Oh, the College Mail! The Flood of College Marketing Materials

For those of you who haven’t started getting the flood of college mail and marketing materials yet, get ready! Snail mail and email are a big part of how colleges communicate with families.

Recently, a parent of quadruplets asked us a great question…is there any way to get just one piece of mail from a college instead of FOUR?! We did a little digging, and this is what we found out.

Typically, students start receiving mail from colleges after giving “permission” when they take the ACT or SAT exam. Colleges purchase the students’ information from those testing companies.

If they “opt out” from notifications, they won’t receive any college mail from anyone. Kind of drastic. No happy medium…in between.

There is no way to mark a family as a “household” so that they receive just one piece of mail or email from the college.

Students can manage their incoming emails by opting out from that college. XYZ University sends them an email. It is not a school of interest to them. The student clicks “unsubscribe” on the email.

For paper mail, the student can send a note to the general admissions contact email, telling them “Thank you for your mailing, but please remove me from your contact list.”

That’s a lot of work! But depending on the student and how they handle the potential stress and anxiety (or just plain waste) of incoming mail, it may be worth considering.

If it is not a bother, just recycle or delete!

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