D just got a letter from Pratt Institute basically begging her to apply.
A few months ago, Pratt sent my son a beautiful book full of color photos. (Really, it was suitable for a coffee table if ours wasn’t already littered with so much other junk!) But my son hasn’t taken an art class since 7th grade so we definitely wondered how he got on that list!
Yeah, Washington University in St. Louis bothered me non-stop. I can’t imagine what they spend on marketing a year. Others were Colgate University, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and College of William and Mary. I really don’t like that they send us so much mail because it can get your hopes up, saying ooh this school wants me! And, then realizing that you’re not up to par with their requirements. This happened to me with Cornell.
I can’t remember all of my stalkers, but Columbia, Dartmouth, Princeton, UChicago, Rice, and Vanderbilt sent me too much stuff… I had a pile of college mail that was around 50 pounds and at least half of it was from those schools.
The biggest stalker was UChicago. They even phoned me a few times; I did not apply to UChicago.
Who is Johnson & Wales? Every other day last two weeks and countless emails!
My S gets daily mail (and emails) from WUSTL, Reed, W & L, Grinnell, Miami, Rice, invited to a reception (locally) for Alabama of and a bunch of unknowns. Must be based solely on PSAT score b/c they don’t know his grades and he hasn’t supplied any info to these places. My older D got mail from different colleges and she had lower PSAT but then did reasonably well on SAT and started getting mail from more selective schools. This seems kind of creepy being stalked when you haven’t requested that they send you information?
S is getting tons of mail from Tusculum. Despite being an avid CC’er for years, I had never heard of them. Lots from Brown too - and he has zero chance of acceptance there.
I know a very sweet young student who was recently interviewed by Washington & Lee. She has a sub 3.0 gpa in a non-rigorous schedule. She’s convinced they want her, and I fear she’s going to be crushed.
Guessing that heart is supposed to be a “less than three point oh”?
yeah, had to edit to sub 3.0 — I wasn’t trying to prolong Valentine’s Day!
Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). Oh god, they fedexed a catalog (it was beautiful), then began calling and emailing relentlessly. I thought my child had applied but it turns out she was filling out a form with her college adviser, then they realized the form was not for inquiry but the start of an application and backed out. Didn’t even hit “send” so I wonder if SCAD was capturing keystrokes. Aggressive doesn’t even begin to describe the constant contact. And then, when we attended a local event from traveling admissions officers, it was less a description of the school than an sales pitch with little content about actual academics, admissions rates, etc.
Walked away very unimpressed. Seems like you apply, you get in. We got lots of “junk” mail solicitations from other schools based, probably, on standardized test scores but this is the only one that spammed us by phone and email and constant reminders that “time was running out” to apply.
My daughter attended the national Lutheran youth gathering 3 years ago and through that we both got on some email list for Lutheran colleges. Most sent one or two emails and then that was it, but I think I’m still getting weekly or at least every 2-weekly emails from Augustana, despite never sending them any reason to be hopeful. We live in CA so I’m not sure why this small Iowa school is so eager.
We received so much email and mailings but I don’t know why people think it’s a problem. I believe one is more likely to apply to a school that has expressed interest and has reached out. What I did was set up a email account only for college so it didn’t clutter up any business or personal email. We enjoyed seeing the emails and we enjoy getting things in the mail box. I know of people who did terrible in school and testing and they do not get truckloads of email so be thankful for the attention. Recruiting the best possible class is the job of the dean of admissions so I would hope that any college I would consider is working hard to succeed. That said the stalker school I found most interesting was Stetson in Florida. My daughter would never consider anything in florida
I haven’t read through every comment, so I don’t know if anyone mentioned Wooster, Cornell and University of Michigan. We live in Michigan, so maybe this shouldn’t come as a surprise, but all other state schools combined haven’t sent as much mail. One son did succumb, although I don’t think the literature had anything to do with it, really. He may go to UMich.
I love it when those advertisement letters have typos on them. It’s great.
I have been getting brochures and mail from Vanderbilt even though I’m a freshmen in high school.
Anyone sick of ACU yet?
Totally forgot about American U. So many mailings. No, we’ll pass on the $50K tuition thanks. Another was Kansas. They are all starting to dwindle now, thankfully.
My son received the emails from Washington University in St. Louis and DID end up applying! Why not? It’s a top school and–something that my son appreciated–did not have a supplemental essay so it was virtually effortless to give himself another good college option! In our case the marketing really worked because I had never really heard of the school before, but the emails got me curious so I looked into it, and saw that it’s actually wonderful!
My son gets Tulane email constantly. He is considering it strongly, but is stressed enough about this process without the barrage. He has answered several times that he is interested but not decided. It’s only February! He is waiting on several schools still.
It’s as if the email is not connected to the responses. It’s a very impersonal feeling, because they aren’t paying attention to the fact that you DID respond. Now, he no longer opens their emails, and I’m worried that something important will come and we’ll miss it.
ASU (Arizona State) is still pestering me (emails, postcards) though I never expressed any interest in them.