Does the fact that Louisville only has a 4 year graduation rate of 22% hurt its chances?

[Rumrunner]

Or that its 6 year graduation rate is only 51%?

Or that it is a commuter college?

Or that its acceptance rate is 75%

Or that according to US News (after Texas Tech), it is the lowest rated BCS school in America?

 

[Dooley]

I sure hope so but probably not. I wonder if the ACC is discussing whether or not now is the time to go to 16 and invite both UL and UConn. UL would appease the football schools with low academics (FSU, Miami) and UConn would appease the academics/basketball/money schools (almost everyone else). Then they can work on ND joining for football in the upcoming years.

 

[Vuce]

Good points RR. Obviously sports fans dont pay any attention to that and really don't care. At the presidential level I think that they really care about that. And in that view - Uconn's profile has never been higher. Swofford made a comment about their committment to top quality academics and athletics.....and he mentioned academics first. There is no comparison at all if academics are a decent part of this equation.

 

[upstater]

Or that its 6 year graduation rate is only 51%?

Or that it is a commuter college?

Or that its acceptance rate is 75%

Or that according to US News (after Texas Tech), it is the lowest rated BCS school in America?

One thing: the Presidents are not looking at USNews.

They are looking at the Carnegie Classifications. UConn is R1. Louisville is third tier.

By the way, Carnegie recently criticized USNews for patterning its third tier after the classifications. USNews actually admited this is what they were doing. Carnegie said, you don't get it. Our tiers are not academic measurements. They are genre or category specific (i.e. different tiers for different missions). USNews sticks to them though, for some reason.

In other words, if the AC presidents are going to look at academics at all, they will look at the Research rankings, the Carnegie classifications, and make their decisions accordingly.

 

[Rumrunner]

Swofford when Notre Dame joined used the number of schools in the top 50 of US News.



Swofford called it a “truly historic moment for the Atlantic Coast Conference.” He noted that 11 ACC schools are in the top 58 of U.S. News and World Report survey of


http://blogs.roanoke.com/andybitter...re-details-about-notre-dames-move-to-the-acc/


I know that you academics like to go beyond a magazine ranking, but the general public (perception) is more lazy. To presidents and admissuon offices, perception is king.

 

[upstater]

Swofford when Notre Dame joined used the number of schools in the top 50 of US News.



Swofford called it a “truly historic moment for the Atlantic Coast Conference.” He noted that 11 ACC schools are in the top 58 of U.S. News and World Report survey of


http://blogs.roanoke.com/andybitter...re-details-about-notre-dames-move-to-the-acc/


I know that you academics like to go beyond a magazine ranking, but the general public (perception) is more lazy. To presidents and admissuon offices, perception is king.

Perception matters when you're talking to the press. Because you're not going to get into complex ranking systems. But if you really think academics matter, then you'll ignore USNWR. Why? Because it's flighty, and the longterm benchmarks are more stable. In USNWR, you have crazy vagaries with schools falling 20 spots and others like Reed College falling into low tiers that makes everyone wonder, WTF is that all about? There is no guarantee that some of these schools will not drop precipitously in the USNWR rankings as others have in the past.

 

[UConnRock]

Conference re-alignment and football money/perception will have genuinely "jumped the shark" if the ACC drops all academic chest thumping that we have heard since to original BE raid to choose Louisville over UConn. We heard it from BC, Miami in the original move and it was repeated from
Syracuse and Pitt. We all know the theme. It isn't just the money, but we will be associated with school of similar academic goals and achievements. We heard it even more strongly when the BE added more commuter schools like Houston, UCF, and Memphis that are at the Louisville level in terms of US News rankings.

The ACC in order of US News rankings : 5 privite schools with varying levels of prestige (Duke, Wake, BC, Miami and Syracuse) and 8 public schools (UVA, UNC, GT, Pitt, Clemson, Va. Tech, FSU, NC State). The lowest ranked school is NC State at 106. UConn is at 63 which puts the school between Pitt at 58 and Clemson at 68. Lousiville is at 160.

