<p>When expressing disagreement, please keep the conversation polite. As a reminder:
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<p>10 years ago, Chicago had a 40-45% admit rate and a ~33% yield. Today Chicago has a 13% admit rate and a 46% yield. Of the top universities, Chicago has been by far the most aggressive with its mailings over the last few years, and it has been rewarded handsomely for its efforts. </p>
<p>Gifts and mailings from a college are intended to keep it on one’s mind. There’s a reason they send such things to prospective or admitted students rather than matriculated ones, after all. I don’t think intparent is saying that a t-shirt singlehandedly convinces anyone to attend, but Chicago would not waste time and money if it had no effect. (Perhaps one could claim that Chicago alone among the top universities loves its applicants dearly and sends them shirts, scarves, and other goodies out of the goodness of its heart, but in that instance I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.) </p>
<p>I don’t think Chicago is necessarily wrong in this approach, however. I’m not sure you can criticize a college for trying to attract the best possible class it can get. Moreover, once Chicago becomes more firmly entrenched in its position and popularity, I suspect the mailings will begin to taper off.</p>
<p>intparent, please let this kids and parents enjoy this moment. If you want to discuss the cons of Uchicago in depth , do so in another post. Your agenda against Uchicago is not welcome here. Class of 2017 welcome to a great community of students and parents !! Congratulations !!!</p>
<p>My D is a 2016’er. I do not recall receiving any parent swag at all after she was admitted RD other than the Dean’s letter and the calendar. We received much more stuff from state-funded universities where she was accepted, schools with larger populations and greater fiscal concerns. She is in a great university that was an excellent fit for her. She received a t-shirt and sunglasses prior to being admitted at an open house. The gifts had no influence on her decision to attend U of C or our decision to fund her education there. It is a world class university with great resources, culture and professors. This could be said about many schools across the nation, large and small, public or private, expensive or less so. I have a box full of keychains, scarves, computer bags, backpacks, pens, etc., bearing logos from schools that she applied to or was not interested in. Just enjoy your gift or not.</p>
<p>I get the sense from reading intparent’s posts that he has a pre-existing notion of whether the University is suitable for his daughter. It’s like asking whether Chicago or New York City has the better skyline, and then find the prettiest pictures possible for the Big Apple and the ugliest photos possible for Chicago. I was planning on addressing his concern about the percentage of tenured professors at this honorable institution. I decided that there is really no need, since I know that the response I get will not be reasonable or receptive. Best of luck.</p>
<p>My S has received a lot of stuff, from a lot of schools. My personal favorites are the letters that say “You are the recipient of the ***** Scholarship”! The nice box of stuff for his parents from UChicago will influence him ZERO. There are schools he loves (even though he is trying to play it cool) and schools he likes (where he has no problem being cool towards them). I don’t care what hat his dad puts on, if he doesn’t like the school, that isn’t going to change. LOL If it was that easy to influence my son I’d be wearing a t-shirt that said, “Please fill out all of your private donor scholarships NOW!!!”</p>
<p>intparent - I get the feelilng that your D is influenced by you and DH. If you feel that your wearing a particular school’s clothing would make her think that that is where YOU want her to go, then by all means don’t wear it.</p>
<p>Interestingly, I feel like the students who would have gone to U of C back in the '90s (for example) were NOT the type to wear college t-shirts. Maybe that is where some of the dissonance in this comes from for me. School spirit was not a strength of U of C back in those days, so maybe that is why these mailings strike me as a bit odd. It is not just marketing, but almost a re-branding effort. As in, we want the kind of student who is excited to wear a college t-shirt.</p>
<p>Jak321, you have exactly 38 posts on CC. I don’t think you have spent much time seeing how the college search process works out for many students. I have watched an entire class of high school students from D1’s class go through their four years of college, and saw a bunch of her classmates unhappy/transferring. You know which ones had problems at their first choice schools? The ones who just brushed the surface with their search, and took the schools at face value on what was in the marketing materials. Watching D2’s classmates, I am pretty sure I can predict which ones will have trouble and probably transfer as well. The ones who were so taken with a “brand name” that they didn’t really look at the school and their fit with it. Or those who did a two hour visit (tour and info session), and called it good before deciding to attend. Again, U of C is going to be a great school for a lot of students, and I am glad that many of them are active on the U of C forum. I do think that being on CC gives people a broader perspective because it is not (usually) part of the marketing process. Although having an ad-com on the forums can have an impact, I think – U of C’s is not intrusive outside the ad-com thread, but I have seen other ad-coms hop into threads for other schools to interject when something less than positive, but possibly true, is said about their schools. It has a dampening effect on discussion on those forums, which just makes it another part of the marketing process. But in general… I think people who come out and spend time on CC are often trying to see past the marketing to an extent.</p>
<p>By the way, Poplicola, I am a “she”, not a “he”. And I will admit that I am very cautious about encouraging any of my kids to attend a large research university for undergraduate studies. I did it myself, and understand the pros and cons very well. My D is welcome to do so as long as she understands what she can and cannot expect from the experience, and if it is what she really wants. And I also admit I am having a hard time getting a “read” on the current state of U of C, given the rapid changes it has gone through. The “old” U of C would have been a better fit, I suspect. Which could be at the root of why this intensive marketing is bugging me, as I am not convinced that this “re-branding” and attracting a different kind of student is moving the school in a direction that would be best for my particular kid.</p>
<p>Okay… enough on t-shirts. Because, of course, this isn’t really mostly about t-shirts at the root of it all. I will go mull over my thoughts on the changes at U of C, and you guys enjoy your swag. :)</p>
<p>intperant- I get the re-branding issue. I kind of welcome it for a broader cross section of students but I get that the attempted change might not sit well with everyone. Have you seen the University of CA change in logo…I don’t know what that re-branding is all about :)</p>
<p>Mommaof 5-Cracking me up with the “get the scholarships done” shirt!!! </p>
<p>Unfortunately, I don’t wear logo stuff but I do love coffee and wine…now that would be swag in my house :)</p>
<p>The university is changing, not as drastically as some might bemoan, but it is. A lot of people welcome those changes, but it’s inevitable that others will decide that the new U of C is not for them. I’m sorry if I came off as too argumentative intparent, I sincerely wish your daughter the best with this whole process, even if that means that the University of Chicago is not be the best option for her. You really should be careful, though, with what fanatics of other schools say about the University of Chicago. Relying on the posts of sometimes jealous fanatics of UChicago’s peers is definitely not the most reliable or scientific way to get to know the school…As for the swag…well, let’s just say that I’ve made a lot more use of the scarf UChicago sent me than another school’s Likely Letter. If they’re going to butter me up, might as well be with something useful.</p>
The nice box of stuff for his parents from UChicago will influence him ZERO. There are schools he loves (even though he is trying to play it cool) and schools he likes (where he has no problem being cool towards them). I don’t care what hat his dad puts on, if he doesn’t like the school, that isn’t going to change. LOL If it was that easy to influence my son I’d be wearing a t-shirt that said, “Please fill out all of your private donor scholarships NOW!!!”</p>