Matryoshka Posted March 2, 2016 Share Posted March 2, 2016 A huge envelope from BU Admissions. Looked just like an acceptance package. Except... she never applied to BU. WTH??? It was a huge, glossy, expensive "viewbook" encouraging her to take a campus tour. With a nice personalized letter and everything. Dudes, the deadline to apply to BU was back on January 3rd. WTH??? Yes, this is why tuition is so high. To print and mail thick, expensive glossy brochures almost two months past the admission deadline that go straight to recycling... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swimmermom3 Posted March 2, 2016 Share Posted March 2, 2016 Ds has received several nice, fat envelopes that have contained info and extended deadlines, encouraging him to apply. Does this mean the schools aren't happy with their applicant pool or are they just playing the numbers game to appear more selective? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hilltopmom Posted March 2, 2016 Share Posted March 2, 2016 Geez. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JanetC Posted March 2, 2016 Share Posted March 2, 2016 Found a "Big Envelope" in the mailbox from a college DD applied to. Turned out to be a big brochure, addressed to her sister who just took the PSAT. False alarm, I guess. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted March 2, 2016 Author Share Posted March 2, 2016 Ds has received several nice, fat envelopes that have contained info and extended deadlines, encouraging him to apply. Does this mean the schools aren't happy with their applicant pool or are they just playing the numbers game to appear more selective? We've gotten lots of postcards, letters and leaflets with extended deadlines encouraging them to apply this year. The bizarro thing about this one, is that there was no mention of extended deadlines or still having time to apply, just an invitation to take a tour... :confused1: And the thing is fifty pages long. The poor trees!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
katilac Posted March 2, 2016 Share Posted March 2, 2016 Ds has received several nice, fat envelopes that have contained info and extended deadlines, encouraging him to apply. Does this mean the schools aren't happy with their applicant pool or are they just playing the numbers game to appear more selective? I say numbers game. University of Chicago sent dd a ridiculous number of books, brochures, posters, stickers, and so on, and I'm pretty sure they're happy with their applicant pool! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoodGrief Posted March 3, 2016 Share Posted March 3, 2016 The amount of money that goes into the mailings is insane. One school sent a shrink wrapped frisbee (ironically, they also touted their environmentally friendly atmosphere.) 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted March 3, 2016 Share Posted March 3, 2016 DD received 40 lbs of college advertisement mail. We weighed it. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
creekland Posted March 3, 2016 Share Posted March 3, 2016 I let oldest know if he's changed his mind, the Marines are still looking for him at our house. He left for college in 2010, graduated in 2014, is married, and has been living in a new state since he left. But you never know I suppose. The local community college finally gave up sometime last year. The other two still get mail occasionally too, but the Marines don't care about either one of them. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Girls' Mom Posted March 3, 2016 Share Posted March 3, 2016 The amount of $$$ wasted on this stuff makes me mad. With my three being the ages they are, our mailbox is flooded with this garbage daily. Posters, glossy books, 5 million oversized postcards, etc. Here it has the opposite than intended effect. The more garbage a school sends us, the farther down the list they go. I don't want our tuition bills to fund that.One school keeps sending posters of spotlighted students. I mean really? Who wants posters of random kids and their degree stats? lol. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daijobu Posted March 3, 2016 Share Posted March 3, 2016 One school keeps sending posters of spotlighted students. I mean really? Who wants posters of random kids and their degree stats? lol. So, posters of students that one would hang on their bedroom wall? I can't decide if that's creepy or hilarious. I would hang it between my posters of Shaun Cassidy and Erik Estrada. :lol: 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Girls' Mom Posted March 3, 2016 Share Posted March 3, 2016 So, posters of students that one would hang on their bedroom wall? I can't decide if that's creepy or hilarious. I would hang it between my posters of Shaun Cassidy and Erik Estrada. :lol: Yep. We were talking about what it would be like to attend the school: She walks up to a student that doesn't know her from Adam, says "Hey, I know you! I have a poster of you on my wall!", and goes all fangirl. Creepy. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JanetC Posted March 3, 2016 Share Posted March 3, 2016 DD received 40 lbs of college advertisement mail. We weighed it. My DD attempted to build a cathedral out of hers. (Replicating Amiens in France to be exact). Got too busy with junior & senior year to finish it, so like many cathedrals, hers is unfinished. 