I 100% agree. We got letters from 3 of the 5 schools. One had a pennant, one had some stickers and an offer for a free yard flag, the other just had the official letter on nice letterhead in a glossy mailer, but my kid was excited to open all of those things and smiled when he saw it.
One of those two he hasn’t gotten anything from is my alma mater and where my older son goes. Do I need swag from them? No. Do I want them to send my kid even a postcard saying “hey man, we are so happy to have you”? Yes.
My kid would be over the moon if he received flowers. So far, one of the best things he received was a handwritten postcard from a current student in his major, who shared why she chose X school. I think he appreciated it even more than the stickers and pennants.
Interesting point. S25 has only been accepted to two schools so far: state flagship and Stanford. The flagship has not sent anything in terms of swag, etc., but Stanford sent a package, a personal note from an admissions officer, and also arranged for a current student to call my kid so they could speak on the phone. Of course, I do understand that the larger number of students accepted to state schools may make personal contacts impractical. But S25 has really appreciated the personal attention from Stanford.
Yeah, the numbers accepted are definitely a thing. What’s rubbing a little raw is that my kid got at least a mailed package from state flagships from two OTHER states, but not our own.
Like @skkm0906 - I don’t NEED swag, but even a postcard would be nice. Something to say hey - welcome. The other two big schools sent packages with pennants or like a little towel thing. Then the deans of the sub-colleges within the university sent emails about Welcome to the College of X. And maybe some of that will still come, but based on what the returning parents are saying, it doesn’t feel like it.
Just want to mention that attention from admissions is nice – but once a student accepts (or turns down) a spot at the college the interaction with the admissions office will be complete. Focus on long-term affordability and fit
Of course, fit and cost are key. But when the cost is similar, feeling welcomed and wanted is part of determining fit. Attention to students is important. In my son’s case, he’s looking at similar programs at three big state schools - smallest has undergrad attendance of 22,000, the largest is closer to 35,000. So feeling like a number who doesn’t matter is a definite potential issue here. I’m not expecting flowers, but some kind of acknowledgement that the kid is wanted for himself and what he brings, and not just a number to fill in their tuition needs would be welcome. Of course, maybe that’s exactly the point - for that school he is just a number and they don’t particularly care. That’s important to know too. What admissions does sets the tone for how the school interacts with their student body. If you aren’t trying to show you care when you’re trying to entice me in the door, why would you bother caring once you’ve already gotten my check?
part of determining fit is if you feel like you are nothing more than a number how is that going to change when you attend? Will it change? Do you want it to change? So yeah, a postcard may make a kid think “oh wow, they really do want me to come here”.
Everyone just defaults to emails, which get lost in a sea of other emails and kids just don’t even take a minute to read the whole thing for the most part.
Eh, it was pretty accurate for my oldest son’s experience. No emails prior to applying, no letters welcoming them, just a yard sign. And there he’s pretty much of no importance to the university until he’s about to graduate and now it’s all like oh wow you’ve done so well, you are on the short list to speak at commencement, you will be getting latin honors, you are amazing. Even he was like “only took you 4 years…”. He’s had great professors, but the university as a whole? He’s a full pay tuition student and nothing more.
I know which institution you are talking about, and after (super high stats from a poor, under-represented area of the state) older S committed to his college, I actually wrote a scathing review in their survey about the process. Both H & I are alumni, as are several others in our family. The whole process was off-putting. When we received the financial aid in the mail (this was in 2016), we received 2 envelopes from the financial aid office. Opened up the first one and it said we got $0 aid. Disappointing (our “impossible to afford” EFC at the time was right at the cost of attendance for an in-state public), but the whole mailing just looked like a cheap sales ad. I thought maybe the second envelope would have the scholarships! Nope. It was a duplicate of the first envelope.
Then came the department scholarships. S was emailed that he got nothing. A few minutes later, a follow-up saying to disregard the first email. The department messed up the spreadsheet. The MATH department messed up the spreadsheet? Ugh. He later got nothing again.
And even after that, S had been accepted to Duke… all of Duke’s correspondence (daily if I recall) read like “You are awesome! PLEASE come to us! We’d love to have you.” From VT? It read “You’d better hurry up and pay us, or you’ll lose out.” That was a HUGE turn-off and I was pretty disgusted with them for a long time. I’m getting over it though almost 10 year later, lol… I still love them, but I can see why many people would be disgruntled.
P.S. The saying in my poor part of the state is that they don’t have to offer anyone any $$$. There are plenty of people up north that can pay full price. But it wasn’t just about the $$$, it was the whole presentation that just wasn’t right.
FWIW, I think it’s human nature to want to feel the love from schools you are considering, and it is off putting when a schools is flat out bad at communicating. It did seem to us that that the higher the rank, the less love they were showing to their accepted students.
