College Promotional Material

[SoCalDukeFan]

Why do well known schools, such as Duke and Yale, spend the money to develop, print and send out unsolicited material to high school seniors.

I was at a dinner last night with parents of 3 seniors this fall who had gotten many many such mailings. I can understand a small lesser known school sending out some stuff but is there any senior in the US who could possibly go to Duke or Yale who was not aware of them and if interested would have investigated on their own.

40 or so years ago I can remember sending away for catalogs. 20 or so years ago I think my children got some stuff but don't remember exactly what it was or how much. Evidently these boys get a ton of stuff.

The Duke material was very well done, in my opinion.

SoCal

[dukebsbll14]

I think has to do with convincing high school students why they should go to school A versus school B. The top tier schools want to get better, so they want the best students to attend. Even though the kids who are already looking to attend a top school will probably do their own research, I think the school wants to give the impression that they want the kid to be there by sending them stuff saying, "hey, look what we're really good at. Come here so you can do this too!"

And I think a lot of it has to do with tons of kids being undecided on what college they want to go to. Having tons of letters from colleges helps an undecided kid better than googleing potential schools or looking at who's on what list. I went to a top public school in NC and other than me, I didn't know any one who had a school (UNC doesn't count) that they were in love with and dreamed of going to. In my year, there was the guy who finished number 1 who wanted to go where he could get the best connections. The girl who finished number 2 who applied to all the Ivy Leagues and whichever stuck, she'd go to. And then there was me, who just wanted to be a Duke student.

Side note, I think the "best" (or I guess a better word is most well-known) school I ever received stuff from was Georgia Tech. I didn't start getting stuff from Duke/Notre Dame until I joined the mailing list. I think it had something to do with my average SAT scores...and my severe lack of interest in Ivy Leagues.

Ugh, I've been on the Off-Topic boards too much lately...

[hurleyfor3]

I received compelete packages from Stanford and Notre Dame, unsolicited, because of how I did on a math contest. Letters, promotional materials, applications, everything. This was the late 1980s when my family was living in the Eastern time zone. Think I got some stuff from Northwestern, too. They probably ran my SATs to make sure I could somewhat coherently put words together into thoughts, not that my posting style here is any corroboration of that.

Other friends in high school would get stuff from similar schools if they had other extracurricular accomplishments (sports, debating, etc.). The Ivies are well known to share admissions information among each other, although I don't think it's to the extent of Harvard telling Brown, "This one's not up to snuff for us, why don't you take her instead" or anything. (Yes, that's a Simpsons reference.)

I think part of it is the schools trying to get on the radar of reasonable candidates who might not otherwise apply due to geography, perceived difficulty of getting in or whatever.

[Bluedog]

I think it's simply a way to pique interest and maximize the number of applicants. I found actually that Duke sends a very reasonable amount of information/material. They don't inundate mailboxes and everything they send has some substance to give the potential applicant more interest in the university. There are other schools like WashU and Tulane that send an obscene number of mailings, and that marketing strategy has actually paid dividends with the increase in the number of applicants and quality of the application pool. I visited WashU between my sophomore and junior year of high school and literally received a piece of mail from the once a week for the next 2 years. So, yes, 100 separate mailings from WashU - no joke. They have the hardest working mail department in the country. Personally, this turned me off a bit, but one can't argue that their numbers have improved dramatically over the past 15 years or so. They get a LOT of students to apply who have no chance of admission, but they think "oh, they keep sending me stuff, they must like me!" so apply anyways which inflates their application numbers.

Tulane also has utilized this strategy and last year had the most applicants of ANY private school in the nation. Tulane takes this one step further and offers to waive the application fee for a ton of applicants - so, students who have received 20 mailings from Tulane with many saying "Apply free! What do you have to lose?!" end up saying, what the heck, might as well apply, sounds like a good school and the application is incredibly easy to fill out and free. On top of that, Tulane offers a lot of merit scholarships. This strategy has paid dividends as well with a huge number of increased applicants and a better student body (although their yield is really really low because so many people apply since it's free).

I personally prefer the Duke approach. Send perhaps a few promotional items that keep a school in the forefront of students' minds, but don't try to convince individuals who have no chance of admission to apply or send out worthless mailings. I recall one basketball recruit who noted Duke's practices, saying that everything that was sent from Duke was important, which he liked. Other school sent him a LOT more materials, but it was basically fluff. However, getting a student interested in the school early with a simple mailing may make him/her more likely to do additional research on his or her own and then ultimately find the university appealing and apply (and perhaps matriculate). Targeting a small segment of the high school population (even for elite schools) seems to make sense and it typically spurs additional interest and research and probably results in higher application numbers and/or the willingness to visit the campus and ultimately enroll.

[kmspeaks]

I took the PSAT as a sophomore in high school and got a TON of mail as a result of my score on that test. It filled boxes. Funny you should mention Tulane and WashU because they definitely stand out to me as two schools that sent things most frequently. About 3/4 of the mailings ended up getting thrown away for one of 3 reasons

1-the school didn't have a softball team
2-I wasn't good enough to play on their softball team
3-Their softball team wasn't good enough for me to play on it

In the end I ended up applying to just one of the schools that sent unsolicited mailings (Creighton). I guess those mailings might have a little more significance for the vast majority of potential applicants who are not looking to be "student-athletes".

