Data Use and Privacy Policies

Don't tell me THAT doesn't sound like an exciting title for a blog!

While it might not be the most exciting, I do think it's a fairly important topic to address, especially with all of the college search sites and scholarships available on the web. Most sites like this will, at some point, ask you to give at the very minimum your name and email address, sometimes a zip code. This can also include address, academic interests, phone numbers, test scores... etc.

Most of these sites, both scholarship and search, have affiliated colleges who will have access to this information. And these colleges, who are actively recruiting, will probably contact you at some point, whether or not you have specifically expressed interest in them. This may be via email (most common) but a few may send you something in the mail or even call you.

If you are undecided on a school I would recommend taking a look at what they send you. Sometimes an option presented out of the blue can be a good one! If you are fairly sure of where to go but haven't committed yet I would still recommend looking at the information if only as a test of how sure you are of your college choice. If you're wavering at all figure out why and what qualities you are looking for in a college that the initial choice doesn't have. There are enough colleges in the US that I can pretty much promise you that there is an ideal school for you out there- it just might not be close to home.

But, if you are decided and committed and all of those fun things, then politely let the schools contacting you know that you are already committed somewhere else. Believe me, they'll be OK with it, wish you luck at that school, and should take you off of their lists. Otherwise, if you receive an email that you never respond to most schools will (correctly) take that as a "no". (This, in school lingo, is called a double opt-in. It's why sometimes they'll confirm it via by asking you to reply when you do request information.)

However, if you're concerned about this ALWAYS check the privacy and data use policies when you submit your information. If you're not sure then contact the company and they should tell you.

I do receive quite a few emails asking me why schools are contacting them, but our data use policy states that when you submit a scholarship application your information (nothing sensitive, just mainly contact info and academic interests) is made available to our members schools. The hard part is that once we send out the information to the school it is up to that school as to what they will do with it, and while I can pull you off of the Anycollege email list I cannot remove you from XYZ College's email list.

As far as I can tell right now, that is how most sites function that are similar... so if you sign up for anything on a website that has anything to do with colleges, be prepared to hear from colleges!

Please let me know what questions you have on this topic... it seems to be a pressing one now that quite a few of the Class of '09 has selected their schools but are still on the mailing lists of many colleges and universities.