Dear institutes of higher learning,
I have officially stopped reading your mail in full, unless you make it better. No longer will your glossy brochures seduce me with their siren praise. I mean it this time. Really—not like last time, or the time before that, when I said the same thing. I admit it: after I took the PSAT, your letters did make my ego purr and they did make me feel good about myself. But not anymore. There are simply too many reasons to give up on your letters.
For one thing, it’s incredibly difficult to differentiate between your entreaties. Is there some magical combination of a picture of your campus’s architecture, a student wearing a lab coat and looking through a microscope, and a racially diverse group of your students hanging out on your campus? You all send me these pictures in your brochures. What you say is also usually the same: it’s some permutation of praising my academic achievements, a catchy slogan, a note about what interesting place you’re located near, and something about your classes, professors, and financial aid.
Some of you are aware of this issue. “You’ve begun your college search, and you are being inundated with more glossy brochures, emails, and social-media streams than you ever imagined,” wrote Emory University. Emory University, I was actually ecstatic that you recognized this commonality, but disappointed with how you told me to deal with it: “And while all of the fancy brochures and emails are alluring, be sure to come and see us for yourself!” It’s not as though you came off as particularly special. Apparently, you are a prestigious university with stellar programs, award-winning faculty, and opportunities for freshmen. This makes you sound very similar to Dartmouth, which reports letting undergraduates publish alongside faculty, has one of the best commitments to undergraduate education, and offers a top-notch education. Dartmouth may be the closest match, but many colleges push these same attributes. Telling me that you have these attributes doesn’t make you special, just a college in a crowd (this goes for most other colleges out there). When there are many colleges that are apparently the same, why visit or attend any one of them?
Additionally, it’s unclear if you care about me at all. One of the dominant—and fairly reputable—opinions about college mail is that it’s designed to make more people apply, and as a result, get more people rejected. This decrease in the proportion of applicants that a college accepts makes it seem more prestigious. It also makes me completely unsure if you actually care about me. It’s difficult to get excited about a letter that could be just a scam. One way around this would be to tell me how many people you mailed a letter to, and why. For instance, if I knew that only the students with the top 50,000 SAT scores received your letter, I might have more reason to meaningfully consider your school.
Undoubtedly, I will break my promise. But please don’t take that to mean that you’re doing a good job. It could be a lot better. Tell me why you’re different from other options. If you can, tell me why you’re a better choice. That would make deciding which colleges I want to consider much easier. I’m only a junior, with nearly a year before I apply to colleges. However, college visits do take time, and I’m not terribly interested in missing school for them. There really isn’t a great deal of time for me to decide which colleges to visit.
Sincerely yours,
Tristan Engst