@classicmom98 - Our alma matter was horrible too. They put up all kinds of road blocks even when we were trying to visit. My D was so turned off she didn’t even apply. I also wrote a scathing note to admissions as I was a regional chair at the time and we had family members on a number of boards. Zero response other than “thank you for letting us know.” We had a number of classmates whose kids landed at Duke because of that welcoming friendly vibe from admissions (not to mention it’s a great school!).
YES! Exactly that. They only announced EA acceptances on Saturday, so there’s still time for them to try to be welcoming, but the whole vibe we’ve gotten is the “sign up now, pay now, or you’ll lose out”. Whereas every other school has done some version of the “You are awesome please come to us.” It DOES feel like a turn off.
I don’t need the personalized note from someone in his major, although that would be really amazing. But just something that makes it feel like he’s less of a cash cow.
Everyone we know who has gone to the school has loved it, and had a great experience. So in that regard, I think they may believe they don’t have to try. But those same students talk about their fellow students, they don’t talk about the administration. So their experience is great because their peers are great, not because dealing with the University feels positive.
And sure, that may be the most important thing. But if I’m deciding between two schools where the students are great at both, then feeling like the university is interested in their students as unique individuals may be important. Yes, college is about a lot of things, but customer service is part of that. If you pay no attention to my child now, what happens once he’s a student and he needs help with a registration problem, or a housing issue, or an advising issue? Will he be just one more student ID number or will someone give him individualized attention if he asks? I’m not expecting the level of attention one gets at a SLAC, but I hope there’s SOMETHING.
I completely agree. There’s something to be said for an administration that places a high value on their students. If not students, then what IS their priority? Faculty? Research? Something else? It’s not that they definitely don’t care about their students, it’s that I’m left to wonder. And $160,000 and four years is an awfully big investment to make when you’re unsure about the details.
When my kids were accepted to VT, they did eventually get a welcome packet in the mail with stickers and a pennant. It took awhile, but hopefully they are still sending them out this year. My kids probably applied to 25 schools between the two of them and that’s pretty much what most schools sent. One school sent a cheap t-shirt and another sent a huge yard sign, which was kind of a waste since kid wasn’t going there. Swag didn’t seem to sway my kids either way. We were able to visit to their top 2-3 schools after acceptances and that’s where it mattered to feeling wanted and the right “fit”.
Yeah, I don’t think the swag is going to be determinative, and we do have visits planned, so I’m hoping that helps S25 make his ultimately decision.
And - not that you suggested this, because I don’t think you did, but to be clear just in case - I don’t think the swag (even the fact of receiving something, regardless of what that is) is what’s important. It’s the very idea of feeling welcomed and wanted somehow.
My older boy received a few mailers with stickers from a few of the schools he was accepted at. But each of the schools made an effort via their emails or letters they sent to make it clear that they were interested in him and that he would be a valuable member of their community.
VT may still be able to do that with whatever communications they send or the admitted students day. But it feels like they are starting from within a hole because of the length of time it took to announce their EA decisions. Frankly, I WANT my kid to love VT. But Clemson and UTK are really communicating in a way that makes him feel wanted. And they announced EA decisions mid-December, so he’s had a lot of time to think about both and imagine himself at both. UTK is dropping because it feels too big and I don’t want to see the same happen at VT. Clemson is rising because he says it feels like a caring environment. So what I’m trying to parse out here is why doesn’t VT feel caring to him? Is it just the size? Or is it the lesser outreach? Or is it just that he’s had so much more time to let the acceptance to Clemson sink in and make it feel right?
And maybe this is all pointless navel gazing because I’m procrastinating on something I need to do and because there is nothing else to do, no affirmative action to take or anything to research wrt college right now.
I think it does sound snotty, I agree with you. And schools like Stanford, MIT, and Princeton send a ton of “please come” stuff so it’s unlikely to be correlated with how allegedly great a college is.
We’re dealing with a different issue, which is setting up shabbat (we’re Jewish) visits to Hillels at various places. There has been a very wide range of what we’ve experienced, and it seemingly has little/no correlation with either the size of the Hillel or how competitive the college is. My son wants to see what shabbat is like as it’s an important part of his lifestyle, so this is a non-negotiable for a campus visit. I’m trying to keep my frustrations to myself, because I actually think the visit may not be a perfect image of what students experience.
On the topic of swag, Loyola New Orleans does a really cool swag box . My D21 applied there and they sent an enormous box - it was filled with all kinds of stuff including a LOYNO umbrella, T shirt, tons of Mardi Gras beads, plus a whole bunch of other trinkets. It was quite impressive.