Emails from colleges...

[Whitney in KY]

My son took the PSAT this fall. Since last week I have received 10 emails from different colleges written to him concerning interest. Is anyone else receiving these emails? Is this a mass mailing or are they really interested in him?
W.

[Janet in WA]

My son took the PSAT this fall. Since last week I have received 10 emails from different colleges written to him concerning interest. Is anyone else receiving these emails? Is this a mass mailing or are they really interested in him?
W.It's both. They are interested in him, but they're also sending these mailings to many other students with a similar profile (score range on the PSAT and academic interests the student indicated on the PSAT).

[Gwen in VA]

The colleges are "fishing"....they are absolutely mass mailings!

My dd received several THOUSAND emails from colleges!!! (She kept all except the "interesting" ones in a special junk college folder, and after she decided which college she was going to, she hit "delete"!)

She also received over 80 POUNDS of mail from colleges! (Yes, she kept it all and weighed it sometime spring of senior year! After she weighed it all and mailed off her acceptance card, she did recycle it!.....)

The emails and snail-mail also aren't necessarily related to what your child put down as his potential major -- my kids received enough mailings from engineering schools to sink a ship, and neither is remotely interested in engineering! (My kids thought that Case Western had some of the most cool mailings!)

And the mailings are really just "fishing" for more applicants on the part of the colleges. A friend of min's son (who received no SAT subsection score above 650) received lots of mail from Ivies......The mother was rather amused.

The more applicants a college has, the more selective it will appear.....

Tell your son to enjoy reading about all the colleges -- including the one that advertises how "green" it is but sends you snailmail (in soy ink -- of course) if you don't respond to its emails!

And all the mail did broaden my kids' awareness of all the colleges out there.

[Janet in WA]

My dd received several THOUSAND emails from colleges!!! Our sons didn't receive any e-mails because they didn't supply an e-mail address. They did receive many snail-mailings, but those cost money and colleges are more selective about whom they send them to. Our mailings were definitely related to our sons' expressed academic interests. But still mass-mailings nonetheless.

[mcconnellboys]

Lots of smaller, less heard of, off the beaten path sorts of schools recruit more actively and begin trying to get students attention following their PSAT's or PLAN tests. Even though results are not supposed to really be released, as I understand it, they obviously are. (We're gettin' 'em too, Whitney.....) But hey, we just got one from a school in Indy I never heard of and the campus looks gorgeous. We might have to go see it.....

Regena

[Whitney in KY]

J got one from them and that is where I went to college.
W.

[mcconnellboys]

Wow! I didn't remember that you went there. Email me and tell me all about it, please! It looks so cool....

R

[Susan in IL]

Our sons didn't receive any e-mails because they didn't supply an e-mail address. They did receive many snail-mailings, but those cost money and colleges are more selective about whom they send them to. Our mailings were definitely related to our sons' expressed academic interests. But still mass-mailings nonetheless.

Same here. Ds didn't want to deal with the mass-emailings.

[readwithem]

Same here - no email supplied.

[JFS in IL]

getting emails and snailmail....mostly from tiny colleges he'd not even heard of otherwise. I figure it is mass mailing by small colleges trying to get on a kid's radar. DS took the PSAT as a sophmore.