Stop Bugging Me: Colleges Should Learn From Bottle Drives

Every fall, my robotics team and I pick the rainiest, nastiest day of the season and collect bottles to fund ourselves. It usually turns into a fun although tedious project that builds up our communication and investment in the team.

Occasionally, we run into an ancient curmudgeon who ranks a high schooler stepping on their lawn as a heinous crime, shouting “we don’t want any” or “not interested.”

The constant battering of their trust in the outside world — led by such oft cited yet never seen villains as door-to-door salesmen and con artists — led them to take every footfall on their beloved driveway as a violation of their God-given privacy.

And I used to think they were a bunch of batty old loons until I filled out my email to utilize the College Board’s Student Search Service.

Every day, I fire up my laptop to crank out a story or two and see what’s happening across the world. Somewhere in there I find the time to check my email.

Well, I should really say I scroll through an endless list of college spiels and recruiting pitches claiming that their school is the home of my dreams.

I get the need to have a Student Search Service. It’s a cool concept that probably helps a thousand or more students connect with colleges that want them.

But not every student needs a daily email from Hillsdale and Macalester.

One or two emails would be fine. From the school’s point of view, it’s just doing its due diligence.

But sending me countless emails ticking down the days until your applications close is excessive, if not downright criminal.

If I sent a girl that many emails, I’d be locked up faster than you can say “harassment.”

But just because they’re a faceless institution, colleges can clutter my inbox with endless garbage that doesn’t help me in the slightest.

If I was interested in your school, I would’ve responded to the first email.

Just like knocking on an old man’s door for the fiftieth time, all you do by spamming me with emails is make me less likely to consider your school.

I could mark them as spam, but then Google would mark all college emails as spam and I don’t need to miss my orientation packet.

So for the past year and a half I’ve had to trudge through pointless college emails in the hopes of finding what I actually need to read.

Colleges, I think I speak for most students when I ask you to stop bombarding me with your propaganda. It wastes time for all parties involved.

Be like my robotics team when we run a bottle drive.

When you don’t hear a response from the person whose door you just knocked on, cut your losses and hit up the next house.

I don’t want your product and you shouldn’t waste your resources.