The waste in college recruiting

Virginia Linn / Sept. 10, 2008

The nation's colleges and universities could benefit from a lesson in "green" marketing.

My high school senior, since the middle of her sophomore year, has been buried under piles of college pitch letters, pamphlets, slick flyers, campus booklets and DVDs mailed to our home.

Somewhere down the line we obviously checked a box -- or didn't check a box -- that allowed her high school or a testing service to release her name and address to college recruiters.

One letter from an assortment of colleges wouldn't be so bad. But we've probably gotten 20 packets from Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., multiple mailings from New York University, and a zillion letters from Timbuk U's we've never heard of.

Of course she's flattered to get all of this attention. But these days we can barely open the front door when we arrive home each day because of all the letters stuffed into the mail slot. We've already filled three large document files (the giant ones that lawyers use) and have started a fourth.

She does receive some info via e-mail, but it's usually from the schools that she's contacted herself.

Not sure if it's this way for your high-schoolers, but there must be a better way that's kinder to the environment. We don't even want to think about all the trees that have bitten the dust for these campus mailings.

If you're a parent in the same boat, what do you do with all the mailings?

Read the complete post at http://pittsburghmom.com/blogs/teenangst/archive/2008/09/10/the-waste-in-college-recruiting.aspx