[snowdenscold]

I visited WashU between my sophomore and junior year of high school and literally received a piece of mail from the once a week for the next 2 years. So, yes, 100 separate mailings from WashU - no joke. They have the hardest working mail department in the country. Personally, this turned me off a bit, but one can't argue that their numbers have improved dramatically over the past 15 years or so. They get a LOT of students to apply who have no chance of admission, but they think "oh, they keep sending me stuff, they must like me!" so apply anyways which inflates their application numbers.


Interesting you say this about WashU - because I've heard they do a lot of various tactics to skew their numbers. While this goes toward total applicant pool, I also heard they [used to - might not still do it after getting enough criticism from other schools] intentionally denied the very top applicants, because they knew those students would have applied and been accepted to better schools (and thus would almost certainly go elsewhere). That way they can lower their "% accepted" and increase their matriculation %.

[Bluedog]

Interesting you say this about WashU - because I've heard they do a lot of various tactics to skew their numbers. While this goes toward total applicant pool, I also heard they [used to - might not still do it after getting enough criticism from other schools] intentionally denied the very top applicants, because they knew those students would have applied and been accepted to better schools (and thus would almost certainly go elsewhere). That way they can lower their "% accepted" and increase their matriculation %.

That's what happened in my high school. All the very top student got waitlisted/rejected (mostly waitlisted) from WashU and went on to the Ivies, Duke, Stanford, etc. While the near the top students, but not the very top applicants from my school got accepted to WashU. In addition to that, WashU waitlists an absurd number of people, but won't release their figures to the public or release their CDS (common data set) information. They are possibly the least transparent with their numbers and people definitely accuse them of skewing numbers to improve their rank in USN&WR. Besides that, though, I think it's a great school. Obviously, admissions tactics and quality of undergraduate education are separate, but it would be nice if they were more transparent but I guess that's their prerogative. Duke has been accused of lack of transparency in the past too, but not to WashU's level. Duke has released their CDS to the public at least and revealed waitlist numbers too.

Edit: WashU explicitly says "demonstrated interest" is something they consider. They keep track of visits, phone calls, etc. So, if you've communicated with them a lot and visit, it's seen as a positive and you're more likely to get accepted. If you don't do anything, you're less likely to get accepted. Duke explicitly states demonstrated interest is NOT something they consider except for ED vs. RD and that they do NOT keep track of phone calls or visits.

[duke79]

Interesting you say this about WashU - because I've heard they do a lot of various tactics to skew their numbers. While this goes toward total applicant pool, I also heard they [used to - might not still do it after getting enough criticism from other schools] intentionally denied the very top applicants, because they knew those students would have applied and been accepted to better schools (and thus would almost certainly go elsewhere). That way they can lower their "% accepted" and increase their matriculation %.

It does seem a little "weasely" for a college to play those sorts of games, but may not be a bad tactic if the only thing they are concerned with is improving their "stats". Probably does not make sense to accept someone who you know won't attend the school. Frankly, Duke could probably signficantly increase its yield if it played these games. I mean, 50 to 55% of the people they accept turn it down and I'm sure Duke could figure out with some degree of accuracy who they accept will not actually matriculate and not accept those individuals to begin with.

[snowdenscold]

It does seem a little "weasely" for a college to play those sorts of games, but may not be a bad tactic if the only thing they are concerned with is improving their "stats". Probably does not make sense to accept someone who you know won't attend the school. Frankly, Duke could probably signficantly increase its yield if it played these games. I mean, 50 to 55% of the people they accept turn it down and I'm sure Duke could figure out with some degree of accuracy who they accept will not actually matriculate and not accept those individuals to begin with.

So you become one of the best schools by acknowledging you're not one of the best schools, and adjusting accordingly? Just doesn't seem right to me...


Although I guess you could draw an analogy to a job interview, where a company doesn't hire a particular candidate because they're over-qualified (and thus more likely to leave sooner for a better opportunity should one arise).

[duke79]

So you become one of the best schools by acknowledging you're not one of the best schools, and adjusting accordingly? Just doesn't seem right to me...


Although I guess you could draw an analogy to a job interview, where a company doesn't hire a particular candidate because they're over-qualified (and thus more likely to leave sooner for a better opportunity should one arise).

Admittedly, it does seem counter intuitive, but if the college rating services are using the "yield" as one of the major determinants for ranking schools, then I could see some colleges manipulating their admission process like this to try to game the system. Again, if a school could predict with a high degree of probability that someone that they might admit would not attend the school, why bother to accept that student?

[theAlaskanBear]

Schools may have different strategies for mailers, but when I made my decision to go to school I appreciated what I got.

A lot of kids think Ivy and exclusive schools like Duke and see it kind of like a dream...something thats not obtainable. But I got a lot of stuff after my SATs and it did really open my horizons and made me think about what was obtainable and it made me aim for more prestigious schools. Ultimately my choices were narrowed by accredited architecture programs, and much to my father's consternation, I didn't go for Duke.

So thumbs up for slick Duke promos!

[sagegrouse]

I have always thought that promotional materials through the mail are one hors d'oeuvre in a buffet line, although highly visible because many receive them. High-profile universities have serious marketing programs to bring the best freshmen to the schools. It consists of direct outreach to high schools and prep schools that produce good students; data mining of test score and other data; direct mail and other outreach to prospective students; high-profile scholarship programs (Angier Duke, etc.), and a bunch of other stuff I don't know about. I assume that these programs are effective if the schools continue them year after year. I also assume that the schools have no idea which specific feature is most effective and which is least effective. Such is the marketing business.

General Robert Wood, the longtime and long ago head of Sears, used to say, "One-half of my advertising budget is a waste; I just don't know which half."

sagegrouse