Carleton might send you a frisbee if you're a high school sophomore.
April 13, 2015 by Charlie Eisenhood in News with 5 comments
Carleton College is well-known in the ultimate community as a destination school for top players. But it’s not just the ultimate teams that take Frisbee seriously.
Along with the college’s Freshman Frisbee Toss on the first day of orientation, the school, for the last two years, has been sending out discs as part of their recruitment packages for high school sophomores new to the college search process.
“We wanted something that would be distinctive in the sea of paper brochures,” said Senior Assistant Dean of Admissions Jaime Anthony. “And we wanted something that would really represent Carleton and not just be a gimmick. When thinking about what kind of brochure or thing we should send, sending a nice, high quality disc was an obvious choice for us.”
The current cycle of applicants was the first to get one of the 10,000 discs sent out each year; they’ve been warmly received.
“Receiving a shiny blue frisbee in the mail definitely caught my attention,” wrote one student in their application materials. “It was a statement that separated itself from the countless piles of bland college mailings that begged, ‘Do you hear me?’ I heard Carleton.”
“I would quickly like to thank the committee for sending a neat little Frisbee, especially during this time of year,” wrote another student in an email to admissions. “Being away from home and working with a rigorous course load [at boarding school] can be a burden sometimes, but it was a nice break to be able to go outside of my dorm and play ultimate with my friends using the Frisbee.”
As you can see from the photo above, Carleton does not send out top quality Discraft Ultrastars — that would be prohibitively expensive in the quantities they are dealing in. But they were careful to avoid the cheapest discs as well. “We are not using the little 8 inchers that they give out at corporate picnics,” said Anthony. They opted for a very usable disc with flight rings and some heft. They wanted to show the discerning users that they cared.
“Frisbee is a big part of the campus culture here,” said Anthony. “We have teams that compete on the National level for Division I and Division III, but we also have a really robust intramural program.”
If you’re a high school player that has received a disc, let us know what you thought about the gesture in the comments!
