electronblue Wait till you get one on the personal letterhead of a law firm addressed to your son/daughter. Talk about distressing. Then when you open up the letter to see it is from an alumni of a school that is trying to recruit to your child, you will be wondering what the heck are these colleges are thinking.
@electronblue That’s funny! I live in New Jersey and rarely received anything from them.
@voiceofreason66 I had a few letters that looked like that. I was confused and didn’t really understand who it was from…until I read the letter. 8-|
There were some really odd ones. University of Miami wasted the most mail. There were some small, regional bible colleges that sent my son mail twice a week for the past year. He also received the same exact post-card from an instate Catholic school about a dozen times (we kept them for a while).
Being from Minnesota and having a musician, Concordia College (Moorhead) was relentless (mail, invitations, emails, phone calls), even though he didn’t express any interest in their school.
I would say that Kenyon (despite the John Green over kill) had the best recruiting materials and were most persuasive in their mailings. He applied there, even though he has no interest in John Green.
UChicago sent me mail nearly every week for an entire semester… Books, posters, top 10 lists – they win for most creative! Now, not a week goes by without receiving yet another information packet or flier from Campbell University in NC, a college I had never heard of until they ‘thanked me for my interest’ (huh?). Biola University calls me on my personal cell phone (a little too stalkerish thank you very much!), while Elijah from Word of Life Bible Institute emails me on a bi-weekly basis (without any response from me).
The worst offender though, is Anderson University in IN. As an IN resident and Christian homeschooler, I guess I’m in their target demographic. Anyway, ‘Amanda’ from admissions got a hold of me on the phone one day. After asking the usual questions about senior year, she asked if I had thought about college yet. I told her I was going to school in NYC (which I am), which thankfully caused her to end the conversation. The next day, I received a voicemail…from Amanda at Anderson University, wanting to know when I was planning on turning in my Anderson application! 8-|
In my son’s case, the mass marketing efforts of UChicago worked against them. He was actually interested in the school and thinking of applying UNTIL the deluge of emails. He thought it smacked of insincerity and it turned him off.
yes, voiceofreason, one of those alum letters was from a lawyer. Isn’t that strange? I guess it does make you open it but it sure doesn’t make the school seem appealing.
My daughter got a lot from Washington University in St. Louis, but we did actually visit there and it was one of the top ones she was considering. We got a lot from University of Chicago, but we initiated that too. Biggest ones that sent a lot of e-mails and snail mail stuff that we didn’t initiate were:
Illinois Wesleyan University
Taylor University
St. Olaf College
University of Miami (FL)
Ultimately she chose Vassar College, and we got next to nothing from them even after two visits. I don’t think Vassar recruits much in our state (OH).
Someone tell SMU and TLU to leave me alone!!!
Oh, I forgot. “Coe College” (whatever the heck that is) emailed me for weeks with headers like “$30,000 in scholarship money awaits you, ____” and “Time Is Running Out…”
WUSTL, Vandy, VCU, RPI
I won’t name names - but S1 kept getting hit up every other day from a great engineering school. We were holding out for a freebie application fee - because ah what the heck. But alas it never came. 
This school lacked specific arts offerings which he loves and excels at but would not major in.
I wish I still had all those creepy subject lines to show you right about now…
Here’s my list:
Siena College
Drexel
Fordham
Case Western Reserve (I don’t even know where it’s located)
George Mason
Gordon College
Oh and honestly, most of these colleges are pushing you to apply not because you’ll be a stellar fit and they want you per se. It’s just that the more people apply, the lower their acceptance rates are…making them look even more prestigious.
i also recieved massive amounts of mail from Uchicago.
@deepseafish
Here are some of the creepy email headlines ive seen
" I’m watching you Newsie"
“We’ve seen you around”
" Call us Newsie"
“Urgent email for Newsie”
“Respond ASAP”
" email from (insert adcom/dean/alumni name here)"
I also received a lot of mail from Connecticut College. One time I received a box containing a deck of over 40 individual cards with facts and pictures on them. When a college sends spam mail, especially expensive materials like a packaged deck of cards or entire books of information, it is concerning to me as a prospective student. It makes me wonder where my tuition will be going and how much is wasted on unnecessary recruitment materials. There are colleges that have to spend more money on recruitment than some politicians do on their campaign advertising.
University of Montana and Montana State University must have had different marketers, because we got over 20 from one and only 15 from the other this year.
University of Alabama at Birmingham was bad for a while, but recently they’ve laid off. To fill their place, in comes Purdue. Although I’m going to guess this is because a similar-stats kid from last year’s graduating class chose Purdue, but who knows? Neither of them has my major, though, so I’m not going to waste my time when I apply.
And as creepy as UChicago can be, I’m seriously tempted to send them my ACT scores just for the free T-shirt…is that bad?
I’ve had several that other have mentioned–UChicago, WashU, Columbia, etc. But my most influential was Smith College.
I started receiving things from them in back in April, and I hadn’t even heard of the college before. When one letter mentioned “women’s college” I laughed and made fun of womens’ colleges (like “why would anyone want to go to one? This isn’t 1912!”) But thanks to them, I started looking into the women’s colleges more and now half the schools I’m applying to are single-sex, and they’re my favorites.
So yes, I definitely caved to Smith, and to Mount Holyoke, Bryn Mawr, and Wellesley as a chain reaction ^-^
Willamette, St. Olaf, Tulane, UPitt, RPI, Hofstra, and St. John’s NYC have all emailed me excessively. A lot of other schools mentioned have emailed a lot, but never more than once every week or two.
Columbia definitely emailed a lot before the application deadline, but to be fair, I had requested info from them. I think their emails were always more interesting than a lot of other schools’ – they were actually different every time! Most schools say the same generic thing EVERY TIME THEY EMAIL: “We offer merit aid! We’re a ‘top school!’ Our location is cool!” Columbia actually would have a different note from a current student, actual detailed descriptions of what made the school special, and actual numbers. Part of that is because they have more to brag about than the schools no one’s heard of, but I didn’t see much variety from Cornell and UPenn. Did anyone else get a disproportionate amount of emails from Cornell’s ILR school?
UChicago’s stuff about being quirky has always bugged me. I never found it cute.