(03-28-2014 08:46 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(03-27-2014 12:52 PM)ODUalum78 Wrote:  

(03-27-2014 10:40 AM)GoApps70 Wrote:  

(03-27-2014 09:43 AM)Miami (Oh) Yeah ! Wrote:  

(03-27-2014 09:38 AM)panama Wrote:  The Eastern Conference is coming, just a matter of when...

Point proven ^

These guys want nothing to do with Troy, ULL, Arkansas State, USA, etc....

They flaunt it and humiliate the Sun Belt and the Sun Belt keeps begging please, please, please

Thanks for your sophomoric interpretation and telling us exactly what to do. No idea what we would do without the help. Thanks again.

However, you can talk about your MAC members all you want, but would appreciate you not trying your back handed insults at our conference members. Troy, ULL, Arkansas State and USA are fine schools and have more integrity in their little finger than you seem to have in your whole body. Am sure a lot of us could say the same thing about many, many MAC members, but we won't.

Let's just stop with the MAC superiority rhetoric and look at the numbers.

Quote:SAT Scores
-----------Reading--------- Math------------ Writing
------ 25% ------75%------ 25%------- 75%------- 25% 75%
Akron 440 570 440 590 - -
First Year Student Retention (full-time students): 67%
Transfer Out Rate: 27%
4-Year Graduation Rate: 15%
6-Year Graduation Rate: 40%

Ball State 480 580 480 580 470 570
First Year Student Retention (full-time students): 77%
4-Year Graduation Rate: 32%
6-Year Graduation Rate: 57%

Bowling Green 440 560 440 570 450 580
First Year Student Retention (full-time students): 70%
Transfer Out Rate: 32%
4-Year Graduation Rate: 36%
6-Year Graduation Rate: 58%

Buffalo 440 530 440 540 - -
First Year Student Retention (full-time students): 75%
Transfer Out Rate: 26%
4-Year Graduation Rate: 23%
6-Year Graduation Rate: 48%

Central Michigan 438 580 470 580 - -
First Year Student Retention (full-time students): 76%
4-Year Graduation Rate: 20%
6-Year Graduation Rate: 57%

Eastern Michigan 440 560 450 580 430 560
First Year Student Retention (full-time students): 75%
4-Year Graduation Rate: 12%
6-Year Graduation Rate: 37%

Kent State 440 570 450 580 430 560
First Year Student Retention (full-time students): 77%
4-Year Graduation Rate: 27%
6-Year Graduation Rate: 52%

Miami OH 530 630 550 660 - -
First Year Student Retention (full-time students): 89%
4-Year Graduation Rate: 68%
6-Year Graduation Rate: 80%

Northern Illinois 440 570 440 580 440 540
First Year Student Retention (full-time students): 70%
4-Year Graduation Rate: 28%
6-Year Graduation Rate: 54%

Ohio University 480 590 490 610 470 580
First Year Student Retention (full-time students): 79%
Transfer Out Rate: 29%
4-Year Graduation Rate: 44%
6-Year Graduation Rate: 63%

Toledo University of Toledo has Open Admissions
First Year Student Retention (full-time students): 62%
4-Year Graduation Rate: 22%
6-Year Graduation Rate: 46%

Western Michigan NR- - - - - -
First Year Student Retention (full-time students): 73%
Transfer Out Rate: 32%
4-Year Graduation Rate: 24%
6-Year Graduation Rate: 56%

Top to bottom the MAC and the SBC (and CUSA) are very similar from a standpoint of admissions, retention, graduation rates, and GPA.
I have never understood JMU's fascination with MAC academics vs CUSA and the SBC. They are all the same.

If the three leagues are academically roughly equivalent, then the former women's teacher school just doesn't want to affiliate with a group of southern schools who variously have the mission of serving some of the nation's most improvished and disadvantaged regions and have almost uniformly as their orgin either being an agriculture school to help improve the efficiency and production of food, or schools to produce teacher who would go back out into the rural areas and raise the education of the children of their region, or were created as an education option for people living in the larger communities of their state who could not for various reasons go to another part of the state and devote four uninterrupted years to higher education or who needed to stay closer to home to save expense and help their family.

But they are willing to affiliate midwestern agriculture schools, and teacher schools, and urban schools.

I keep hearing about the profile of where JMU students come from.
The map here says most come from Virginia, followed by Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey, none of which have schools in the MAC, CUSA or Sun Belt. The next tier is Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticuit, Massachusetts and there is only upstate Buffalo and departing UMass among those states. Finally the less than 1% which includes all the rest of MAC, Sun Belt, and C-USA except for Indiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi with no JMU students.

Looks to me that the MAC is not a significantly better fit for where their students come from than any other league except maybe AAC and you can't get to AAC from FCS.

I think it is simply bias against the deep south vs. midwest and not a matter of academics nor attracting students.

Maybe the JMU leadership feels the university has a better chance of recruiting students to attend from the Midwest vs the South. In my area very few students are willing to go north for school but some will go South. Grouping yourself with colleges all located north of your campus gives you an advantage in recruiting. In the SB, JMU would be the most northern school (leaving out Idaho still trying to understand the logic) in the league.