What Are Your “Stalker Schools” and Have You Caved in To Them?

College Search & Lists
1

I can’t claim credit for the term “Stalker Schools” but I think it’s a good one. It describes colleges that pursue high school students relentlessly, even when the student never replies to the barrage of emails and snail mails and hasn’t visited campus, attended a local info session, or given any other indication of interest.

At the crack of dawn this morning, my son heard from one of his Stalkers—Washington University in St. Louis. If I had a dollar for every time this college has contacted my son, I could probably pay a semester of tuition (preferably not at WUSTL!) This morning’s missive was to remind my son that he still has one more day to apply.

My son’s other biggest stalker is Columbia. Although he wrote them a detailed message back in October explaining why he could not attend Columbia and asking to be taken off the list, the mail kept rolling in.

U. of Chicago was a stalker for a long time, too, but finally dropped out of the fray, although it took a lot of unanswered correspondence before that happened.

What irks me is that these three universities admit only a small fraction of their applicants. And it’s not as if my son’s demographic (middle-class white guy from the Northeast) is one where their enrollment numbers fall short. So it seems that drumming up applications is more important to these places than student sanity.

In this household, the avalanche of mail makes my son even less interested in his Stalkers than he already was. But for a kid who lives with a college counselor (for better or worse!) this problem isn’t huge. We all know where the “Delete” button is, and the whole college process hasn’t been very stressful for my son because he doesn’t need to leave the living room to get his questions answered. But I’ve talked to other parents who claim that persistence by Stalker Schools can make an already-overwhelming experience even more so.

So here’s my question (and, yes, finally, there IS one):

Which schools, if any, that you’re not at all interested in are stalking you (or your child), and has this onslaught of mail spurred you to cave in and apply?

(I’m only talking about the schools that are nearly incessant in their communication despite no reciprocation … not colleges you’ve pursued that got on your radar screen early through mailings or those where you have shown interest.)

2

Washington U in St Louis is one of the schools stalking my kid and my kid has not caved.

3

Hamline University was a stalker…and then, it ended abruptly. Where the heck is that?

4

There not stalking you they just want to know if you’re interested in applying to that school.

5

You’d think they could find that out with less than dozens of e-mails.

6

Yep. My son has gotten a dozen emails from Columbia AFTER writing them at the end of October explaining why he wouldn’t be applying and requesting that they please not continue to contact him. That was in response to the dozens that showed up before his October missive that he didn’t respond to.

7

Chicago, Columbia, Hofstra, Quinnipiac, Hobart William Smith, Wake Forest, St. John’s, Cornell ILR, and Olin won’t stop sending stuff. Olin really surprised me. Also U. New Haven. She applied to none of these.

Fordham and Tulane kept sending stuff and she did apply and got accepted to both of those.

8

There are 8,800 e-mails on the account set up for this year’s student. Almost 8,000 are unread.
Nearly none of it was solicited, although I suspect the box was checked during the SAT that said something to the effect of having compatible schools make contact.

9

The Stalking has only hardened my kiddo against any of the schools which would have been possibilities - and has not generated any interest in the ones she’d not previously heard of. My main gripe is that its frustrating trying to keep the email inbox clear enough to not miss communication from schools she does care about. The non-stop emails from random schools - especially the ones begging her to “complete your application before the deadline” or “we can’t wait to read your application” are ridiculous. I am sorry for all the bad things I said about the mailings because the emails are even worse.

10

I have no problem with colleges making contact, as long as the colleges don’t continue to make contact over and over and over when the student does not respond. Granted, some of these colleges offer Unsubscribe options at the end of their email messages. But then the student is actually required to read the email first, and the onslaught of mail can be too daunting for kids to have the time to stay on top of pruning their inboxes. (And there was one school … I forget which one … that continued to send stuff long after my son had opted out.)

But my only real gripe is with the places like those I named above (WUSTL, Columbia, Chicago) that are hyper-selective to begin with and yet continue to besiege teenagers with mailings, despite the slim acceptance odds that these kids will face if they were to apply. The colleges that write only occasionally or that really are as desperate for applications as they seem or that go away when there’s no response are not annoying.

11

Along with some mentioned here, Carleton College seems to email my D all the time, with the latest one today with the subject heading, “Tick, tock, tick, tock, 4,3,2, you have 1 day to make the most important decision of your life.” YEESH! No pressure, there. (I have to confess, though, to a soft spot in my heart for Carleton. They sent D a frisbee about 2 years ago and it’s still around.)

12

It comes down to the fact that email is free to send. I get many, many emails from various political groups, many of which I support in theory, but whose bombardment of me for funding is distinctly off-putting. I guess they see it as a no-cost way to drum up interest, not realizing that above a certain point it has an opposite effect. The emails my son thought were particularly funny were the countdown to the deadline (“You have only 12 more hours!”) followed the next day by “We’re giving you another week to apply! Don’t miss your chance!”

13

I can only speak of last year and the year before. Chicago was a big offender. We didn’t know the ropes yet, so this turned out to be a little heart-breaking: DD had already made Chicago her first choice, and the first few mailers seemed personal enough that we were all taken in.

There were in-state stalkers also. The University of Utah sent mailings and had student workers telephone several times. The same was true of Westminster College, which was in fact on the list for a while. They telephoned many times.

If we’d known they would phone more than once, we’d have told them to stop right away, and I would advise anyone else getting unwanted phone calls to do that. If they call once, that means they have a telephone budget, and they will probably call again. In the middle of dinner.

14

I understand why the selective schools market so aggressively. What I don’t understand is why directional schools from neighboring states keep sending stuff to my son. Dear Northern Illinois, there are two peer schools within a 15 minute drive of my house. Why, exactly, would I want to pay OOS tuition to you?

15

Chicago sent a letter to my son, a week before EA decisions, telling him how much scholarship money he would have as a NMF. Then they deferred him. Seems unkind, to me.

16

UChicago is clearly a big offender here. Honestly one of the only top universities in the country who make such an effort at recruiting-- I was contacted dozens of times about Chicago, was sent free t shirts just for sending them my ACT scores, etc etc. They ended up deferring me. While I do understand a lot of schools just send mail out to make people think they should apply, thereby lowering their acceptance rate and making them look like a better school, it was kind of harsh for UChicago to go to efforts like that and then defer me.
After receiving 2 deferrals I started getting worried and withdrew my applications to places like Wash U in STL and other schools who had rabidly spammed me with emails prior to the application season. Tulane sent an excessive amount of emails, but I got in there. Some of the worst offenders have been obscure, small colleges.

17

For my older son, oddly, it was Westport State in MA (we live in neighboring NH). He applied to RIT and was accepted and got TONS of mailers from them. Including the one he found really creepy. A postcard with a car on it. On the license plate it showed the exact number of miles from our town to Rochester. For my younger son it was Vanderbilt. He did apply and was not accepted - had I known then what I know now we wouldn’t have wasted the money and my son’s time and effort.

18

Kenyon, UChicago, and Sweet Briar. My D never visited, signed up for anything, or showed any interest at any of these schools… Kenyon was by far the most insistent.

19

This is a few years back, but my son received a large number of contacts from Philadelphia Biblical University, apparently because of a sign-in sheet at a church work trip he attended. He didn’t apply.

20

Vanderbilt. High school junior has unsubscribed but, still get mailings etc.

To add insult to injury, at a Vandy road show at a summer prep school program, the Vandy admissions rep raved about the Men’s Varsity soccer team – only there isn’t one. My kid wants to continue to play in college, and hearing a rep have wrong info about the availability of a program turned him off for good. The continued mailings just make him chuckle.