By JAKE
MOKRIS
When I took the PSAT last year, I filled in the “yes� oval in response to a question similar to this: “Would you like the College Board to provide your PSAT scores, your home address and your e-mail address to colleges?�
As a result, I get a lot of mail from colleges.
Most of the mail says the exact same thing: “Dear Jacob, we would like you to know about our university. Our students have a great experience and are well prepared for their future. Put the enclosed card in the mail if you want to know more.�
Some of the mail includes information on majors offered at the college, class sizes and tuition. Some mail is just silly; once I got an e-mail whose sole content was “Go Steelers.� But most of the mail is of the generic sort.
Colleges are not wrong to send out generic mail; that’s the easiest way to reach students. But the mail is usually of no real worth; I know exactly what each letter says before I open it. I finally took to making paper planes out of my college mail. As it is now, college mail helps students very little in choosing which colleges to apply to. College mail ought to be more beneficial.
Why do I want to go to college? I want to learn, to prepare to get a job, to prepare for the future. College mail should address whether I can accomplish those objectives at the college.
What indicates whether the college is a good place to learn? The quality of the education, the availability of the professors, the nature of student life, the condition of the campus, the location of the campus, the potential financial aid, and whether the college has a good program for the major I’m considering, are all good topics for college mail.
If the mail actually did more than alert me of a college’s existence, I might not make paper planes out of it.
But mail is not the sole source of information on colleges. The best way to learn about a college is to visit the college, but that’s not always easy to do. Colleges usually have their own Web sites, which are good sources of information on the colleges. Other Web sites, such as www.collegeboard.com and www.princetonreview.com, have the general information on most colleges. The Princeton Review Web site ranks colleges in different categories –– like “Happiest Students� and “Professors Make Themselves Accessible� –– and gives students’ opinions on colleges.
College mail should contain this type of information.
Choosing a college is one of the biggest decisions students can make. College mail, which is supposed to help with that decision, ought to be worth more than paper planes.
Jake Mokris is a homeschooled student and member of the Teen Takeover staff.
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