College outreach? More of a deluge

I sat down to do a blog post just listing the colleges from which my son has received mail in the past few days, including some that would be definite long shots for him. I had an alert in my inbox about a blog post mentioning what must have been an interesting panel discussion between Lloyd Thacker, the nation's leading critic of college rankings (especially the U.S. News & World Report rankings), and U.S. News editor Brian Kelly. Must have been lively.

Meanwhile, envelopes large and small, plus postcards and disks, arrived in our mailbox addressed to my son from these colleges (this is maybe four or five days' worth):

Emory University, Berklee College of Music, Northeastern University, Tulane University, NYU, Washington & Lee University, Santa Clara University (two separate mailers), Drexel University, University of Oregon, University of Puget Sound, and Ohio State University (a big fat 9x12 envelope). Also a CD of a jazz concert from CSU Northridge, but that was by request — I e-mailed to get on the Jazz Studies Department's e-mail list, and they responded to ask if we'd like a CD.

Now, my son undoubtedly would not get into all of these colleges, and might have a shot at no more than a few of them. It's about drumming up lots and lots of applicants. Obviously that gives them a more desirable pool of students, but also, the more applicants they turn down, the more it boosts their rankings.