Should selective colleges stop recruiting students who have no chance of being admitted?

I don't agree with all of the often radical suggestions for college admissions reform recently released by the USC Center for Enrollment Research, Policy and Practice and the Education Conservancy, but the third one in the series we are reviewing here at Admissions 101 is close to my heart. The USC report expressed it simply: "Stop recruiting students who have no chance of being admitted."

They are talking about search letters, those glowing appeals that start landing in the mail boxes (and I assume these days email queues) of high school students shortly after they have taken the PSAT and SAT test. If the student has checked the box saying the College Board can share their address with colleges, then colleges buy the PSAT data and pick out which students it wants to reach. Generally they are looking for kids with the highest scores, plus minorities and other groups they are interested in attracting.

 That is fairly harmless, except that the most selective schools go way overboard. The last time I checked, some of the schools that admitted no more than 10 percent of applicants were sending out 70,000 search letters a year. That is at least ten times as many students as they will admit. Few if any of those letters ever caution the reader that this letter is just an introduction to the school and that it does not mean to imply that they are likely to be admitted. Many families, particularly those who have arrived in the country recently and don't know of our strange ways, will misinterpret these unsolicited appeals.

So I strongly support the USC suggestion. Cut way back on search letters. Cull the PSAT data more carefully and only send letters to students who have a chance, and warn them that this is not a promise of admission. One year YALE included a school decal for the family car in every search letter, without considering the message that sent. Really stupid.

Am I wrong?

--Jay Mathews