Food for thought I guess. Article in The Chronicle of Higher Education about a Research paper written by a couple of UGA doctoral candidates. The actual report is linked in the article. They say TCU and BC were big winners academically.

Quote:On average, colleges that moved to a new league saw about a 3-percent decrease in their admit rate (meaning they became more selective) and a 5-percent increase in their admission yield rate (more admitted students enrolled) three years after joining the new conference. The ACT scores of incoming students increased by more than .29 points. And the colleges saw a net gain of about 130 applications per year three years after their moves.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/players/does-...ains/30227

It's called the Flutie Effect, an observed phenomena where athletic success (which includes moving into a big time conference) causes applications to increase and therefore selectivity to increase.

George Mason experienced that after their final four run.

Moving from CUSA to the Big East has worked for Louisville.....Give it some time and UofL will be one of the top 100 academic universities.

Becoming a member of the Big East was key for Virginia Tech academically when that league comprised of WVU, Pitt, Syracuse, BC, Miami, Rutgers and Temple. For the first time VT was perceived as a major conference type of school.

When Cincinnati moved into a BE of WVU, Pitt, Syracuse, Louisville, South Florida, Rutgers and UConn. The effect was not as great because the UC basketball program became lost in the BE shuffle and the football brand was watered down (though it did help a ton in football recruiting).

Temple or Memphis moving to an even more watered down BE football conference are probably going to see even less of a gain. It will no doubt help in recruiting over CUSA football schools but what is that advantage anymore?

Old Dominion might get a boost moving to CUSA because that might give them the perception of being a "bigger" school among all of the mid sized publics. If they can put together a Top 20 football program a lot of kids might want it over VCU or Mary Washington. They aren't going to take kids away from UVA/VT/W&M but could steal from the smaller profile schools.

(06-09-2012 12:24 PM)cardshouse Wrote:  Moving from CUSA to the Big East has worked for Louisville.....Give it some time and UofL will be one of the top 100 academic universities.

Louisville probably got a nice boost from the Big East because located in Kentucky it hasn't traditionally been on the radar of a lot of students regionally but BE membership changes perception.

I could see a kid growing up in Ohio or Michigan that might want to take a look at Louisville as an out of state option. Twenty years ago that same kid wouldn't look beyond UK.

For UC the impact has been less marked as they face competition from the MAC schools who have the residential campuses.

Yes and no.

Academics at Iowa State would probably not differ if they were in the MWC. The only time it helps is when you go to one of these name brand schools like Ohio State, Alabama, Texas, USC, Lsu, etc. That's only because honestly unless your going to Harvard no one gives a hoot where you go to school nowadays. There's people who graduated from schools half the country has never heard of making six figures. It's more about what you do while your in school and young students know this. They want the chance to have crazy college memories and get a good job.

You no longer have to go to a tier 1 school just to get a good job so you see a lot more students with good grades heading to schools where it's fun.

(06-10-2012 11:54 PM)TrojanCampaign Wrote:  That's only because honestly unless your going to Harvard no one gives a hoot where you go to school nowadays.

Clearly.

(06-10-2012 11:54 PM)TrojanCampaign Wrote:  Yes and no.

Academics at Iowa State would probably not differ if they were in the MWC. The only time it helps is when you go to one of these name brand schools like Ohio State, Alabama, Texas, USC, Lsu, etc. That's only because honestly unless your going to Harvard no one gives a hoot where you go to school nowadays. There's people who graduated from schools half the country has never heard of making six figures. It's more about what you do while your in school and young students know this. They want the chance to have crazy college memories and get a good job.

You no longer have to go to a tier 1 school just to get a good job so you see a lot more students with good grades heading to schools where it's fun.

+1

In addition, I'm sick of the ill-conceived comparison of silly undergrad selectivity between 30k student FBS schools and 6-8k student FBS schools. The two types of schools are so different in scope that it's apples & oranges.

It's pretty easy to crow-on about massive selectivity and over-rated undergraduate educations when you ONLY have 6k students on-campus. That means only how many freshman each year? (I'm sure many of you see where I'm going with this...) On the big-school side, they have more than 6k incoming Freshmen every year.

You get into graduate school and you have people in the program you're in from all sorts of different Universities; large publics, small privates, liberal arts colleges, etc... and a funny thing happens in Grad School: where you did your undergrad work really has nothing to do with finishing graduate school, nor in where you'll end up in your graduate class rank.

Hmmmmm.

(06-09-2012 11:03 AM)UABGrad Wrote:  Food for thought I guess. Article in The Chronicle of Higher Education about a Research paper written by a couple of UGA doctoral candidates. The actual report is linked in the article. They say TCU and BC were big winners academically.

Quote:On average, colleges that moved to a new league saw about a 3-percent decrease in their admit rate (meaning they became more selective) and a 5-percent increase in their admission yield rate (more admitted students enrolled) three years after joining the new conference. The ACT scores of incoming students increased by more than .29 points. And the colleges saw a net gain of about 130 applications per year three years after their moves.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/players/does-...ains/30227

TCUs applications IMO have gone up for a number of reasons including athletic success, greatly improved campus facilities (new classroom buildings, much better dorms, a brand new student union), and improving academic quality.

I don't think TCU being in MWC vs. C-USA affected applications that much. But I do think there will be some kids look at TCU more closely because they are in the Big 12, as some students want a major sports conference experience from their university.

(06-11-2012 12:36 AM)BadWillHunting Wrote:  

(06-10-2012 11:54 PM)TrojanCampaign Wrote:  Yes and no.

Academics at Iowa State would probably not differ if they were in the MWC. The only time it helps is when you go to one of these name brand schools like Ohio State, Alabama, Texas, USC, Lsu, etc. That's only because honestly unless your going to Harvard no one gives a hoot where you go to school nowadays. There's people who graduated from schools half the country has never heard of making six figures. It's more about what you do while your in school and young students know this. They want the chance to have crazy college memories and get a good job.

