This is a follow up to a popular post I made few days ago, “Spend a Week inside my mailbox!” which offered readers the chance to see everything I got in the mail over the course of a week. There have been some budget cuts, and in this installment we can only offer one day of mail. Still an exciting opportunity, I think.

This is all the mail I got on Wednesday, August 30th. If I get anything today (the 31st) I will edit this post and add it, doubling your value for the same low, low price of zero dollars. Can’t beat that bargain.

University of Pittsburgh sent me and my parents letters along with a pamphlet. My parents and I both got letters telling us how awesome UPitt was and how much I could do there, specifically talking about the Honors College. I’ve seen plenty of letters addressed “To the Parents of Sam Jackson” and I guess that speaks to their power to influence children and the hopes of marketers that they themselves can be influenced. Perhas not influenced–just informed. I know they didn’t know much about UPitt before I shared all that these letters had taught me. Then there was a “Fall Saturdays at Pitt” visitation pamphlet which had a nice picture of the Cathedral of Learning on it. I think the Cathedral of Learning is quite cool. Sadly I don’t imagine having the time any saturday this fall to get out to Pittsburg, and even had UPitt been on my list months ago (it was not, sorry) I wouldn’t have had the chance to visit it in July (see: CMU, old post).

Georgetown College sent me another pamphlet of something. They want me to come visit them. Visiting Georgetown College is, I’m afraid, not a good enough reason for me to go to Kentucky, although they are near Lexington, KY which I always am glad to say hosts the world’s largest pendulum clock in its public library. That spectacle aside, I will not be visiting. I feel quite bad about Georgetown College, actually, that they’re sending me these things. You see, back in July when I was looking for the visiting hours of Georgetown University… all these webforms look more or less the same… and that’s why Cornell College in Iowa once called my house. Sorry, guys, my mistake.

George Mason University sent me a very cute little envelope with lovely gold embossing on it but inside there was one little page asking me to go online to express interest so they could send me more stuff. I felt bad about this one, too, because they’re contacting me so late in the game. George Mason, I don’t know anything about you!

and, the piece de resistance,

Brown University sent me their viewbook! The first thing I saw was, of course, the cover. I make note of the cover specifically in comparison to UPenn’s viewbook, received and reviewed so recently. Like UPenn, Brown’s cover was a showcase of their seal. UnlikeU not just the plain stone seal looking very cold and intimdiating. Instead, with a nice play o shadows and light, it was off to the side of the cover, with “BROWN” taking full center in a color nearly one golden retriever (what can I say, I’m a sucker for golden-orange). The tree leaning across the page delicately did the trick, too, though at first glance I was fearing it might have been ivy, which would have been a little tacky. Really what I liked about the cover was the fact that it let Brown’s sorta Richardsonian Romanesque architecure stand front and center to impress and display the seal, rather than leaving it naked in the center of the page. Good design choice. Inside it’s not a full follow-through, but still quite good. There was a lot of information in it and the effort to try to fit it all in clearly impacted ease of reading in some places, but not too much. I quite liked it.

That’s all for today, folks.