Here ya go.
Definitely Penn was higher ranked (and I think Vandy was 17 when I applied - I must have dragged it up a few notches with my brilliance). But yes, there were multiple factors. And from what I was told beforehand, for the type of work I was looking to do (and am doing) there was not a vast difference between any top 20 school, especially if one performed well while at the school.
Now that we’ve unmasked the truth about sports, when are we going to see the figures on the English department?
This thread is a gold mine of comedy, albeit unintentional.
By making wild-ass assertions and ranging wildly off-topic, that’s how. 
Anyway, the thing that I see coming out of all this is that people are treating the fact that collegiate sports lose money as some sort of new revelation. Of COURSE they lose money. But that’s not the point. An institution of higher learning does not exist primarily to make a profit. They stay afloat by endowments, alumni contributions, investments, awards, grants, etc.
Some sports are “revenue sports,” generally football and men’s basketball. Those sports serve not only to give the current students a reason to get together, but also as a hook for the alumni. They also MAKE money, some of which is funnelled to other non-revenue sports and women’s sports, which operate as a drain on men’s sports because most universities would rather reach economic parity by cutting small men’s programs and giving the money to the women rather than adding more womens, sports, which, IMHO, is the “right” thing to do.
Are you sure you work for UK? The NCAA is not “minor league sports.” Tell me, to what major league do members of your rifle team advance? Your volleyballers? Your gymnastics team? Your runners?
Did you ever think that maybe this is the reason why your own favorite programs are not better-funded? I am a member of my undergraduate institution’s Athletic Hall of Fame. I played a club sport- we had to fight for our budget year after year- to get our coach paid, to get new equipment, to get vans for away trips, etc. Some of our glory years were in the years when I and my contemporaries attended. Now, as alums, we work to drum up contributions, no matter how small, because when the team is presenting its budget needs to the administration, one of its greatest selling points is an active, involved alumni base that comes to events and is invested in the success of the team. When the administration sees that dozens of alums are coming back every year for events and donating money to the program, it’s a whole lot easier to say, “And we’d be able to keep this up if we had some new equipment or could race at a higher-profile event.” My point is that, when you don’t donate to your own favorite program, the university has no idea how much it means to you and thus has no incentive to treat it the way you would like to see it treated.
Of course it matters, to some degree. After all, if you want to practice Maritime law, you’d be dumb to go to Vanderbilt if you got into Seattle Pacific. Although Harvard might be enough of a name to get you the job as well.
I have found, though, with allowances for local markets, most of the top 25 allow for similar opportunities.
And don’t even get me STARTED on what a self-perpetuating monster the rankings are. They’re worse than the NCAA.
Thank you. That is much better than reading one sentence and being asked to pay $40.
Surely out of state students are profitable for a university aren’t they? For good public schools, the out of state students will be top shelf. I think it’s pretty hard to get into Texas or Michigan out of state.
Not for profit doesn’t mean unconcerned with the bottom line.
Yes, and the one thing that a state institution will do is “steal” intellectual capital from elsewhere. An average or below average student from out of state is of little interest, but a hotshot from elsewhere does a few things: a) it heightens the “peer effects” in an institutional setting - it’s always good to have more smart students, b) provides an opportunity for the state to bring in more revenue (out of state students pay higher tuition), and the chance that the student may stay in state after graduation is higher, and c) in an increasingly mobile society, institutions want more of a regional/national profile. Out of state students are an indicator of your success in that area.
Of course there can’t be too many. Most institutions have an obligation or mandate to serve the citizens of the state…
I used to work for a small Division III college. When the athletes would get in my face, thinking they were better than me, I’d remind them where they went to school and point out that in five years, they were going to be working at SportMart or the local gym. “You didn’t come here to be a Pro, Jackass.”
But yeah, the preferential and special treatment they got made me ill. We had one guy who was on the Football team and the Basketball team. He was nothing more than a drug using thug. Caught with Marijuana, Cocaine and Meth. Cops walked away without arresting him, school did nothing. Beat up a fellow student who later committed suicide, threatened the guys life, trashed his room and stole the guy’s computer. Charges dropped. Threaten Security, threatened Security Director. Nothing done. Threaten other coaches, they “had a talk with him”. Kicked out of the student apartment building, caught with more drugs when we removed him. We’re told to take the drugs, but nothing is done. Violated the No Trespass order for the building and moved in with his girlfriend. We’re told to “stop harassing him”.
