“Check here to receive information from colleges”

Posted July 18th, 2008. Categorized under Going into College. 5 Comments

When taking any test put on by CollegeBoard, such as the SATs, PSATs, or AP tests, there is an option on the forms to submit your name to the “Student Search Service”, which will allow you to receive information from colleges.

When I took the PSAT my junior year, I checked this box, thinking that it would be great to get more information on colleges. That was a bit of a mistake.

college-letters

One good sized box of letters and over 400 emails later, I regret that decision.

If you choose to check the box, be aware at just how much mail you might receive. At the peak of it, I was receiving as many as 6 letters and 4 emails a day. There was no way I had the time or interest to read it all.

You receive information from all kinds of schools, from ITT Technical Institute right up to Harvard University. Schools across the country send you information. Some are very persistent — George Washington University sent me over 20 letters, and Tulane sent me about that many emails. Even after choosing where I had gone to school, they would still send me stuff. It’s a bit much.

If going to school out-of-state is something you are interested in and you have the money to do so, being part of the Student Search Service may be worth your time. If you’re willing to read the mail they send you, you’ll definitely find out more about different colleges without having to do much initial research. A lot of different colleges, in fact. Just be ready for the flurry of mail.

However, if you’re planning on going to school within your state, or you already have a good idea of where you’d like to go, then definitely don’t check the box. Instead, doing research on your own would be more beneficial.

For more information on the Student Search Service, check out CollegeBoard’s page on it.

Be Sociable, Share!

Want more? Subscribe today!

Readers of this post also liked...

5 Replies to ““Check here to receive information from colleges””

Comments:

1. Danielle Kirkley

March 21st, 2009 9:53 am

Iam very interested in recieving information about colleges and I was wandering if that is possible. If so can you send me email or brochures on the colleges.

2. Paul

March 21st, 2009 12:04 pm

@Danielle: Your best bet is to simply check the box when you take a CollegeBoard test.

3. Henderson Nevada

November 4th, 2009 5:42 pm

College is big money = big business. Students pay a lot to get educated. So it’s not surprise you got all that mail. And what is worse is once it starts its hard to stop. I tried to get the post office to stop delivering me junk mail and they told me to write the advertisers. So every week i fill a trash can with junk I don’t want because the Government doesn’t care about the Planet and efficiency… they only care about money. Think about that the next time some politician starts talking about “green” this or that.

4. charlotte

April 13th, 2010 9:58 am

I have been using this company called my411…it is a great tool when trying to find schools that I want to recieve more information from. It is especially great at college fairs. All I had to do was go on their website to create my own profile (address, highschool, birthday etc.) and it had a list of all the colleges and universities they were affiliated with. It gave me the advantage at the college fairs to really get to know and talk to the representitive from the college or university and learn more about the school instead of filling out paper work to recieve more information and then not having enough time to look around at the other schools. After, all I had to do was text my411 the list of schools that I wanted to know more about and they forward my profile to the schools of my choice. Also it is a great way of not recieving junk mail because I was able to chose the schools that I wanted and saved me so much TIME. Heres the link my411.com

5. andrew

January 17th, 2011 12:03 pm

This senior year I have recycled 106 lbs of college mail (I’ve been weighing the bags) and received over 3000 emails from colleges (I run a program to automatically sort “University” and “College” into one folder). This is the cumulative sum of 2 PSATs, 2 SATs, and 1 ACT broadcasting my address and email to colleges. Be warned that if you participate in the Student Search Service and score well, colleges will not be discerning at all. Checking, for instance, a preference for colleges with “No religious affiliation” will not prevent Oral Roberts University from sending you a few bricks of paper.
Although the College Board does not give colleges your scores when you check this option, it allows them to send information to ranges of scores, say, to “All students scoring 500 or above in Math.” As a result, you will receive spam from even the most obscure schools, stuffing your mailbox with wasteful and expensive packets and viewbooks. Ithaca and Cornell COLLEGE are the worst. The short questionnaire is either not detailed enough or too entirely disregarded to actually provide helpful, relevant college information.
To be fair, each piece of mail allows you to unsubscribe from future mailings with a business reply card, but who has the time or interest to do that?