You know that scene in Harry Potter where Harry gets a zillion letters from Hogwarts? The one where the owls drop envelopes down the chimney, and they come bursting out into the Dursleys’ living room? That scene is my life right now – except the letters aren’t from wizarding school. They’re from colleges. And they’re not telling me that I’ve been accepted, and that I should really start considering where I’m going to buy my cauldron; they’re informing me that I am a special, unique student who should really consider applying to their special, unique institution. My reaction is more like Uncle Vernon’s than Harry’s. I’m glaring at the mail slot. I’m taking cover behind the sofa. I’m not buying it.

I have no problem with being told flattered. The first time I found a college recruitment letter in my mailbox, I ripped it open, read it at least ten times, and then left it lying conspicuously in front of the microwave for my parents to admire. I savored the phrases “talented students like you” and “congratulations on your achievement.”

There’s a difference between being flattered and being flattered by mass mailing. And college letters, as I found out when I mentioned oh-so-casually to my friends that the aforementioned school had written to me, are mass mailings. My friends’ response to my subtle bragging was an enthusiastic, “Me too!” Then they proceeded to quote the letter I had received, in excruciating, soul-crushing detail. It was exactly the same – word for word. My swollen ego shriveled abruptly.

I treated subsequent college letters more skeptically. I quickly discovered that not only did individual colleges send the same letter to everyone, but letters from different colleges were often close to identical as well. Every letter I got seemed to include the same generic lines about world-class opportunities and touted a “distinguished faculty.”

The images that accompanied the letters were also bizarrely alike. Colleges in the middle of the Southwest featured shots of stately brick buildings on lush green quads. Colleges in states with more sheep than people portrayed students strolling down bustling urban streets. And the people in the pictures were uniform in their diversity. No two students on any single postcard had the same skin color. This was true even on the cards from places like St. Olaf College, which is 92% white. I mean, come on – they named the school after a Viking. How many of its classrooms are actually full of minorities?

My greatest revelation regarding college letters came on the day I received ten of them in a single delivery. None of them were from schools I was interested in. Most were from places like Drexel University (I’m sure it’s a very nice school, if you’re planning to go there. I just happen to think its name sounds like cleaning fluid).

I was halfway through the task of opening them and throwing them out when it hit me that for every letter I had just tossed, a tree had been killed. Students had been denied scholarships so that the colleges could pay for those glossy photos. College letters aren’t just a nuisance; they’re a waste of resources.

I dropped the letter I was holding and riffled through the ones I had already opened, hoping one of them would tell me how I could get schools to stop sending them to me. But none of them contained information about opting out.I considered mailing the letters back to the schools, but as much as I enjoy making futile gestures, it wasn’t worth the postage. So I shrugged my shoulders, made some space in the recycling bin, and resigned myself to another year’s worth of propaganda.

Every time I reach into the mailbox and pull out another batch of college letters, I lose a little respect for the institutions that send them. I feel a little less certain that I want to go to any college, let alone attend the schools that are writing to me. My sense of individuality is eroded. My sense of righteous conservationism curls up and dies. And I wish that, like Harry Potter, I could make the college letters disapparate.