NCAAbbs

This article appeared in the print edition of the Johnson City Press this morning.

http://sports.yahoo.com/top/news?slug=ap...&type=lgns

Which further refutes our current athletic philosophy. When will our administration get it?

The Press is actually picking up on something I reported in Tricitiessports awhile back.

After the Bucs were No. 17 in 1991, first-time freshmen applications rose to a then all-time high of more than 3,800.

Similarly, when the Bucs did well or improved, so did the applications. The mark of applications following the No. 17 ranking wasn't met again until 12 years later- when ETSU returned to the NCAAs.

If that wasn't enough, when the football team was dropped, applications went down approximately 1/8 from the year before.

I don't have the number in front of me, but the bottom line is the No. 17 Bucs team spiked applications percentage wise as much as the Pharmacy School did.

By the way, you won't find that online. It took me forever to convince Ron Bliss that story was newsworthy and he used it as a throwaway piece in the print edition.

But Pitt, ETSU enrollment is at an all-time high!

So are applications. And that is because of the Pharmacy school.

However, if, let's say, ETSU were to win the National Championship next year, the boost would be even higher than what the pharmacy school gave them.

For the record, ETSU accepts roughly 80% of their freshmen applicants.

The lottery scholarship also is helping, which BEGS this question to be asked, of the lottery scholarship students at ETSU, how many are A: actually keeping their scholarship and B: not flunking out of school?
I would also like to see the demographics on the students enrolled at ETSU right now, how many non-traditional/part-time students are there versus tradition, 18-24 FULL TIME STUDENTS. And by full time I mean atleast 12 hours. And to further this, and Pitt since you've been on the right track with your posts lately (I'm bragging on your ass so don't SCREW IT UP), how has our minority enrollment gone since the demise of the football program, and by minorities I mean American citizens who are minorities, as well as out of state students (not from southwest Virginia). Bucdoctor you could probably definitely help with this, I think these are all topics worth discussing because it affects the image of our university and the area as a whole.

I went to ETSU's website to see if I can find enrollment figures. Check out this link for ETSU campus life.

http://etsu.edu/facts/life.asp

Can't ETSU do better? So I think I will go to another website. How about this one?

http://www.collegefortn.org/campustour/u...sity5.html

Look at the mailing address for athletics toward the bottom. I recognize that this is the site's mistake but don't you think someone should correct this. Maybe I am being too harsh but I googled "etsu student average age" and this was like the 3rd or 4th entry.

I also found a site (petersons.com) that states that 2,320 applied for ETSU and 2,261 were accepted. Based on other figures, this appears to be for fall of 2006.

I couldn't find hard and fast figures but I hear minority enrollment is down and the average age of the student is way up.

The thing is, on the ETSU site a lot of it is just junk.

100% of our teams participated in community outreach programs!

Well, the thing is that's not unusual. College athletes giving back- even HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETES giving back- is not unusual.

I'm not saying it's not a nice thing to do. But again, it's like when I mentioned how "ETSU administration helps Elizabethton woman build a house!" struck me more as "Aren't we winning the right way? Aren't we good people?" than anything else.

I would have led with the championships won and then the grad rates, which are unique to the school.

does saying "our enrollment is at an all-time high" actually mean something? Are their peers losing enrollment?

No it doesn't mean anything, it means that more and more people are going to college, older people are going BACK to college, and ETSU is very affordable. It's been posted before, but I'd love some statistical analysis of peer institutions, both based on enrollment within the southeast region, as well as within our conference on cumulative GPA, minority enrollments, etc... I would be willing to bet that it shows ETSU is lagging WAAAY behind in all categories compared to peer institutions (UT-C, UT-M, MTSU, App, Marshall, etc...) as well as behind up against schools within the Atlantic Sun. This sounds like crazy notions, but to me these are things that are affected by the lack of football. The best and the brightest go where the money is, and the fact is state funds don't cover what it takes for a state university to properly function. It takes private giving, and private giving just doesn't happen without a football program to showcase the university off.

It would be interesting to know how Davidson's run in the NCAA tournament will impact interest in prospective students. Davidson may not want to grow significantly but it would seem that they would at least be able to be more selective in their admissions if they have a larger pool of students to choose from which should lend itself to elevating the level of education at Davidson.

I wanted to correct something that I wrote in a post above. I read something on ETSU's website the other day and it states that the % of minority enrollment is now slightly higher than 2003 when football was here. It also stated that average age was about the same.

I saw somewhere the other day that tuition at Davidson was $41,000.
I think that will do enough to gate a substantial growth in enrollment!

http://www.sportsline.com/collegebasketb...y/10740446