<p>Weird - I had never heard of this school before today, when son gets a letter from them in the mail (PSAT scores must be in!) and then an ad appears on the side of my CC page! I feel stalked! Has anyone ever heard of this place?</p>
<p>In short, no. It must be very very backwater.</p>
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<p>Just because you’ve never heard of it? The school is small and fairly new, but the capital of Pennsylvania isn’t exactly backwater.</p>
<p>Also it’s in the United States of America, that doesn’t mean it’s not “backwater”.</p>
<p>Colleges use their “advertising” dollars to push their brand at certain times: introduce themselves to juniors in multiple ways, later it’s to write about FA and particular programs, and for seniors, it’s to make their final push to get them to apply. </p>
<p>Right now, your junior is the right target audience, (yes, the school bought a list of names of kids who scored in a certain PSAT range) and so your mailbox will soon get filled with mailings and emails from these colleges. The fact that you saw their ad here is a good thing. Their mailing worked, because now you’re becoming familiar with their name. Their hope is they intrigued you enough to research their school and ask for more information. And eventually visit and best-of-all: apply.</p>
<p>These schools often need to be more targeted (such as choosing students who live within a certain radius, and have achieved a certain score, and checked off certain interests on their “profile” chart) because their marketing dollars have to go farther than larger schools. They don’t have he known reputation. The first task of these smaller schools is to build name recognizition. They do that via these broadcast mailings, via emails, and via advertisements here, among other vehicles.</p>
<p>Don’t fret about being stalked. This is just the beginning.</p>
<p>This is a very new (opened 2001, chartered 2005) university, about 500-600 students. It is trying to meet the need for sci/tech students in the mid-state area and is very quickly gaining a good reputation. It is located in downtown Harrisburg, the state Capital. Population of Harrisburg is about 50,000, population of metro area is about 600,000. Not exactly “backwater” (whatever that means)…not NYC either.</p>
<p>Yes, I’ve heard of it (I grew up near Harrisburg, though) and yes, it’s a real school. I don’t know much about its reputation outside of the midstate, though. There have been many local news articles about the school in the past five years, but I don’t think the local papers (mostly The Patriot-News for Harrisburg) archive articles on their web site for very long.</p>
<p>That said, Harrisburg and the surrounding areas aren’t exactly exciting places to be. :)</p>