College Marketing

 

I don't think I have mentioned I have been receiving material from several universities' and colleges' admissions departments, marketing their college to names of people that do not live at our house. At first I laughed at them, but then I was concerned. What if there really was a kid out there that wasn't getting contacted from the college of his choice because they had the wrong address? So I contacted the colleges and universities regarding the various names through whom we were receiving information to let them know that either (a) they had the wrong contact info for the addressee, or (b) there was no person out there by that name.

A couple of the propaganda marketing mailings stopped, but a few have stuck with "us" from our move from California to Idaho. So I'm really enjoying reading and analyzing the material we're getting, and for the most part I'm really impressed. If you have ever wondered what the various fees and tuition actually pay for beyond salaries of professors and administrators, rest assured they are spending it on hiring very good marketing firms.

I don't mean for this to sound mean-spirited. I'm not to going to show anything from inside the booklet I received, but I will quote from the letter that was enclosed with it:

The Life of the Mind is more than numbers, anecdotes, and fun facts. It is a window into the rich texture and color of life at UChicago. It follows students, scene by scene, as they engage in our holistic education, where activities of the brain and the body, the academic and the extracurricular, and even the studious and the frivolous, are inseparable.

I have to hand it to them. As I read through this I was thinking how much this would have appealed to the 16/17-year-old me. I would have been "all in" after reading this. (Although I'm sure it's going to be a little harder sell with virtual classes in a hysterical COVID setting. Not to mention Chicago's recent history of ... well, I'm not going there.) It's an admirably done product that conveys what those that want to have the "college experience" hope to have. As I mentioned, it's what I hoped to experience in going off to college at 17.