OK seniors, does anyone else feel like they are the "most sought-after college applicant" or is it just me? Every time my dad brings in the mail, there's a pile of postcards, letters, brochures, vinyl stickers -- even pompoms -- from various colleges that make me think, "Wow, they must really want ME!"
The great senior mail blitz is in full force, creating bulging mail boxes for 17- and 18-year-olds all over the Top of Utah.
"I get something every day from colleges," says Dani Ruiz, a Weber High senior. "But it's OK, mail makes me feel so special! And I love getting BIG letters."
Mickenzie Smith, a senior at Fremont High School, is experiencing the same thing and says, "I love getting mail from colleges! It makes me feel cool and important."
"If I could get mail every day it would be like Christmas all the time!" says Steve Sparks, a Fremont High senior. "I love getting college mail but it would be even better if they included money with it."
I have never been told that I "belong" so many places, that I should "see myself" on this campus, or "discover myself" at that university. Colleges put beaucoup bucks into full-color flashy foldouts that always show pictures of happy college students doing cool things, never studying or stressing for an exam. College mail wants to show the best the school has to offer.
Yet seniors get to decide which offers come with the best mail.
"My congratulation letter from Utah State has been my favorite college letter I have ever received. Very creative!" says Morgan Ward, a senior at Fremont High.
Taylor Stuart, a Bonneville High senior, says, "The best college letter was from Dartmouth. It was a tour of their campus in a pamphlet. Way cool! With way cool foldouts and everything."
Emily Johns, also a senior at Bonneville, adds, "I love any mail from Brigham Young University! It always makes me feel excited and important."
If seniors have a favorite college, they tend to favor that school's mail.
Dustin Randall, a Weber High senior, says, "Utah State is a champion with their mail. It always looks nice!"
Turn off fliers
However, not everything that shows up in the mailbox makes students want to go to the advertised school.
"Washington University in St. Louis sent me my least favorite letter. It was all words, no pictures," Stuart says.
Ward says, "Because I already know where I'm going, I don't like all these different schools' letters saying 'Oh! Come to this school' -- it's so annoying!"
"I hate getting boring postcards. I don't ever read long wordy letters, so if there are no pictures then there's no interest," says Smith.
Seth Hilton, a Weber High senior, is a fan of college mail but not when it's repetitive.
"I don't like it when they send me information on stuff I already know about," he says. "It's just extra stuff I have to open."
E-mail call
College recruiters also use e-mail to connect with future students. This is another way to advertise and provides an easier way for high-schoolers to write back to their universities.
Unfortunately, e-mails do not get quite the same responses from area seniors as tangible mail does.
"I extremely dislike e-mails from colleges," Ryan Anderson, a Bonneville High senior, says. "I delete them or give them my house mailing address because I hate reading things on the computer."
Randall says, "I hate getting e-mails from random places. But it's cool from colleges that I am interested in."
"College e-mails fill my inbox with spam-y nonsense! And I cannot figure out how to be taken off the forwarding list to make the e-mails stop!" says Ruiz.
As Sparks says, "Senior year is when we experience the start of the never-ending junk mail."
Need some photos?
Senior year is also a popular time to get fancy, expensive portraits so in the future, we can remember the things we did in high school and see how great we used to look. Thus "senior picture" mail also hits home, or at least hits the mailbox.
Sami Sorenson, a senior at Bonneville High, says she enjoys the senior picture mail.
"Even though I already know where I'm getting my pictures done at, I like to get ideas from all the cute examples on other places' postcards," she says. "They are always cute and creative."
Anderson says, "I always get postcards with pictures of wannabe models posed all weird, advertising places to get senior pictures done at. But as a guy, it makes me not want to go there."
"I love to look at the senior picture mail. I question some of the pictures they chose to advertise but most of the time it's fun to look through," says Taylor Wood, a Bonneville High senior.
Taylor McDonald, a senior at Bonneville, says, "I really don't like senior picture mail. I look at it and immediately throw it away. It doesn't make me want to go there because it's always too expensive."
More junk mail
"I've also noticed as soon as I turned 18 I've been getting credit card junk mail. My mom always goes through it but it's annoying," Sorenson says.
And as Matt Hales, a senior at Bonneville, says, "The U.S. postal system is full of nothing but useless college info, credit card spam, and L.L. Bean catalogs and the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue."
A lot happens to seniors their last year of high school and a massive amount of mail is just a constant reminder of the decisions that need to be made. So welcome or not, the senior mail influx will continue.
In the end, it might not be the postcard that sways me to commit to a university, or schedule senior pictures, but for now I am just going to enjoy this once-in-a-life time "period" of getting more flattering junk mail than anyone else in my house.
Mackenzie Stevens is a senior at Bonneville High School. She loves playing volleyball and chill-axing with friends. E-mail her at stevensma1@wsdstudent.net.
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