Long before the stressful college applications, students begin receiving letters and emails from numerous schools all throughout the nation. Some come from tiny schools that no one has ever heard of, and some come from large institutions that have been famed for the last hundred years. Although they both may be from such different places, these letters and emails have the same message: ‘apply to our school.’
“The schools can find students through their PSAT, SAT, or even going to a college fair and putting in your name,” explains College and Career Advisor Laurie Tezak. “The College Board will sell a list if a college comes to them looking for a specific group of students.”
Sometimes, the feeling of being wanted can be exciting for students. “It makes me feel good when the college that I want to go to acknowledges me,” explains senior Jared Dilibero.
Often times, though, many students perceive these letters as just another form of junk mail in their inbox or mailbox. “When schools send actual letters in the mail, it really just annoys me. When you see some big envelope from a school you may want to go to, it really gets your hopes up and then it really just ends up being something you have to recycle,” says senior Camille Halley.
Other students feel differently about letter mail as compared to e-mails.
“Letter carries more weight for sure. Often times with email, I won’t even check it before deleting it,” admits senior Rory Beyer. “The letters force me to see the words on the paper, and if it is clever, then I’ll actually read it.”
In contrast, some Aragon students feel the massive mailings that these colleges undertake are unnecessary. “It’s annoying. I mean they aren’t really interested in me. I have to go out and recycle. It’s really just a massive waste of paper,” senior Robert Pollock says.
Like businesses, colleges need to have people apply and enroll in order to continue to teach. “In my opinion, its really just a marketing strategy. They are just trying to contact as many students as they can in order to let them know about their school. From what I was told, a lot of these schools have marketing companies that work for them,” explains Tezak.
Even though some students perceive these outreach letters as basic spam, others like to take them with a grain of salt. “It seems foolish to me for students to opt-out of receiving the letters. I like looking into the colleges and keeping my options open,” says Dilibero.
Even though small liberal arts schools make up the majority of the college outreach, large, well-known universities also have a marketing program of their own. It seems slightly unnecessary for schools that know they will fill up their class sizes to engage in outreach but there is a reason. “I believe it is competition to be the most publicized. They are all these top universities like Harvard and Princeton, and it’s their competition to be number one. It is them trying to see who can get the best students, who gets the most applicants, and who can get the lowest percentage acceptance rate. They want to max out and they want to get that awareness that they are amazing,” Beyer states.
As Tezak explains, major universities like Harvard and Yale will send out letters because, “They are out there trying to reach out to any and every student that they think will fit in their profile of a student.”
Receiving letters can be an exciting or annoying for many students. Feeling wanted can make one feel good about their academic accomplishments. Letters from colleges can be a light during the college process, but to some they are merely one of many pieces of paper that they need to recycle.