:rolleyes:
For some odd reason, Sports are held up as some sort of Must Have, both for colleges, and states. Depite most people not being interested in them. The only benefit I could see for the school was that it attracted gifts and grants, but it definitely seems that the amount of crap dedicated to sports is far beyond what it should be when you compare participation.
Feh. What does this professor know? If he were any good as an accountant, he’d have a real job, like working for a blood bank.
Seriously though, thank you for posting that sugar and spice, I was really interested in reading the full article.
You’re welcome. I’m happy to use the resources of my elite institution to better educate the general public.
For those still interest in the OP…
Here is another article on the report.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/05/16/ncaa
Here is a link to the NCAA report
http://www.ncaapublications.com/Uploads/PDF/Revenue_Expenses_200860cc123e-54d9-45e7-acbd-a1f195b345e6.pdf
Again the focus on this pitting is
(1) the increasing amount of money spent on athletics (the majority of programs run at a deficit even when capital expenses are not included. If the cost of stadiums were included the deficits would be even bigger;
(2) the fact that an increasing amount of this money is coming from the university (rather than ticket sales, donations, etc.) which means it is NOT being spent on classroom or other educational expenses;
(3) that the justifications for sports programs (shared experience, public relations, attraction students from outside) are very hard to quantify but still are used to justify huge athletics budgets. My basic problem is that the level of proof accepted for the value of athletics is so relient on these kind of arguments OR based on cost/benefit analysis done by those who have vested interests in the system. If I tried to get a research grant based on these kind of arguments I’d be laughed at.
It is fine to have athletics as part of universities but there is no need to spend spend spend so much money on it especially in times of financial hardship.
We need to get our priorities straight but I doubt we will…
My argument was that UK basketball is akin to minor league sports (relative to the NBA) and should be treated as such. For example, pay the players rather than pretend they are students*, etc. Right now NCAA makes money like a for profit but hides behind the non-profit label.
- An alternative is to tell players to focus on sports for four years and then provide them with a full ride to universities once they are no longer playing. That way they can concentrate on sports when they need to but still can get a decent education once they have the time to focus on it. This is mostly relevant to the BIG sports – men’s basket/foot ball
That’s an excellent suggestion, but it won’t happen. The NCAA is obsessed with protecting the idea that major college athletes are “student-athletes”. Sure, some of them are, but for most class is just something they have to do in order to keep playing.
They have to maintain this because otherwise it is no longer a tax exempt activity.
Please do not post entire articles. The forum rules permit a short quotation, but we do not repost copyrighted material on this board. Do not do this again, thanks.
I think the NFL and the NBA should kick in. College Football and basketball serve as a minor league for them. They make out and it is free for them. Baseball actually has a minor league system which they pay for.
I know this is the Pit, but… CITE?
Your remark is extraordinarily prejudiced and shows a complete unfamiliarity with the number and quality of collegiate athletes- and it is not made any more forgivable by its prevalence.
You can look for data here:
http://www.ncaa.org/grad_rates/
I could not find the data that breaks it down by sport, however. The LA Times had a great March Madness Bracket where they gave the victory to the school with the best basketball team graduation rate. The rates published were pathetic beyond belief.
When you count all athletes, it does not look too bad. When you look at Football and Basketball, however, the graduation rates vs. the campus as a whole are horrible. Those are NOT student-athletes.
http://www.docuticker.com/?p=19828
.pdf available at the link
Really?
2006 graduation rates for the SEC football teams:
Alabama 44%
Arkansas 55%
Auburn 63%
Florida 80%
Georgia 41%
Kentucky 55%
LSU 49%
Mississippi 58%
Mississippi St. 57%
South Carolina 64%
Tennessee 58%
Vanderbilt 92%
And for the Pac-10:
Stanford 94%
Washington 66%
Oregon State 60%
Oregon 59%
UCLA 59%
Washington State 57%
Arizona State 56%
USC 55%
Cal 44%
Arizona 39%
Shame on me for basing my opinions on things like statistics, I suppose. What was I thinking?