it eventually sticks in your mind.
I’m from South FL and as far as I know, nobody throughout my 18 years there has ever mentioned Michigan, though I had heard of places like NYU, Carnegie Mellon, UTexas, and Northwestern, and they were constantly lauded in high school. None of those schools actually even ended up making my transfer list (Michigan was better for my majors). Heck, Michigan’s so well rounded, it’s in the top 25 for every one of its offered majors or something, isn’t it? For what Michigan is, I feel like it should be more well known than it is, but maybe that’s just me…
It’s just you eyo777. 
“According to the 2012 graduate rankings issued by U.S. News & World Report, LSA has 43 of the 95 top 10-ranked departments at U-M. The number of top 10-ranked departments at U-M is among the highest in the nation, surpassed only by UC-Berkeley, Harvard and Stanford.” (http://www.lsa.umich.edu/UMICH/facstaff/Home/Office%20of%20the%20Dean/LSA%20Facts/2012LSAFactSheet.pdf)
I suppose they have not heard of this in South FL either.
@GoBlue81 Nope!
To be fair, those are graduate rankings and the experience I’m talking about is with high schoolers, who are maybe more obsessed with “Ivy League name brands” or small private schools (usually just for the prestige of the school name, not for the department being top ten). But everyone knew about Harvard, Stanford, and Berkeley for sure.
I just feel like Michigan is underrated, at least from my home area. Is this so wrong to say?
@eyo777 , most schools tend to recruit regionally. If you are a sports fan just listen to interviews of football and basketball players after nationally televised games. I think you’ll find the difference in vocabulary and diction in players of the top academic and sports schools like Michigan and Stanford quite astonishing.
eyo777, that’s the power of marketing for you. If the noise out there were somehow erased, and high school students went purely for actual undergraduate academic excellence and experience, Michigan would be one of the top 10 or 15 options among research universities. Where it matters, among recruiters and graduate school admissions committees, Michigan is one of the top 10 or top 15 undergraduate institutions. But when it comes to marketing brand names to high school students (and most parents), private universities are as vulgar and unscrupulously manipulative/dishonest as the worst politicians, taking advantage of a highly impressionable and ignorant constituent base. The notion that faculty at smaller major research universities care more about undergraduate students, or spend more time with them is utter horse manure! Yet that is the entire value proposition that those private universities are pushing on protective parents and unnecessarily worried students. As a result, Michigan is indeed underrated among the majority of high school kids and parents.
“The notion that faculty at smaller major research universities care more about undergraduate students, or spend more time with them is utter horse manure!”
Haha, I totally agree. I admit that was a concern of mine too, but it’s really no different from the smaller private school I transferred from, where I was occasionally even one of out 2-8 students in the class. Michigan’s aren’t that small but the availability of office hours, after-class chatting, etc. are exactly the same.
About marketing, though: Chicago is also a top school and it “got with the program” to appear more selective by sending out all those fliers, and as a result they got the image they wanted with their now single digit acceptance rate. Chicago was always a top school, but people just wouldn’t think of it. So they tried to fix that.
I know Michigan lowered its own acceptance rate after putting itself on the common app, but I guess by being public they’re barred from doing certain things that some privates do? I’m really just curious.
And about not wanting to receive even more apps to sift through: That’s how higher selectivity works, though. The amount of spots stays the same, it’s just that more people apply.
If the truth were only known, and it really does not take much effort to seek it out, our reality would be far different.
Take Stanford’s CoE. They have a sizeable faculty of 250 professors, and only 1,700 undergraduate engineering students. At the surface, it would appear that the smaller, private university model is at work. Small classes and great individualized attention. But everyone seems to ignore the whopping 3,300 graduate students who require far more supervision as RAs/TAs, and advising with their own research and writing their theses. And that’s just scratching the surface. Those professors must raise funds for their own research, conduct their research and publish their findings. Smaller private universities do not have smaller classes beyond 100 level intro courses in most majors. There are exceptions of course, in highly popular majors such as Econ, Poli Sci and Psych, where classes will probably be larger even in more advanced classes. However, no matter how large (or small) the class, faculty at research universities will seldom have time to devote to undergraduate students. Small private universities mislead parents and students when they claim that their faculty as a whole cares greatly for undergraduates and make them a priority. That is simply not possible.
That being said, even without resorting to marketing gimmicks and misleading students and parents, Michigan will eventually be given the credit it deserves. It is just a matter of time before Michigan’s admissions data are a mirror image of those of private universities and the truth mentioned in the paragraph above will eventually be known to all.
Michigan is first and foremost a state flagship university. Bringing in thousands more out state or international applications does not change the fact that it’s primary purpose is to educate Michiganders, and it should still be giving admissions priority to the top students in the state of Michigan. I am a Michigan grad, and find it is well known worldwide, both professionally and personally. Stop jonesing for prestige – Michigan has plenty already.