Yesterday I finally sorted through all the already sorted college mailings DS got. It was time to throw away the heaping pile of what had already whittled down when Ds decided on his final list, and kept only mailings from universities he was going to apply to.
I had a funny thought as we both went through the enormous pile of glossy marketing materials. Not one of those mailings, or the other even larger pile he’d discarded way back, had any influence on his application list or his preferences.
So much $ spent by colleges. So many work hours producing such. How slick they look, and how vacuous they now seem.
Some very selective universities X 5 their efforts by sending expensive variations of these glossy almost-books.
In fairness, I was impressed with the only mailing he got from the University of California: a catalogue that while beautifully done, was so chuck-full of pertinent information about all ten campuses, we decided it was worth keeping. It made me happy to think our cash-strapped system had not wasted precious resources. (Just to be clear- many of the initial mailings were from other cash-strapped public universities from other states.) Also to be fair, Harvard sent only two mailings, only one of which was ‘atmospheric’ (what I’d call an empty ad) and the other was a long-form paper application. Classy. They, with all their money, do not need to produce empty nothings.
{DS will be attending UC Berkeley, where our hearts always were.}
So my question to any who read this and feel they can contribute: have the mailings, which begin right after the PSAT sophomore year, made a difference for you? Did they sway you or opened a possibility you would not have known about?
to be honest, not at all. i am in the summer leading into my senior year and to this day, i still receive these kinds of mailings. i immediately throw them out; why hold onto them? juice my ego? the way i see it, if it comes to the point where i discover my dream college i never knew about via mailings, i haven’t done enough in my college search. imo, waste of paper and money on the universities’ parts.
I still get them too. I don’t even care enough for them to take the energy to throw them out, I just toss them in one of those big boxes that you get reams of paper in. It’s been overflowing for a while, and like you’ve said, it really hasn’t made a difference. The only thing I can think of them accomplishing is re-sparking my interest in Notre Dame–which, by the way, only sent 1 piece of unsolicited mail. I know this isn’t true/applicable for all college-bound students, but if I haven’t heard of your college, a little piece of high-gloss paper telling me what majors you have isn’t going to convince me. In fact, my other top university, Franciscan, sent me ZERO unsolicited mail. Granted, they’re pretty small and probably don’t have the money, but to me that’s still classy. That at least makes you look more exclusive; we’ll give you some info if you’re interested, but we’re not so desperate that everyone HAS to know about us.
The worst offender at least in my personal experience has been the University of Evansville…what surprises me is how many different pieces of mail they’ve sent me that still all say the same things. I have never once responded to them, checked out their website, or opened their emails, yet they keep sending me things. I’m tempted to send them an email, though, just asking them to stop.
For us, by far the most mailings came from the University of Washington at St. Lois and from Yale. DS never intended to apply to either, and the mailings had no effect. Those were tossed out after his list was set.
Some places just have a swollen budget, I guess. They would do well to study the effects of this process in real results. That is part of why I posted.
Maybe someone did in fact discover a college they subsequently applied to or even attended through these brochures?
We literally had BAGS of this stuff with DD during her adventure to college 2 years ago. We only paid attention to the schools that were on her original list. She checked all the boxes that allowed this stuff in. I told DS to NOT CHECK any boxes releasing info. He is a music major and after seeing all the excessive mailings of his sister, agreed. He has received a few unsolicited pieces without checking anything - all seem to be related to the PSAT score so somehow he has found his way onto some list but there is so much less!
You’re smart, squiggles1118, because your family learned from experience.
At first my younger child was jealous of ‘all the mail’ older sibling was getting. DD will be taking the PSAT this fall, and has matured. Like your son, she is headed to music and told me she will not check any boxes that open her up to this barrage.
I would be curious if anyone actually did benefit from these mailings. I would not put them down in any way. We come by our opportunities many ways. I would prefer to think that all those work hours have a purpose.
Only the St. John’s mailing really swayed me. I’d never heard of the school before then and I was into brand name schools back then. I would not have considered SJC if I hadn’t received the booklet, which was straight to the point and delivered the reality about their school without all the irrelevant fluff. It focused on the school’s character rather than made it sound like the institutions described in every other mailing- but perhaps it’s because it’s one of the few school that does have a distinct character.
As far as I can tell, colleges send out those mailings for two reasons (neither of which is because they think that there is a qualified student living in the household).
The first is to build a reputation and name recognition-this plays into the second as well. Colleges want to be known to attract more applicants. Lots of people apply to Harvard because it has name recognition. Other institutions have to work for recognition outside of their state.
The second reason is to possibly delude the recipient into thinking that he/she is qualified to attend a university which is grossly out of reach (my friend got all of the HYP mailings even after getting a 1470/2400 on the SAT). The idea is that if they can convince more people to apply, not only does the school collect more application fees, there is a whole big pile of ‘definitely no’ applications to send rejection letters to, and thereby falsely bolster their selectivity rankings.
I’m guessing for every 100 brochures they send out, they get two or three people to believe they have a solid shot at getting in. Those two/three people are rejected, and the university gets $100-$200 in application fees. The more brochures a university sends out and the harder they try to hyper-recruit, the more money they make.
I actually first heard about the school at the top of my list through mailings. I probably would have heard of it eventually, but I don’t know whether I would have been quite as enamored and intrigued by it.
I also can’t help but to love it when schools send really big brochures/booklets.