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted March 3, 2016 Author Share Posted March 3, 2016 My DD attempted to build a cathedral out of hers. (Replicating Amiens in France to be exact). Got too busy with junior & senior year to finish it, so like many cathedrals, hers is unfinished. :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tsuga Posted March 3, 2016 Share Posted March 3, 2016 A huge envelope from BU Admissions. Looked just like an acceptance package. Except... she never applied to BU. WTH??? It was a huge, glossy, expensive "viewbook" encouraging her to take a campus tour. With a nice personalized letter and everything. Dudes, the deadline to apply to BU was back on January 3rd. WTH??? Yes, this is why tuition is so high. To print and mail thick, expensive glossy brochures almost two months past the admission deadline that go straight to recycling... That is indeed weird, but I assure you, those packets are NOTHING compared to the cost of quality faculty. If you want your child's profs to live in decent homes, to send their own kids to college, not to retire early to care for disabled spouses without health care... Seriously though. I know that stuff is insane but it is not even a molecule in the bucket. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hopskipjump Posted March 3, 2016 Share Posted March 3, 2016 ...and my daughter DID apply to BU and has yet to receive any huge, glossy, expensive viewbook! :lol: Looks like our application fee helped fund your dd's viewbook!! :laugh: Most of the college mail dd's getting now is from entirely random schools. I didn't think she was really getting all that much through the process, but the mailman commented and said she sure was getting an incredible amount of it. So - maybe she is? I dunno. We haven't looked at any of it in a long, long time (I was afraid we'd get "sucked in" and find another college she liked! So, it all goes straight to recycling after we have made sure it isn't from a school she actually DID apply to!). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G5052 Posted March 3, 2016 Share Posted March 3, 2016 Yes, my oldest got a lot of mail like that. He got a big thick one from Princeton or Yale that gave me pause (on our budget?). Some of them were amazing for the amount of effort and design. This is my one who is as happy as a clam going local. He told me last night when I was helping him with calculus that he couldn't be more thrilled with going to college and living at home. He loves his classes and his major. That's what counts! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted March 3, 2016 Author Share Posted March 3, 2016 ...and my daughter DID apply to BU and has yet to receive any huge, glossy, expensive viewbook! :lol: Looks like our application fee helped fund your dd's viewbook!! :laugh: If she's feeling left out, want me to send it to her? :D 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plansrme Posted March 3, 2016 Share Posted March 3, 2016 You know you can turn off most of this, right? My oldest high stats kid turned it off via her College Board account several years ago. She only gets the occasional postcard from some directional school in my state that I've never heard of, and I'm sure they got her info from her high school. She was getting tons at an early age because she took APs in middle school and the SAT as a freshman. She's never taken the ACT, though--maybe the ACT is not as reliable, but as much as I hate the College Board, they did quit selling her information when she unchecked (or checked) the "flood my mailbox" option. She's also a NMF, and she hasn't heard a peep from any school courting her because of that. I was a NMF back in the day, and I was flooded with full scholarship offers even back then (Calvin College still has a soft spot in my heart for their repeated unsolicited offers of free tuition), so the complete radio silence has to be because of her CB election. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FaithManor Posted March 3, 2016 Share Posted March 3, 2016 I learned after last year with eldest ds. This year we unchecked the "share my information" or whatever that box is when he signed up for both the ACT and the SAT. Yay! He gets mail from schools he expressed interest in or applied to only. This has greatly reduced the wasted trees at our house. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mamato4 Posted March 3, 2016 Share Posted March 3, 2016 I still get mailings for ds who is already in college. I'm presently receiving mailings for dd1, which is dumb since deadlines have passed except for those with rolling admissions; and for dd2, who surprised herself by doing very well in her practice PSAT. Yes, lots of trees being killed in my house but I do admit to enjoying looking through all the books and brochures. We are at the point where we critique and rate the marketing materials. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swimmermom3 Posted March 6, 2016 Share Posted March 6, 2016 (edited) The amount of $$$ wasted on this stuff makes me mad. With my three being the ages they are, our mailbox is flooded with this garbage daily. Posters, glossy books, 5 million oversized postcards, etc. Here it has the opposite than intended effect. The more garbage a school sends us, the farther down the list they go. I don't want our tuition bills to fund that. One school keeps sending posters of spotlighted students. I mean really? Who wants posters of random kids and their degree stats? lol. I get what you are saying, but I've noticed a difference with at least one of the schools my ds is looking at. Nearly everything that has arrived has been helpful or at least given us a new insight into programs and community. Will it ultimately work? I don't know, but a lot of what we have received from other schools is just crap as in "We're so cool because we have some silly thing that you don't really care about." Financial aid, overnight visits, meal plans that contain farm to dining hall table, and advising programs are things we do care about. Could they send it all in one envelope? Sure, but some of the things we would have found overwhelming if we were considering them all at once. The school that has sent us absolutely nothing? It's not really on the radar so it's probably a good thing they saved their money. Edited March 6, 2016 by swimmermom3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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