<p>Hello Parents,</p>
<p>My parents would like to send thank you gifts to admissions offices to schools which awarded me generous merit scholarships. Do any of you have ideas as to what types of gifts may be well-received and appropriate?</p>
<p>Thanks for reading.</p>
<p>Thank you note.</p>
<p>And a large assorted candy/cookie tray?</p>
<p>Totally out of place to send a gift.</p>
<p>I agree; a gift is totally inappropriate. I would think there may even be rules in place by schools prohibiting acceptance of gifts by adcoms, as it may appear to be unethical. A thank you note might be appreciated.</p>
<p>Thank you notes are definitely appreciated. Gifts aren’t appropriate.</p>
<p>I think you need to decide where you are going first. Notes (not gifts!) to schools you do not attend will have a different tone than to the one you ultimately choose.</p>
<p>I’ve never heard of anyone sending a gift.</p>
<p>I doubt they would throw away flowers or refuse a box of chocolates but like others have said, it’s not expected and frankly not very appropriate. These are professionals doing their jobs – based on rules/regulations and professional judgment. They didn’t do you a “favor”. They are admitting you to serve their college.</p>
<p>You wouldn’t send a gift to the dentist office worker for booking your next cleaning, right? Nearly the same thing.</p>
<p>Good parallel, T26E4. It is akin to sending a gift to the person in the dentist’s office.</p>
<p>WRT cookies: if I ran an admissions office, I would definitely throw out any food gift that wasn’t commercially prepared and didn’t come factory sealed. But I guess you could send them some Samoas and Thin Mints if it’s Girl Scout Cookie season where you live.</p>
<p>I am sure it’s nothing but a nice and generous impulse, but thank-you gifts are for personal relationships, or sometimes for businesses to give their clients or customers, and neither of those describes your relationship with an admissions committee.</p>
<p>Sent from my DROIDX using CC</p>
<p>I’d expect that most schools have a policy against accepting gifts with any financial value (or they allow a nominal financial value like $5).</p>
<p>Not really appropriate. A nice, heartfelt thank you note is enough.</p>
<p>How about a big thank you for your current high school counselor? Ours is great - and my DD will definitely write a nice thank you note.</p>
<p>Plus it may not be the adcoms who awarded you the merit scholarships - it’s probably the financial aid office. Agree with other posters that it’s not appropriate - a nice thank you note is the better approach. Your GC might appreciate the cookies, though.</p>
<p>No gift! I’m not sure a note is needed. Schools award merit aid based on your stats, not usually a “good word” from an adcom.</p>
<p>A thank you to those who helped you achieve stats high enough for merit aid would be MORE appropriate…that would be your high school.</p>
<p>Thanks so much, everybody! Wow, my parents will be floored to think they would have done something inappropriate!! They have a notion that the work of admissions offices often goes unappreciated and unacknowledged.</p>
<p>I sent thank you’s to my teachers and guidance counselor long ago, and thank you emails to all of the admissions offices for all of their hard work on behalf of the applicants.</p>
<p>I’m not joking, I got denied at Yale, and they think I should send a thank you to the Admissions Dean for his kind, thoughtfully written rejection letter. Lol.</p>
<p>My daughter DID write one thank you to someone at her college. It was the enrollment manager who also did her interview…nicely arranged over the phone. He said he would lobby on her behalf for an EA admission. She got accepted EA. HOWEVER, she hand delivered that note herself when she arrived on campus.</p>
<p>When son got accepted a few years ago we thought about the same thing. He had written his essay about an experience that he had while on a photo shoot. We thought of sending a print of one of the photo’s from the shoot that was described in the essay. Then we had second thoughts on whether a gift was inappropriate so we didn’t send it. We have thought about sending it after graduation with a note about what a great experience he had at the school and thanking them for the opportunity.</p>
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<p>That’s a sweet thought on their parts. Personally, I wouldn’t really think that admissions office personnel are any more or less unappreciated and unacknowledged than any other service industry personnel who interact with the public. As with any job where you have to interact with lots of members of the public, there will always be a handful of whackjobs and unsatisfying interactions.</p>