I’ve gotten pretty good at throwing away spam college letters and deleting spam emails, but I got one from Oklahoma State today that caught my eye.
Congratulations, you have been identified as a high priority recruit to Oklahoma State University based upon your academic accomplishments. According to our current records, you have a great chance of qualifying for admissions and also a great chance to possibly qualify for scholarships. Therefore, we wanted to take this opportunity to encourage you to keep up the good work as you progress through your final year of high school.
We recently sent you an extremely informative orange brochure that highlighted many of the great opportunities that await you at Oklahoma State. The brochure also contained a very helpful senior checklist that will conveniently keep you on track as you progress through your senior year and the college application process. Perhaps the most important item in the brochure was a postage paid inquiry card that we encouraged you to complete and return to us. By completing this card you identify yourself as a student that is sincerely considering OSU as one of their top choices. When we receive the card your status with us as a prospective student is then elevated and you will then begin to receive a series of personal communications from your assigned admissions counselors. We have received thousands of these return cards thus far and encourage you to complete and return yours if you have yet to do so. You can easily complete this card online at <a href=“http://admissions.okstate.edu/onlineinquiry.html[/url]”>http://admissions.okstate.edu/onlineinquiry.html</a> if you prefer.
Keep up the good work, enjoy the remainder of your summer vacation and please do not hesitate to call us at 1-800-233-5019 instate or 1-800-852-1255 out of state if you have yet to schedule a campus tour.
Sincerely,
Cale Gee
Tele/E-Marketing Supervisor
Office of Undergraduate Admissions
Oklahoma State University
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I’m a rising senior in the top quarter of my class at a competitive private school. My GPA is 94/100 weighted, 90.3 unweighted. My SAT score was 2030 on my first try. I also will be receiving a National Merit commendee letter for scoring in the 96 percetile on my PSAT I’m soon to be a varsity athlete, and have some pretty impressive unusual EC’s. I’ve never gotten a letter like this one before. Is this a well concealed spam letter that wants to boost my interest in OSU and then get me to pay full price, or is it legit?
<p>Pure spam? No. It is a recruiting letter that itself says it has been sent to “thousands” (see the “return card” comment). Your stats put you easily in the top 10% of OSU’s usual pool of applicants and thus if you apply your chances of admission are virtually certain. Also, OSU gives out a lot of “merit” awards and your stats potentially qualify you for one of those, although what you are usually looking at is something that is merely a partial tuition waiver and in the $1,200 to $2500 per year range for residents and $5000 range for non-residents. Note, if you are wondering how OSU learned of you – most likely through information that you provided to the College Board when you took the SAT; it provides colleges with the identity of students and their ranges of SAT’s and grade info you provided in the App.</p>
<p>It is still early in the year, and you haven’t see everything that can come in the mail. It sounded like spam to me, especially the first paragraph.</p>
<p>That doesn’t mean that you can’t look at the school. It is okay to buy something that you see in a TV commercial.</p>
<p>this letter probably went to everyone above a certain score on the PSAT or SAT. Folks with high test scores DO have a good chance for admission and scholarships at Okla. State. But do not assume that they know anything else about you. This is not a personal letter based on your overall achievements.</p>
<p>Yea, I know a lot of people get it. I just wanted to make sure EVERYONE didn’t get it like some of the other letters I receive regularly. Thanks for the advice.</p>
<p>Its not spam of the kind that WUSTL sends out that seems to imply you’re one of their “top” applicants and uses every weasel word they can get to imply you’ll be admitted, all in the interest of getting as many apps as they can so they can look more selective.</p>
<p>But its not very personal, either. OSU is a moderate state school and is going to be largely numbers driven. It boils down to this. With your SAT and self-reported gpa you’re probably assured of admission. And that’s true whether you respond to this solicitation or not. </p>
<p>However OSU has a problem. Students like you generally don’t look at OSU as their top choice. They want to pull in more strong students, and to do this they need a marketing campaign. Think of it like Citibank wanting to get more credit cards issued; they can sit back and hope for apps to show up, or they can go out and actively try to get new customers. OSU is doing the same thing.</p>
<p>So now its your turn to decide. Do you have any interest in attending OSU? If so, this campaign is offering you (and thousands like you) some personal attention if you respond. You’ll likely get phone calls, a contact that can get answers to any questions you have, invitations for tours, etc. OSU wants people like you, and if its a college you’d consider this is a way to get more attention than someone who simply fills out their app and waits until spring to get an answer (which in your case is almost certain to be yes). They aren’t trying to pull you in and then get you to pay full freight, they’ll give you some discount, bu they’re unlikely to offer a free ride either.</p>
<p>I got two letters from Harvard and University of Penn saying that I am a strong applicant. But, my SAT score is WAY below their range. If you want to know more about me, I am URM, 3.8 uw, 4.1 w, upper middle class, learning disabled, let’s see what else…2 of my sat 2s are in 600s range and 2 of others are in high 500s range. I am suspicious that they are spams.</p>
<p>frequency43: They don’t send it to everybody. You may have targeted for being a URM with good test scores and high gpa. I don’t want to be too encouraging, but it is an indicator that scores don’t have to be as high for URM’s. In my opinion, the minimum for an UN-hooked candidates to be considered is an SAT at or a little above 1500 and with SAT II’s in the mid 700’s. There is a lot of variation between #1 and #15 on the USNWR rankings.</p>
<p>I know I can get into better schools than OSU, but I’m interested in FA from where ever I can get it from, and they’re the first school that has sent me a letter implying that they’ll give me FA. I’m out of state (Texas) though, so I’m not sure if them giving me non substantial FA would make a difference or not with out of state fees considered.</p>
<p>wow_98: I thought after I made the post that it was going to be confusing. It is all spam, but frequency43 got a better level of spam. They use mailing lists that indicate your test scores. The letter to vsye from OSU is spam and they are not specifically interested in him/her. The letter to frequency43 from Harvard is also spam and they are not specifically interested in him/her, but the fact that frequency43 is a URM and the spam came from Harvard might indicate that his/her test scores are not as low as he/she thought. I don’t think it really means much, but Harvard doesn’t do mass mailings to everyone in the country.</p>
<p>People with bad credit rating get junk mail about consolidating debt, but people who drive bmw’s get junk mail from mercedes dealerships. I’m not saying that it isn’t all junk mail and should be taken with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>So basically if my scores were lower I might be getting a mass mailing of the same ilk from a lesser school, and if they were higher, I’d be getting a mass mailing from a high school?</p>
<p>To the extent that it matters, that is probably true. The schools buy mailing lists and decide who to send their stuff to. The first time you sign up for junk mail is when you take the PSAT’s. I don’t think who you get the junk from means that much, though. Some lesser schools may be mailing to everybody. I don’t think Harvard sends it to everybody. I wonder if Bill Gates gets stuff in the mail about refinancing his house.</p>
<p>Speaking of mailing stuff, you should see Colgate’s materials. They stamp on handwriting at the bottom so it looks like an AdCom scrawled some personal encouragement note for you. I had to do a double take, then I held it up to light look for impression marks on the other side.</p>