You no longer have to go to a tier 1 school just to get a good job so you see a lot more students with good grades heading to schools where it's fun.

+1

In addition, I'm sick of the ill-conceived comparison of silly undergrad selectivity between 30k student FBS schools and 6-8k student FBS schools. The two types of schools are so different in scope that it's apples & oranges.

It's pretty easy to crow-on about massive selectivity and over-rated undergraduate educations when you ONLY have 6k students on-campus. That means only how many freshman each year? (I'm sure many of you see where I'm going with this...) On the big-school side, they have more than 6k incoming Freshmen every year.

You get into graduate school and you have people in the program you're in from all sorts of different Universities; large publics, small privates, liberal arts colleges, etc... and a funny thing happens in Grad School: where you did your undergrad work really has nothing to do with finishing graduate school, nor in where you'll end up in your graduate class rank.

Hmmmmm.

And many state schools are pretty limited in the ability to be that selective. Schools like Cal, North Carolina, and Texas can be very selective as their state's have many public school options. But state schools in general have a mission to educate the population of the state while trying to remain affordable (hard thing to do). Schools in state's with a low number of public schools in comparison with the population have a very hard time turning qualified students away (who will pay tuition to create revenue) while staying in the good graces of the board of regents. Or somewhere like Wyoming with only 1 four year state university essentially has its hands tied when evaluating the applications of in-state students.

Private schools only answer to themselves for the most part and can be much more selective. But many private schools do have very high acceptance rates as well.

A high acceptance rate doesn't necessarily mean a low quality education, it is actually a stat that is overused in evaluation of schools IMO.

(06-11-2012 12:34 PM)tcufrog86 Wrote:  

(06-09-2012 11:03 AM)UABGrad Wrote:  Food for thought I guess. Article in The Chronicle of Higher Education about a Research paper written by a couple of UGA doctoral candidates. The actual report is linked in the article. They say TCU and BC were big winners academically.

Quote:On average, colleges that moved to a new league saw about a 3-percent decrease in their admit rate (meaning they became more selective) and a 5-percent increase in their admission yield rate (more admitted students enrolled) three years after joining the new conference. The ACT scores of incoming students increased by more than .29 points. And the colleges saw a net gain of about 130 applications per year three years after their moves.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/players/does-...ains/30227

TCUs applications IMO have gone up for a number of reasons including athletic success, greatly improved campus facilities (new classroom buildings, much better dorms, a brand new student union), and improving academic quality.

I don't think TCU being in MWC vs. C-USA affected applications that much. But I do think there will be some kids look at TCU more closely because they are in the Big 12, as some students want a major sports conference experience from their university.

WVU saw an immediate rise in enrollment applications as a result of the Mountaineers' association with the Big XII, and tuition just went up 5%...

(06-11-2012 12:26 AM)JHG722 Wrote:  

(06-10-2012 11:54 PM)TrojanCampaign Wrote:  That's only because honestly unless your going to Harvard no one gives a hoot where you go to school nowadays.

Clearly.

(06-11-2012 01:31 PM)blunderbuss Wrote:  

(06-11-2012 12:26 AM)JHG722 Wrote:  

(06-10-2012 11:54 PM)TrojanCampaign Wrote:  That's only because honestly unless your going to Harvard no one gives a hoot where you go to school nowadays.

Clearly.

A Yale graduate doesn't care, even if you do go to Harvard...

(06-09-2012 12:30 PM)Louis Kitton Wrote:  

(06-09-2012 12:24 PM)cardshouse Wrote:  Moving from CUSA to the Big East has worked for Louisville.....Give it some time and UofL will be one of the top 100 academic universities.

Louisville probably got a nice boost from the Big East because located in Kentucky it hasn't traditionally been on the radar of a lot of students regionally but BE membership changes perception.

I could see a kid growing up in Ohio or Michigan that might want to take a look at Louisville as an out of state option. Twenty years ago that same kid wouldn't look beyond UK.

For UC the impact has been less marked as they face competition from the MAC schools who have the residential campuses.

Sorry Louis you are mistaken. UC has seen dramatic increases in enrollment since they joined the Big East. In the same time, UC has raised their academic standards. Per the attached articles, UC had record sized classes in 2008, 2009 and 2010.

http://www.miamistudent.net/news/campus/...-1.1547199

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/st...ily51.html

(06-10-2012 11:54 PM)TrojanCampaign Wrote:  Yes and no.

Academics at Iowa State would probably not differ if they were in the MWC. The only time it helps is when you go to one of these name brand schools like Ohio State, Alabama, Texas, USC, Lsu, etc. That's only because honestly unless your going to Harvard no one gives a hoot where you go to school nowadays. There's people who graduated from schools half the country has never heard of making six figures. It's more about what you do while your in school and young students know this. They want the chance to have crazy college memories and get a good job.

You no longer have to go to a tier 1 school just to get a good job so you see a lot more students with good grades heading to schools where it's fun.

Good points. I will say when I've hired guys for our small engineering firm we really didn't care if they went to Al, UAB, AU GA. TECH etc. If we had an MIT grad apply it would at least cause some raised eyebrows. In reality an MIT guy wouldnt be applying at our small firm anyway since they are in that elite class. There's nothing wrong with trying to improve academics, but I don't think any conference change is going leap a school into that Ivy league level where the graduates have big advantages.

Again, it doesn't make the school itself "better", just harder to get into due to the increase of applications. For some schools like Wyoming who already the only game in town, that's irrelevant for the most part, but for others like Ohio State with lots of other instate public schools, it helps them attain a level of exclusivity usually unavailable to public schools.