<p>My son just took the February 2011 ACT. It <em>seems</em> like when he registered on-line there was a box to check about receiving information from colleges???? But, I honestly don't remember. We only had his scores sent to his high school. We sent no score reports to colleges as he is only a freshman. However, he did pretty well. Will he start hearing from colleges??? I think it would be fun to start receiving information, but I don't know what triggers that.</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>A lot of times it’s tied to the PSAT but I guess the schools could buy lists from the ACT as well as the SAT. </p>
<p>My d, a college freshman, still gets college solicitation mail.</p>
<p>Doing well on the ACT will trigger mail et al. Later you may not be thinking the deluge fun. Some schools send multiple mailings, especially those that are trying to lure better than their typical students to their school.</p>
<p>thanks for the info wis75. I have heard that one can be inundated, and I knew (as HighlandMom said) that PSAT was tied to receiving info. Son earned a 33, so I suppose he will be getting some e-mails. Does most info come that way? I sure enjoyed looking through actual paper catalogs when I was a student. Just shows how OLD I am! LOL! Thanks, again.</p>
<p>knowing he is a freshman, he may not get the usual deluge.</p>
<p>Yes, it’s all those tests. The funny thing is that they sell the lists and stuff starts to pile on before the students know how they did. For starters get yourself a nice box with a lid like the ones copy paper comes in. The lid is to reinforce the bottom as it fills up so you can move it around. Once it fills up, you can put the lid on and stack the next one on top of it. Do not for one moment think that I’m exaggerating.</p>
<p>My experience is no, not triggered by the ACT. I remember the deluge from my own days. My other parent friends have talked about the deluge, but od1 never received any college mail except from the schools where she sent her scores – and UNL. Why UNL? No idea. We’re talking about a student with very good stats, too. </p>
<p>The send my info box was checked. I often wonder if we missed schools just because we didn’t know they were out there!</p>
<p>I started getting it after my PSAT. At first, I thought it would be cool, but I was way off. My email is filled to the brim with college email. Just to give some examples, the five most recent are: College of Saint Rose, The College of William and Mary, Quinnipiac University, Iona College and St. John’s. The no-name colleges send out way more stuff than any top college. I wish I didn’t check the box on the PSAT</p>
<p>^^^^ To the comment about the boxes! I wish I had heard that before it happened to my son. I tried file folders thinking it couldn’t be that bad, but oh, it was. I could have filled boxes and boxes. It was nuts how much mail he received. With him, it started sophomore year. By Junior year, it was getting out of hand. This was just the academic mailings. Once his athletic stuff started coming in, he hit a whole new level. Boxes is great advice. Those who are just starting the process, heed it! :-)</p>
<p>Count your blessings that it’s coming as email. If you don’t want to receive it anymore, you can just block the sender. Back when my kids (22 and 26) were in high school…this stuff came in the snail mail. It was IMPOSSIBLE to stop it. In fact both of my kids continued to get mail from colleges even after they matriculated to schools.</p>
<p>More than likely this has to do with registration for the standardized tests. If you did it online and put in your email address…then poof…you are on “the mailing list”.</p>
<p>You are right, thumper1. The funny thing is now it comes both ways! It’s crazy!!</p>
<p>i’m swimming in mail, I get about five a day for the last year, year and a half.
those lesser known colleges really like to pile on the emails, whereas the highly competitive ones let you chase them ;)</p>
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<p>I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t you just toss / recycle the majority of it the day it arrives? Most of it was junk mail as far as we were concerned. Why keep it all, any more than you’d keep any junk mail?</p>
<p>My son didn’t want to throw anything out until he was sure about what he was doing. He drove me nuts. He didn’t want to throw it out but he didn’t read it all. hahahaha… It’s gone now. :-)</p>
<p>I wish I never checked the box too, as well. After I took the PSAT, my mailbox would be filled with college letters. They are all useless with the same option for the school to send you something like “top 10 things to know before choosing a school”
CC has much much more useful information :)</p>
<p>One of the best pieces of advice I ever found on college confidential was to set up a separate email account just for college-related email. </p>
<p>D1 never checked the “send my info” box. Our mail carrier owes her a huge thank you. :)</p>
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<p>I think my D kept them for awhile as a “brag pile.” Before she had a clear idea about where she wanted to go and when she was feeling very intimidated by the whole process, I think it was reassuring her to to look at all that mail and believe that someone wanted her. She didn’t understand that these were mass-marketing campaigns, designed in most cases to lower the college’s admit rate. But she got rid of them around the time that she finalized her application list.</p>
<p>to set up a separate e-mail. Or is it??? Could we change it at the ACT registration site now? I wanted to quote SlitheyTove’s post but didn’t know how. 
Techno-challenged parent.</p>
<p>The problem with all the emails is that my S never checks his email anymore because of all the college spam, even when he needs to be checking it this point (as a senior) in case there is anything important from the colleges or scholarships he applied to! So… I would say maybe <em>two</em> new emails – one for the spam, and one that you give when you actually apply for something. And if you’re not good at checking your emails regularly, maybe have the second one also forward to mom or dad, if they are more on the ball about that.</p>
<p>We had different approaches for the two kids.</p>
<p>Our son, who is a better student with higher grades and scores (in the 700s) did not check the box (or unchecked it, as the case may be) and we were thankfully spared letters except from a few that got his name from awards lists or something…but luckily those were schools that he wanted to hear from.</p>
<p>However, for our daughter, although someone who will do very well in this world because of her many skills, who has lower scores (in the 500/600s), getting the emails and letters is actually helpful because it clues HER into some schools she might not have thought of. (I might know more about the schools because of son’s college search, but it’s important for her to “discover” some of these schools herself.)</p>
<p>Top students seem to know about the top schools. For the kids who is a B student with average scores it seems to help to have colleges send them information because it expands their options. Just my experience.</p>