I’m a sophomore in HS, and a lot of my friends have been getting flooded with letters and emails from colleges since we all took the PSAT last fall. However, I’ve only been contacted by a handful of schools, maybe three or four. I was in the 98th percentile for English but only the 82nd in math, so is it possible that my math score is just too low for any colleges to be interested in recruiting me? I’m really hoping that isn’t the case, but I can’t think of any other reason…
count yourself lucky not to be getting spammed. if you feel your score is representative, use the 75% score lists to figure out where your target schools may be (within 50-100 points of the schools 75% mark and you may be in the ballpark. The closer to that 75% mark the better for you. Or ACT scores, within 1 or 2 points of the 75% mark is a good target.
http://www.stateuniversity.com/rank/sat_75pctl_rank.html
http://www.stateuniversity.com/rank/act_75pctl_rank.html
Spam is bad, you really are fortunate 
That has nothing to do with colleges not being interested in you. They send out mass mail to thousands of students. That’s how they trick you; they want you to believe that they really want you when most likely, you’re just a normal, average student. They’ll send personalized cards, posters, all that waste of paper in order to increase the number of applicants applying and increase their selectivity. Don’t be concerned at all.
Your friends are not not being recruited!!! They’re part of an advertising campaign.
This is one of the dark sides of college admissions. Marketing companies write letters that come as close to the line of promises as they can without actually making any. Lines like “you’d be one of our strongest applicants” or “We’ve been told you’re one of the top students at Madison HS” or “I’m looking forward to seeing your application” and a signature of a dean make HS kids think they are being “recruited” and are highly likely to be acceped. As your post shows, this works pretty well on HS kids who may never have received a letter in their life and now think some college prof or dean is personally writing them!!
They’re not. And even if the letters are signed by some dean (its robosigned) and postmarked from the college (because the marketing company delivered boxes of letters to them to mail), trust me, not a living soul on those college campuses has ever heard of your friends. Colleges care about getting lots of apps. The more kids they can turn away, the better they look. So they beat the bushes to drum up apps.
When one of your friends gets an offer to pay their expenses and fly them out for a visit, yep, they’re being recruited. Other than that, its marketing email, just like the letters your parents get every week inviting them to apply for a credit card and signed by some VP at Citibank.
@usafa2022 It is not hard for colleges to send mass “personalized” email, such as:
Dear [First name][Last name]
We encourage you to apply to [Name of university]…
It is more of a marketing scheme, to encourage you to apply. But these emails usually aren’t to be taken seriously (unless you’re interested in applying to said university) - I usually just ignored most of them.
I think when you sign up for an SAT or a PSAT there is a box you check off to be a part of some listing that allows you to be contacted by different colleges interested in you. Don’t be disappointed, you’re actually lucky. These emails are quite annoying, I was flooded with them last year however this year I have not received one. 98th percentile is a good score, by the way. Congrats on that.
When I was in High School, one girl in our Calculus class received WAY more mailings than anyone else. One day we in the class discussed it. She said, “you know that little box on the information/interest section of the profile when you sign up for the test that asks whether you will be applying for financial aid? I checked ‘No’.”
It is likely the profile information you filled out when you signed up, at least as much as the test results, that determine what direct marketing list you land on. It’s not you- the algorithms are not all score-based. Don’t worry.
You might have marked on your PSAT that you did not want to get solicitations from colleges. In any event it is meaningless.
Your mail carrier thanks you…
I agree: my guess is that when you took the PSAT, you didn’t check the box that invited solicitations.
While schools can’t get information on test scores of individuals from the testing boards (until submitted by the student), I wouldn’t be surprised if the school’s admissions/marketing departments get some kind of student list based on score range, so they can target students at a particular level. Just a theory. Our daughter took the ACT several times. She was getting a ton of mailings. She increased her score (from above average to very good but not great) on the last test and she got a new round of mailings from a tier of schools above the ones she had received previously. Coincidence?
Without your consent, the test agency cannot sell your personal information. The test agents do sell mailing list by score range (very wide range), region, etc.