You previously expressed interest in William & Mary as a possible college option, and we certainly hope that you maintain this interest. At this point, however, it appears that you have not yet submitted your application to us.
There is still time to complete your application and be considered for admission to one of the nation’s most recognized and respected universities. Given your previous interest in William & Mary, we are still willing to give your application full consideration if it is submitted by January 10, and if your supplemental materials (such as test scores, transcripts and recommendations) arrive by February 1.
We know that it’s all too easy to run out of time while juggling the holidays, multiple applications and early January deadlines. However, given that you’ve already taken the first steps in exploring William & Mary, we don’t want you to miss out on having a chance to apply. We hope that you’ll finish taking this final step and give us a chance to read your application.
I’m pretty surprised to see this sort of thing from a college like W&M. Is this common? I understand that some colleges have extended deadlines because of weather-related issues around the country, but this seems more like a way to just gather more applications.
(BTW, D has never visited W&M so really hadn’t expressed much interest…)
I wonder if these colleges are seeing a dip in the number of applications compared to last year, and are doing this to beef up their application numbers. They probably track by date how many they have, and can see if there is a reduction this year.
My ds received several of those as well. 2 top 50 universities bombarded him constantly. (One became affectionately known as Spam U b/c of how many he received. If he had ever seriously considered applying, their marketing turned him off completely.)
There is no “yield mongering”. As @inparent stated, perhaps there is a dip in applications, but it has nothing to do with yield.
Yield in college admissions is the percent of students who choose to enroll in a particular college or university after having been offered admission. (since your D hasn’t been accepted (because she hasn’t applied) the concept of yield is n/a.
William and Mary was the most prestigious school we received one from, most of the others were lesser ranked schools in surrounding states or instate for us. To be honest , I just deleted them after I read them.
Well, of course. What else would you do with them? Either you’re interested, in which case apply, or you’re not in which case don’t.
If you were in charge of recruiting at W&M, you’d do the same thing - send reminders out to students who expressed interest but didn’t apply. It would be Common Sense Marketing 101. Not noteworthy in the least. I don’t know why people seem to think colleges shouldn’t market themselves.
He probably checked the boxes when he made his SAT/ACT profile. You son is probably part of the demographic that W&M is looking to market to whether it is academically (GPA/scores), geographically, interest in major or whatever else the institutional mission is this year
Kids with high stats get on all kinds of lists. This is absolutely nothing new. My older kid (about 10 years ago) was inundated from Washington U, Vanderbilt, Columbia SEAS, USC,etc. I was surprised by the unsolicited stuff from Harvard, Penn, etc. but again, this is nothing new. My son started an application with Duke (filled out the initial info, sent his SAT’s as part of the 4 free ones you could send at the time along with an Ivy and two state schools, never formally applied to Duke or sent money). The day after Duke’s application deadline supposedly closed, he got an email from the admissions director, Guttentag, saying they had noticed he had started an application and would still welcome his application. He had already been accepted to his instate flagship ED! If Duke and schools like that do this kind of thing, why not Wm & M? It’s a numbers game - marketing and applications are key.
Right, just like all of our households are on mailing lists for all kinds of things. It’s not noteworthy at all. I truly don’t understand how the same households who receive mailings and emails for all kinds of businesses, from J Crew to Lands End to car dealerships to grocery stores to pizza parlors - the moment one of those mailings or emails is from a college, they suddenly don’t get how the system works. Duh, it works the exact same way.
OP’s point was the deadline extension rather than getting emails.
I was also surprised by notification that a selective scholarship deadline was being extended at the last minute. Kind of like if the IRS suddenly on April 15 gave everybody two more weeks to get their taxes done.
