College Admissions MYTH: If a college sends you a letter, they want you to attend.

Truth: If a college sends you a letter, they want you to apply.

Today, like so many college essays, I’m going to start with a story.

            It’s senior year, mid September. The point in the year where things are finally starting to get into motion.  Everyone’s favorite hush hush topic is, of course, college. Though many of us are still finalizing our choices and scores, nearly everyone has a good grasp on where they’d like to apply.

            An acquaintance of mine pulls me aside in the hall, smug grin on her face. She has news, juicy news. She opens her mouth and whispers to me, “Harvard is recruiting me.” She practically purrs the “r” in Harvard.

            I stare at her in disbelief. She is a typical student at my school, a high average or low advanced applicant. She plays sports, but is hardly a star. She’s not any kind of under represented minority. She has no real family pull. Harvard is recruiting her?

            I grimace in disbelief. She smiles again and says, “They sent me an entire application. A paper one. They want me! Me!”

            The pit in my stomach vanishes and the fog clears. They had also sent me an application, but I had known better. Knowledgeable guidance counselors about this had warned me. The application was sent out to basically everyone who hit a certain level on their boards.

            I smile back, not having the heart to tell her this information, “That’s really cool, good luck.”

So what happened?

My acquaintance fell into a popular trap of admissions. Plenty of schools send out encouragements to apply, even incredible and impossible to get into schools that get thousands of qualified applicants. They’re not recruiting out of need for more qualified applicants. They’re recruiting in need of applicants. Just applicants. Ones who they fully intend to reject later on.

It costs them less than a dollar to send out that letter, and it will cost you at least 30 dollars to get rejected.

Like I said in my post about lottery schools, you’re helping them more than they’re helping you.

Why they do it?

The mighty beast of US News rankings of course.

A HUGE part of the rankings is the selectivity of the school (how many/what percentage of people they reject). Schools cannot make their class sizes smaller without losing valuable money (and, of course, they want to allow as many people as they can to experience the educational opportunities they offer).
To decrease that acceptance rate? They need to increase the participant school.

These letters are, of course, sent out to students who are often qualified on paper. But they are not trying to attract a specific type of student; they’re trying to attract more applicants that they will eventually reject.

A letter from a brand-name school, oftentimes signed by hand, leads the recipient to believe they are being recruited to the school, or the school wants them. The truth is, the school simply wants another applicant to reject and/or their application fee.

What should you do? Ignore them or follow through?

This isn’t to say that any school that is sending you letters is doing it to try and trick you. Many of these letters are genuinely trying to get you to look at their school. But there’s a difference between a lower-ranked school that would be lucky to have you or a good but obscure school sending you a letter and an Ivy League/US News top 10 school sending you a letter.

Remember that they aren’t privy to all of your information. You’re simply a name on a list that the testing companies release.

When you’re considering following through, remember, you’re simply a name and the percentile you reached on the test. You are not a complete applicant to the ones sending the letters. Not until you apply.

How can you tell if it’s legitimate recruitment or not?

That is not to say that there aren’t schools (and applicants) that aren’t truly being actively recruited.

If you’re a sports start or are contacted by a coach, yes, you might be being recruited to attend and play sports for the school. This is not the case for “informally recruited” people where you contact them.

If the school is offering to waive the application fee for you to apply, or allowing you to apply with a “quick turnaround and no supplement” this is also a case where they are looking to accept you.

The best way to tell is to look at how you stack up. If you’re qualified or overqualified, apply. If you’re under qualified? There might be an alternative motive.

The story at the beginning ends as you would expect.

She got rejected from Harvard. She was rejected from all of the other Ivy schools that solicited her. She was confused and heartbroken, because she didn’t understand what was really happening.

I declare the myth of solicitations thoroughly busted.