@manykids2000. I am not sure what the target is but I know that DD’18’s SAT score was NOT the precipitating factor in this case, lol! Probably not her ACT either as it is just below their 25% mark. Possibly AP scores (hers are mostly 4s) and we would be geographically near-ish to Tulane.
The notion of"priority" doesn’t stop me. The logical next question is, “Priority over whom?”
Kinda like my old fav example: “Nine out of ten dentists prefer Crest.” They’ve never said over what. Mud? Sandpaper?
This isn’t just colleges. I used these mailings, ads, other enticements as learning points with my kids, since they were little and wanted every product they saw advertised. That’s one way to fight it.
Years ago, my son got a very similar letter from RPI. The big difference was it was true, they promised a 3 week turn around time from when they received first quarter grades, he knew before Thanksgiving that he was in and that they would be giving him some sort of merit award. (Which they determined much later in the spring.)
I agree that if there’s no real priority here, it’s pretty slimy.
Higher education is business like everything else and, yes, marketing is rampant.
“Maybe, I have just created a new job for myself!”
OP, if you feel the need to fight this battle, perhaps start with emailing a link to this thread to the head of admissions. Not good PR for Tulane.
No worse than “call within the next 10 minutes to get this special offer”… when you hear the same ad over and over again for months!
At least it doesn’t say “Be the first kid on your block!” 
Most advertising meets FTC requirements if it is general - “New” “Hot” “Fresh” are all fine. “Lite” can have more calories than ‘regular.’ The Dept of Education could supervise advertising, but what would be the penalties?
I’m sure Tulane gives priority review to those who apply before the spring. Consideration for scholarships is probably better the earlier you apply.
If this upsets you, you really aren’t going to like dealing with the financial aid people.
My son received one last year and received a very good merit scholarship package. In the end, he chose Tulane. There’s nothing wrong with this.
agree with posts 2 and 3. And for post 13, how student has achieved priority consideration could be by graduating high school. In other words, those that have not graduated high school don’t achieve the priority of easy acceptance. A low bar to meet I know; but the OP seems really troubled by this, as noted in Mod’s Post.
@younghoss another CC thred posited “The college admissions process is broken”…this is one of the things that is broken in my opinion
Here’s a new marketing twist. My #2 who got his undergraduate degree in May of 2014 is getting emails from one of the safety unis that accepted him back in his high school application period inviting him to apply for a graduate program. They are coming into the email that we all used for “college stuff” so I asked him if he had contacted this university recently…the answer was he has not contacted them.
I don’t think the OP should be at all concerned. Marketing is marketing, it’ pretty much what I do for a living. I had to smile at the above mentioned uni’s approach. Hadn’t heard of this one before. In the digital world, if you open, if you click, you’ll get more. If you don’t open they should disappear soon or hit unsubscribe. Nothing is “slimy” really. Everyone is fair game and it’s pretty easy to get off the lists, either digital or mail if you really don’t want the solicitations. As a marketer I found it really fascinating which colleges and universities targeted my kids. The winner take all is the various branches of the armed forces…they mailed, they emailed AND they called the home phone and they called in the fall probably to see if the boys actually went to college LOL.
@momofthreeboys . I do not mind the unsolicited marketing material, I actually quite enjoy it and an unsolicited piece of marketing material has fostered interest in more than one univiersity for my DDs.
As I’ve said, It is the bold faced exaggerations/misrepresentations that is disconcerting. And I guess I take issue with the “it is what it is”, they are only stretching the truth and that is ok, just don’t apply, attitude and the assumption that we should turn a blind eye. Maybe not slimy slope but it is a slippery one.
Tulane is a fantastic school and that is easy to determine by just being exposed to the great things about it. I am disappointed that they felt it necessary to entice applicants in this manner.
Clearly, I am in the minority on this issue and I am not going to “get” most of you to a agree or even see that the wording on some of these marketing materials can be misleading, particularly to the less collegiate admissions process savvy, non CC consuming, student/family. We hare a jaded lot here on CC.
If your D scored above a 27 or better on her ACT she’s smack, dab, in the middle of the target. I don’t know what triggered the mailing - most likely an SAT or ACT score, but the fact is only if he isn’t anywhere close to a target would it be misleading. Most likely not “everyone” gets considered for a scholarship. But you are certainly entitled to your viewpoint.
A friends D who scored well below the avg ACT received this Tulane marketing brochure. The family is not as well versed in the college process and really took it to mean Tulane was interested in her. Having followed this thread I just casually mentioned that I had read they were sending a lot of stuff to rising seniors.
We received tons from WUSTL. Tons. My daughter would never have gotten in and didn’t want to go there anyway. We also got ‘invitations’ for her to attend summer camps for those with futures in the medical world and the invitations were more grand than many wedding invitations I’ve received with several different envelopes, tissue paper, reply cards… NEVER expressed any interest and doesn’t really like biology. Marketing doesn’t always appeal to the targets.
We also received pink and green postcards from Sweet Briar assuring my kids they’d be very happy riding horses and being part of the tiny community. Not really, but I’d never heard of Sweet Briar and the post card did cause me to look it up and that’s what marketing is supposed to do, get you interested in the product.
Not false advertising, I agree it is typical marketing…as others point out, the only thing they are ‘lying’ about is the priority thing, indicating that the benefits mentioned were only for a select few, when it seems like most/many students would get that. It would be kind of like if the Marine Corps started taking in anyone who applied to join but still used their ‘few, the chosen, the proud’ line in their advertising. It would be false advertising if a ton of kids were promised those things, and only a few of them actually got it, that would be making false promises.
Want a classic example of legal but dubious marketing? Perdue is running these ads these days promoting the fact that they feed their chickens basil to keep them healthy so they don’t have to use antibiotics in raising them. Meanwhile, what they aren’t saying is that by law they no longer can use antibiotics in raising poultry unless the birds are sick, they advertise something as a benefit to eating their chickens that is true for every chicken sold shrug. Be like a car company advertising they have airbags, safety glass and impact crush zones, when all of those today are federal law, required. Reminds me of the series “Mad Men” when they are working on a cigarette account, and promote the ‘slow roasting’ of the tobacco when that is how tobacco was cured by almost everyone.
Different students seem to get these floods from different universities. We got nothing from Tulane, only one flier from WUSTL, and tons from Simmons College. I expect that geography has some affect on this (we live a long way from Tulane, and closer to Simmons).
“If this upsets you, you really aren’t going to like dealing with the financial aid people.”
Well said.
I have been in info sessions where reps from schools imply that everyone in the audience has a real probability of getting financial aid. They go on and on about how they award aid to people in all income brackets and that you should always apply to see what you can get.
So my D is getting hopeful and thinks I am being a Debbie Downer by saying there isn’ t change we will get aid. I know for a fact through doing my FAFSA that we will never qualify and I have read the school’s Common Data Set which clearly states that there is no merit aid given out.
So I’m saying no to the school and the school is getting her hopes up.
To me, this is far worse than Tulane, who will actually DELIVER on merit aid.
It’s not your grandma’s college application cycle or even your own college application cycle that’s for sure. I never had trouble talking straight with the kids about messages they were receiving or what their grades/scores meant in terms of where to apply, but my mother and especially with the first one off to college… oh my goodness. My dad in his 90s still talks about getting to Ann Arbor and signing up to go to engineering school at UofM and to get a room in the union.
My kid received tons of stuff from Stanford, U of Chicago, WUSTL, USC, Yale, etc. It’s all marketing and trying to lower their acceptance rate to game the USNWR figures. It sucks that they end up disappointing students and families that never had a chance who were prompted to apply because of this ‘interest.’