Friday, December 31, 2004
Colleges' sports success is not a major draw
Contrary to popular belief a study back in 2001 featured at USATODAY.com - Colleges' sports success is not a major draw claims prospective college students don't really care how well the teams are doing when they make enrollment decisions. Art & Science Group of Baltimore did a telephone poll of 500 college bound high schoolers right after the men's national basketball championship tournament. Most of the students couldn't even tell them who won the game let alone say it will affect their college choices.
But don't count everyone out. Winning games does help recruit jocks and the kid's of ex-jock alumni. Michigan State admissions director Gordon Stanley says that when his team won the championship their acceptence rate went up 3% which he called a "significant difference" over their normal rate of 40%. But what does acceptence rate have to do with basketball? Did that many really smart people enroll because of a game or did they change their standards, allow more alumni kids or have some other reason for the jump?
It's a common notion in the collegiate and high school world alike that winning teams attract winning students. It even has a name: The Flutie Factor named after Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie who made a touchdown pass to win the big game. Within two years applications to the college rose 30%. Of course that was back in 1984 and maybe things have changed.
But we may never know because there is a strong lobby of sports supporters who don't want any of this looked into. Don't even question why institutions of higher learning spend millions of dollars and tremendous amounts of resources to teach people how to throw and catch and run and jump. Some anti sports alumni actually had to go to a judge to make the Rutgers University magazine run their ad arguing the university's focus on big time athletics endangered it's academic mission. The magazine refused the ad and would only run it after an expensive court battle. So much for the "search for knowledge and thirst for debate" you should find at such a school.
A faculty group from Drake University handed out flyers at the Final Four NCAA tournament that year urging their colleges to restore academic integrity to big time sports programs. I wonder if anyone listened to them.
Sports supporters claim they must have a top notch sports program or the alumni donations will dry up. Author James Shulman offers evidence this is all a bunch of hooey in his book The Game of Life: College Sports and Educational Values (Princeton University Press, $27.95). I may have to get that one.
But don't count everyone out. Winning games does help recruit jocks and the kid's of ex-jock alumni. Michigan State admissions director Gordon Stanley says that when his team won the championship their acceptence rate went up 3% which he called a "significant difference" over their normal rate of 40%. But what does acceptence rate have to do with basketball? Did that many really smart people enroll because of a game or did they change their standards, allow more alumni kids or have some other reason for the jump?
It's a common notion in the collegiate and high school world alike that winning teams attract winning students. It even has a name: The Flutie Factor named after Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie who made a touchdown pass to win the big game. Within two years applications to the college rose 30%. Of course that was back in 1984 and maybe things have changed.
But we may never know because there is a strong lobby of sports supporters who don't want any of this looked into. Don't even question why institutions of higher learning spend millions of dollars and tremendous amounts of resources to teach people how to throw and catch and run and jump. Some anti sports alumni actually had to go to a judge to make the Rutgers University magazine run their ad arguing the university's focus on big time athletics endangered it's academic mission. The magazine refused the ad and would only run it after an expensive court battle. So much for the "search for knowledge and thirst for debate" you should find at such a school.
A faculty group from Drake University handed out flyers at the Final Four NCAA tournament that year urging their colleges to restore academic integrity to big time sports programs. I wonder if anyone listened to them.
Sports supporters claim they must have a top notch sports program or the alumni donations will dry up. Author James Shulman offers evidence this is all a bunch of hooey in his book The Game of Life: College Sports and Educational Values (Princeton University Press, $27.95). I may have to get that one.
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