SharingGift

In my profession we have moved past hand-written thank-you notes about a decade ago. Most people send/receive emails from job interviewees. No more paper cards. Except awards, anniversary cards, promotion letters, salary/bonus letters, etc. I'm not saying this is good or bad; it's just a trend. (I do use paper in my personal life.)

Boarding schools being more conservative and traditional than the rest of society, we've considered paper thank-you notes. But I think they too are rapidly moving toward a paperless, digital era. That's why I believe they use blogs, facebook, twitters, etc. to attract teenage students. Andover application process has completely gone online this year.

SevenDad

I'm still with ops on this one...the reason why snail mail thank yous will go the way of the dodo is because we let it.

Where is Mrs. John L. Strong when we need her!?!? (Just googled it and it appears some intrepid souls are trying to bring the brand back...there is hope for this world.)

I'll end by saying that, IMO, any school that is still jacket and tie deserves a note as a not to tradition.

PhotographerMom

I'm firmly in the handwritten note camp. I think it conveys something strong about the candidate. For every note we sent to admissions, we received one in return. I don't recall receiving one AO email thanking my son for his interest. They were all handwritten responses to his note.

SharingGift

I can attest that we did get replies from the schools we had visited last week. With due respect, I don't think that it tells much about candidate's sincerity or interest levels, or that it affects admission decisions in any meaningful way. It's just personal preference and as girlgeekmom suggested, timeliness is a lot more important. I guess there's not much point continuing this debate; we'll find out in March.

PhotographerMom

By "conveys something strong", I meant a candidate who took the time to communicate in a more traditional way. I believe effort and care rarely goes unnoticed. You're right, it's all about personal preference.

girlgeekmom

At the risk of beating this particular deceased equine, I, too, can attest that we received emailed replies to emailed thank-you's. We also received unsolicited paper holiday cards from more schools than we applied to (I recall SevenDad mentioning in another post not to take these too seriously), though we sent none—THAT, we felt, would have been gilding the lily ;-).

One thing this thread shows clearly, is that each of us feels strongly about our chosen method of sending TY's. I think, however, we all agree on this part, which is an actual response to the OP: Gift cards and other items that might be considered "bribes" are right out.

edujunky

Exactly! So glad my post could provide so much insite into the accepted types of TY's in our time.

Ranabona

Let me share my DD's thank you note experience. She applied to four schools. I told her I thought that the thank you note could be another way of standing out or she could treat it like a standard obligation. For her top two schools, she took my advice and sent a hand written, well thought out, original and personal thank you to the AO. For the other two schools, she sent a hand written standard (not very original) thank you note (so, she half listened to me..better than nothing). When she was accepted to her first choice, she received a card from the director of admissions, who was not the person that interviewed her. I was very surprised when he referenced something that she wrote in her thank you note.

Don't think that the thank you note doesn't become part of your file. IMO and experience, it could be another way to stand out. Do AOs take the time to print out the the standard e-mail thank you notes for the file? I don't know.

girlgeekmom

"Don't think that the thank you note doesn't become part of your file. IMO and experience, it could be another way to stand out. Do AOs take the time to print out the the standard e-mail thank you notes for the file? I don't know. "

@Ranabona, I DO think the note becomes part of the file. Whether AO's do the printing out or not, I am not sure. However, a couple of folks at different schools made it pretty clear that EVERYthing pertaining to a student is collected in his or her admissions file by someone on the committee. So depending on how senior or junior a particular AO is, the "taking the time" might be done personally or might be done by a member of the admissions office's administrative team.

PhotographerMom

I was curious what an EC would say, so I called a friend who has been guiding students and their families through this process for over 35 years. She said this:

"If I have to tell a client to send a handwritten note after an interview, I've already lost the battle."

Don't view this as the last word- I'm just offering another perspective.

SharingGift

My DD just got a holiday e-card from one of the schools she applies. Digital age seems inevitable

Our tour guide student at one of HDAES schools said, students there don't even print out their writing assignments any more. She said, all entering students are given a mac book, and they just electronically submit their "papers" to a central database, from which teachers retrieve, grade and return the papers back to students.

TigerMotherRoar

When we were on our prep school tour, we had a box of stationery with us and as soon as we got in the car after tour/interview my son wrote a quick but sincere note to the AO. Then we popped it in the mailbox en route to next school. We visited 10 schools in six days and it was crazy. The notes actually helped him to distinguish among the schools. We found that the cards he had the hardest time writing ended up being for the schools that didn't make it onto the final list.