This, my friends, is the result of saving mail. Saving college spam mail, specifically.
Here’s a quick background if you’re new to my college ramblings. I’m a senior, graduating this spring. I’ve applied to and been accepted to three colleges – I’ll be attending my top school next fall.
I really despise waste. Honestly, I’m not an absolute environmental junkie, but I really hate to see tons of unsolicited letters and college look-books arrive at my house. This past summer, I decided to save all of this mail, just to see how much I’d get.
The box on the left is mail from colleges that I did not apply to. The stack on the right is mail from the three colleges I applied to. The box is absolutely deceiving. Take a look at this picture.
Okay, do you have a better idea of how big that box actually is? It’s really full. There are hundreds of letters and other promotional materials in it, literally crammed to the top.
In comparison, my second pile includes all of the official communication, including acceptance letters, scholarship letters, and honors letters. (No, I still haven’t heard about the important honors program. I should know by the end of February, probably.)
I have no problem with emails from schools. Hey, I can delete those if I don’t want them. But honestly, why do colleges insist on bombarding potential students with mail? My parents and I have joked that many of these colleges could create scholarships if they simply cut down on their mailing costs.
Colleges, if you’re reading this (you probably aren’t, but still), please knock it off with the mail. Not only could you actually help more students pay for school, but you could also help the environment. Even if you don’t stop the mailing campaigns, consider more environmentally friendly packaging. Something inside of me dies every time I receive a college lookbook wrapped in plastic that my area doesn’t recycle.
A couple of fast facts: only one piece of mail I’ve received has used packaging that is totally environmentally friendly.
Most of my spam mail is from Radford University, Muhlenburg College and Southern Weseleyan University.
Over 60% of the mail I’ve received has been unsolicited.
Quick note to colleges: If you like sending unsolicited spam mail to seniors after January 1st, you are wasting your money. I’m still receiving somewhat copious amounts of mail.
Farmgirl Writes 
This is so relative to my life right now. I'm only a sophomore, and I'm already being bombarded. And it's only the beginning :
I didn't save any college mail — it all went straight to the recycle bin. To me though, I couldn't care less whether colleges use environmentally friendly materials. In fact, when they do, it usually alerts me to a nutty liberal school that I probably wouldn't be interested anyway. But, I did recycle all the books, postcards, etc. I'm too lazy to save. 😛
I feel your pain. I recently got a letter from a college giving me a schedule, organized by season, of all the mail they are going to send me over the next year. Um, what? I didn't ask for this!