It Came in the Mail

(Photo illustration by Mary Kocol)

As the parent of any teen will tell you, the barrage of brochures from colleges marketing themselves can be like something from a horror movie

The slick brochures began pouring into our mail slot in the fall of my daughter's junior year of high school, not long after the PSAT scores came in.

I examined them carefully, checking out their design. They didn't look much different from the mail touting the opera, the circus, MasterCard and Comcast. The only difference was the product--rolling green campuses filled with elegant neo-classical buildings and happy-looking students-- and the price tag. Tuition, room and board and other expenses at many of these colleges can reach up to $45,000 a year.

"Be yourself," urged the large white envelope from Alfred University, "a vibrant living/learning community" in western New York that charges out-of-staters about $32,000 a year.

"Seize the day and plan for your future!" said the postcard from McDaniel, a small, $35,000-a year private college in Westminster, Md.

"Special Invitation. Space is limited. Respond today," announced Washington University in St. Louis, inviting my daughter to come visit. The $44,000-a-year college is touted by U.S. News & World Report as one of the nation's hot schools in its much-watched annual ratings issue. In the coming months, Wash U would send my daughter more than 15 different pieces of direct-marketing literature.

Initially, the arrival of these brochures gave me some comfort. How nice, I thought. Ariel has options.

I was naive. My family and I were about to be plunged into the college admissions process, a vortex that can test the sanity of even the calmest parents. Not that there are many of those in my neighborhood. I live in Bethesda, where legions of highly educated, affluent mothers and fathers fear any misstep that could harm our children's chances for a pedigree from a highly selective college -- the all-important first step in achieving our version of the American dream. To watch the college chase at our daughters' high school, Walt Whitman, and many others in the Washington area, to experience its tension, you would think life as we know it would end if our children didn't make it into one of a very small number of top schools. Much of this tension is self-inflicted. But it is almost impossible to avoid, exacerbated by the relentless way colleges market themselves, and by the entire industry that has grown up around the often maddening and confusing admissions process.

The "top tier" colleges play a numbers game. They want to attract large amounts of applicants, so they can demonstrate just how selective they are. In other words, they need to reject as many kids as possible. Numbers that show that many apply but few are selected can get a school labeled "hot" by U.S. News & World Report or one of the other college guides. Hot schools often attract more alumni dollars. And that can bring new labs, more books for the library, a nicer athletic building. And, of course, more applicants.

If this sounds like a racket, that's because it is.

IT'S HARD TO SAY EXACTLY what makes a college appealing to students. But few schools these days are willing to leave much to chance. Bob Sevier, a vice president of Stamats, a company in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, that helps colleges market themselves, estimates that most schools spend about $1,500 per admitted student before the kids walk in the door for their freshman year. That's a lot of direct mail and flashy Web site designing. Others say Sevier's numbers are low, and believe the per-student rate for luring applicants is far higher at many schools.

Edward Fiske, a former New York Times education editor and the author of popular college guides for students and parents that bear his name, traces the marketing of colleges to the mid-1970s, when the college-age population was stagnant and schools were eager to fill dorm rooms with paying customers. "That was the beginning of all this marketing hype. They were looking at the declining number of high school graduates," he says.