Apply Today and We’ll Throw In…
As of mid-December we are officially in college acceptance season, with some students paired off already with their Early Decision and Early Notification choices, while others hold back to see what other offers may come around by Spring.
It strikes me as eerily reminiscent of high school dances, where the assurance of having a dance partner when you arrived was tempered by the knowledge that if some hot new guy showed up, you were already off the market (you can tell I was raised on John Hughes movies.) Maybe you and your kid are thrilled to have an acceptance letter in hand. Or maybe you’re wondering if the Jake Ryan of schools is still out there. (Again. Blame John Hughes.)
Colleges understand how vulnerable we are at this point. Wanting the commitment, but nervous that we’ve overlooked something better.
Thus commences a maelstrom of marketing pressure that is likely hitting the mailbox (both virtual and physical) of every high school senior near you. I’m not talking about colleges where my daughter has visited, applied to, and/or interviewed. These are schools we haven’t heard of before, which is a feat considering my husband’s best cocktail party trick is telling you the mascot of the college you attended. Their basic message is “Check us out! There’s still time, if you act now!” But it’s a fine line between convincing kids that the best school for them is still out there, and stalking them like a crush who’s already doodling their Brangelina name into a notebook.
In my daughter’s daily mailbag, there are a couple of schools personally calculating the distance between her mailing address and the school’s location, to create postcards that show a car heavily laden with dorm room essentials next to a green highway signpost displaying the exact mileage to campus. The problem is, once that mileage tops 2,500, it’s a less convincing visual image than you might think. For her mom, anyway.
Then there are the schools that have filled out her entire application for her, based on something she typed into some database somewhere, and basically send her an email offering with a big green button that says “Submit.” We’re both sure that at some point, with a slip of the mouse key, she’s going to apply to University of East Jabip (“The Fighting Dustbowls!”) by mistake and I’m going to owe them a $75 application fee and an SAT score.
And pity the kid who has a birthday between now and the end of April. A friend of mine told me her early December baby got bombarded by emails from various schools wishing her all the best on her big day, and suggesting that applying to their school the perfect way to celebrate. I feel like if they were really serious, they could send some school swag as a sign of their affection. Maybe cupcakes in the school colors? (My daughter’s birthday is in February, and I am size medium, and I like carrot cake, by the way.)
Of course, there’s more to this phenomenon than altruistic impulses and a belief that your child is their one-and-only. The more students the school can convince to apply, the more selective they can appear when they do finally form their incoming class. There’s no downside to the universities and college to pursuing these kids, even if their interests and abilities are a complete misfit. That’s why the incentives get bigger and more attention-grabbing as the application deadlines approach.
But at some point, opening the daily mail starts feeling like you’re stuck on the College Home Shopping Network and it’s 2 am on the day before the budget year ends. They’re pushing product – albeit with the use of a cast of multiracial Benetton models wearing cable knit sweaters, artfully splayed on a green lawn listening to a kindly-eyed greying professor – but colleges are a product just as much as a Thigh Master or a Shamwow.
So as a parent whose child has yet to make her college choice, all I’m saying is: I could really use some Ginsu knives.
Sorry but I had to go with the obvious.
***Yesterday BlogHer asked me to write about David Bowie’s passing. There were 843 different directions to take that sad opportunity, but in the end I went with the one that music fans everywhere recognize and fear: how do we carry on when our musical idols are gone? You can read it here.
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