How to manage schools which love bomb after acceptance?

[Anonymous]

Did not see this coming.

I soon expect my DS to be accepted into 2 T15 schools, and prior to starting applications, these were his goals.

Partly from interest at this point in his life, partly to evaluate campus vibes, this also ended up being the college football season he paid attention to and watched many games. On a whim, he applied to Mizzou, UGA and Auburn. He's been accepted into Auburn and Mizzou.

Mizzou is love bombing him. Phone calls from the admissions office to check in, automail, handwritten letters from local alumni, invitations for local lunch and meetups, etc. Every day there's a letter or package in the mailbox from Mizzou.

While he awaits his target schools decisions we see it's affected his perspective. What went from "Mizzou looks like a fun place" is being replaced with "I would be the top student in their EE program" and "you could save tuition for my grad school".

We have no qualms about where he attends, but worry the college loving you back trope is negatively affecting his perception. We armed ourselves mentally for rejections, but not for safety schools going hard on marketing.

Anyone else navigating this? We don't have problems if he decided to attend Mizzou, but don't want love fog to be the reason.

[Anonymous]

Good grief, don’t go looking for problems, OP. Just sit tight and ignore until your kid has all options on the table.

[Anonymous]

There’s no helping a parent who starts a post with, “I soon expect my DS to be accepted into 2 T15 schools.”

[Anonymous]

Get back to us when he’s accepted to the two T15 schools. He should have applied to UM if he was into college football and wants a top school.

[Anonymous]

Graduate school for what? If he is EE, there won’t be a need for graduate school or it’s very easy to work for a company that will pay for a Masters. PhD would be free.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Graduate school for what? If he is EE, there won’t be a need for graduate school or it’s very easy to work for a company that will pay for a Masters. PhD would be free.

An EE masters is generally free. I don’t know of many folks who work while getting an engineering masters degree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Graduate school for what? If he is EE, there won’t be a need for graduate school or it’s very easy to work for a company that will pay for a Masters. PhD would be free.

An EE masters is generally free. I don’t know of many folks who work while getting an engineering masters degree.

My kid is doing an accelerated Masters and he has plenty of people in his classes with an employer paying. Since the greatest overlap is evening classes, he assumes they are working during the day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There’s no helping a parent who starts a post with, “I soon expect my DS to be accepted into 2 T15 schools.”

True. Also, I doubt her kid thinks he will be the TOP performer in Mizzou's EE program. I'm sure mom does though. Seriously, lady? Do you know how many smart people there are in this world? I'm sure there is a very high performing student who will be attending Mizzou in-state and ready to rock the EE program.

[Anonymous]

Also, big in-state school love out of state students to round out their classes. I'm sure they think your son is talented but they also really would like an OOS kid there to raise their national profile (everyone is looking to become the next Auburn or Clemson). So take the attention with a grain of salt.

[Anonymous]

It’s called recruitment.


It’s not “love bombing,” which is a behavior used by in abuse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s called recruitment.


It’s not “love bombing,” which is a behavior used by in abuse.

If they start sending you abusive and controlling texts after you reject them…then perhaps you need to worry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, big in-state school love out of state students to round out their classes. I'm sure they think your son is talented but they also really would like an OOS kid there to raise their national profile (everyone is looking to become the next Auburn or Clemson). So take the attention with a grain of salt.

They love out of state tuition rates. They don’t care about the student.

[Anonymous]

Wish my kids “love bombed” me sometimes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, big in-state school love out of state students to round out their classes. I'm sure they think your son is talented but they also really would like an OOS kid there to raise their national profile (everyone is looking to become the next Auburn or Clemson). So take the attention with a grain of salt.

They love out of state tuition rates. They don’t care about the student.

Mizzou's out of state merit scholarships put the cost of attending well into in stare tuition.

My kid is would not qualify for merit at any of the main instate schools, but got the maximum or wnd highest scholarship at Mizzou and several out of state universities. For Mizzou, the scholarship is $21,500 per year.

I don't see Mizzou "love bombing" any more than other out of state universities. I think my kid has received 3 mailings - acceptance, scholarship award and a simple swag pack (poster, not a bunch of stuff like Alabama or the musical card from Tennessee that her sister got a few years back). The emails have been reminder types, like applying to honors colleges. It has been fairly standard recruiting based on my older kids past college applications, from private schools and public flagships.

[Anonymous]

It’s marketing, just like all the brochures and mailers colleges send trying to get students to apply. Now they’re just focused on getting admittees to enroll.