Can someone Explain the Deal Behind College Mail?

vinceh
Fri, 24 Jun 2011 16:09:39 +0000

Cynical? Maybe so, but over the years I’ve sat through too many presentations where the message is “We take a holistic approach so you won’t know unless you try.” All that response does is plant a seed that sprouts into a voice that keeps whispering, “Who knows, maybe it’ll happen” It taps into that bit of human nature that ignores statistics but tells us “Someone has to win the lottery in might as well be me”. It’s the same random reward generator that drives little old ladies to relentlessly pump quarters into slot machines.

No executive whether at a business or a college is going to blithely ignore a million dollar cash flow. If colleges were altruistic they’d charge just enough to cover expenses. If the goal was to create the largest pool of applicants possible they wouldn’t charge a dime. The three schools I listed have multi-Billion dollar endowments, the revenue from application fees barely amount to a couple days worth of interest on those funds yet they keep charging the fee, raising the price and encouraging more and more hopefuls to “step right up and buy your ticket”.

As for helping find the deserving underprivileged candidate, you can buy income data by zip code down to nearly the street level. But there seem to be plenty of students from the wealthy suburbs West of Boston, North of Chicago and in southern Connecticut who seem to be getting these mailings.

Cynical? I’m not so sure. If I was cynical I might suggest that it’s in the best interests of the HYPMSs to occasionally let the word spread that they admitted the troubled but brilliant student from difficult circumstances if only keep the applications and checks coming from those students who then feel they have a “good” chance. It’s not personal, it’s business.