TheApprentice Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 and he's just a sophomore. So my questions are: Have any of the mailings been schools you would have never considered and now are on your short list? Do you some how make a spreadsheet to organize it all so that it doesn't become overwhelming, or do you just chuck it? Do you do the weeding out, or do you let your dc do it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pawz4me Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 Almost all of DS's college mail went straight into the recycle bin. I tried to get him to look at it, but he wasn't interested. So most of the tossing was done by me. He'd already done extensive research on colleges before the mail started arriving and so had a very good idea of where he wanted to apply. We did keep some of the mailings from the colleges he knew he was interested in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 DD did make a spreadsheet - but not based on the mailings. Her main criterion was the academic quality of the department. Because of that, the mailings were completely useless to us. We still kept them, in order to weigh them at the end. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jen in NY Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 Almost all of DS's college mail went straight into the recycle bin. We did keep some of the mailings from the colleges he knew he was interested in. DD did make a spreadsheet - but not based on the mailings. Ayup, and ayup. Only three years after our first go-around, it seems like schools are going heavier on the identical phishing e-mail as opposed to the identical phishing snail-mailings, so for that I am grateful. The longer I've been swimming in the college marketing sea the more salty and cynical I become. Brined to eye-rolling, higher-education-ad-doubting perfection. I think there may be an active thread about mailings on the college board right now.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JanetC Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 My sophomore is also being deluged. It's almost all following the same templates from Royall and company: http://redwoodbark.org/2013/03/college-recruitment-avalanche-traces-back-to-one-company/ (These folks have the patent on marketing letters with a username and password in the right corner.) There's very little college-specific information in these letters, so nothing to really help with the decision making. We're chucking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TechWife Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 We're in the same boat as JanetC. We're also reluctant to fill out those online surveys - just send some info so ds can decide if he wants to look into it further! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheApprentice Posted January 28, 2014 Author Share Posted January 28, 2014 I've been on this forum and the college forum for the past two years and lurking on College Confidential for a while that I've gained a bit of cynicism, and I just getting started. :glare: So yeah, I'm not really buying what they're selling. I just need to help my son realize that all of these schools don't really "want" you. It's a business. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jen in NY Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 Oh, but they really do want him.... to apply! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjbucks1 Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 As I have written on the college board, ds (a sophomore) as gotten deluged with emails and snail mails. I love how they all say, "You've accomplished so much already", or "Your talent has captured our attention".....LOL! All this based on a PSAT score! The only school that has sent a letter that actually included some useful information about the school itself was Swarthmore. But this was a school we already knew about. All the other emails and snail mails look the same! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kendall Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 I have my kids wait until their junior year to allow college mail. A postcard because of the PSAT test did put the college on our radar that my oldest will soon graduate from. But we didn't organize it or keep track of any of it. We only kept ones we might be interested in. The younger children can use the mailings as a geography project:). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shanvan Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 Ds and I find the mailings amusing. I will say there was one letter that was really well done. And they promised if he went there he would 'fit in'. They promised to meet his needs rather than him meeting their requirements. The letter was so persuasive and they were just promising so much that I told both Dc 'Your on your own. I'm heading off to this college. They really understand me.' :001_rolleyes: Guess that doesn't say much about how my week is going. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JanetC Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 As I have written on the college board, ds (a sophomore) as gotten deluged with emails and snail mails. I love how they all say, "You've accomplished so much already", or "Your talent has captured our attention".....LOL! All this based on a PSAT score! The only school that has sent a letter that actually included some useful information about the school itself was Swarthmore. But this was a school we already knew about. All the other emails and snail mails look the same! Not even based on the PSAT score! The College Board releases no score records with their junk mail lists. The ACT will sell a list with scores in a general range, but the marketer does not see any individual's exact score unless the student pays to send a score to that college. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjbucks1 Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 Not even based on the PSAT score! The College Board releases no score records with their junk mail lists. The ACT will sell a list with scores in a general range, but the marketer does not see any individual's exact score unless the student pays to send a score to that college. That is true! Thye only know if he has gotten above a certain score, or is in a certain range. Crazy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angela in ohio Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 Mailings had zero effect on the choices for my oldest. We made a long list (30+) based on reviews, reputation, recommendations, etc. Then we narrowed that through a combination of visits and research into specific departments and programs. We did use an Excel spreadsheet, hiding cells as we eliminated schools (not deleting them, because one or two did rise from the dead.) The day after Thanksgiving, she had a list of 20, which we whittled to 12 in one long all-day session of research and debate. Then one got crossed off because they were the only school that gave me trouble with our purposefully-unofficial-looking transcript, etc. (despite being a have-a-pulse-get-in safety.) Picking schools was pretty easy because dd doesn't care at all about location, housing, food, class size, and so many other things; she just cares about the program and resources. My second is getting them now because she took the PSAT. We are tossing them all. This dd also wants a very specific type of program, so we will follow basically the same process with her. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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