After the UNC academic scandal you would think that the ACC presidents would be very cautious about the academic perception of the league. Hell, I am willing to bet my house that a large number of the players on the Loiusville roster would not even be admitted to UConn or the majority of the ACC schools.

 

[Rumrunner]

UConn guys are out on twitter tweeting this far and wide. Even the fakecoachp is getting into the act. If you're on twitter, retweet away.Let's be like locust and spread the word.

 

[upstater]

Conference re-alignment and football money/perception will have genuinely "jumped the shark" if the ACC drops all academic chest thumping that we have heard since to original BE raid to choose Louisville over UConn. We heard it from BC, Miami in the original move and it was repeated from
Syracuse and Pitt. We all know the theme. It isn't just the money, but we will be associated with school of similar academic goals and achievements. We heard it even more strongly when the BE added more commuter schools like Houston, UCF, and Memphis that are at the Louisville level in terms of US News rankings.

The ACC in order of US News rankings : 5 privite schools with varying levels of prestige (Duke, Wake, BC, Miami and Syracuse) and 8 public schools (UVA, UNC, GT, Pitt, Clemson, Va. Tech, FSU, NC State). The lowest ranked school is NC State at 106. UConn is at 63 which puts the school between Pitt at 58 and Clemson at 68. Lousiville is at 160.

After the UNC academic scandal you would think that the ACC presidents would be very cautious about the academic perception of the league. Hell, I am willing to bet my house that a large number of the players on the Loiusville roster would not even be admitted to UConn or the majority of the ACC schools.

Surprised that NC State is ranked that far below Clemson. Give me a diploma from NCSU any day over one from Clemson!

 

[CL82]

After the UNC academic scandal you would think that the ACC presidents would be very cautious about the academic perception of the league.

So would they be hesitant about a school currently prohibited from post season play due to the APR?

Look you know and I know that that metric is deeply flawed. You know and I know that the NCAA had to cook to the books to make us not meet that flawed standard. But, if someone wanted an excuse not gloss over the academic superiority of UConn compared to another school, there it is. In a closed room with people looking for concensus, a dedicated opponent could use a few sketchy 'facts' and group think to exclude us. That is exactly what happened to us the last expansion go round and I am worried that we are still vulnerable to it.

 

[CL82]

Upstater, with our R1 ranking why haven't we been offered AAU membership? I've heard that Yale has gone all BCU on us (turf exclusion) but I don't know enough about the organization and how it works to know if that is accurate.

 

[Rumrunner]

UNC academic problems actually help in this regard.

UNC is going to swing to the other side of the academic pendulum now, and tighten considerably its standards. They're quoted as saying it will be newsorthy of the academic consteaints imposed on s-a.

No way in hell do they want a louisville academic school in.

As much as men's bb at uconn is maligned, every other sport, including football excels t the apr (which is a false measurement in any case)

But louisville's student body and quality of instruction and research are light years behind acc schools.

 

[upstater]

Upstater, with our R1 ranking why haven't we been offered AAU membership? I've heard that Yale has gone all BCU on us (turf exclusion) but I don't know enough about the organization and how it works to know if that is accurate.

I should think Yale doesn't care at all about exclusionary turf. BU was just added, Harvard didn't blink.

UConn's research budget is about half that of the lowest ranked AAU members, who are themselves currently being threatened with expulsion (even though the AAU seems to be back in the business of adding schools).

In other words, UConn needs to up its game in terms of research. That being said, it is ahead of Nebraska and Syracuse!

 

[upstater]

6 year rate for Louisville jumps 50%. That's a good sign. The stats show it's a low-supported state school with students who work for a living. Thus, classes toward graduation aren't offered as often (because of the low support) and the students have time constraints (because of work).

 

[junglehusky]

I should think Yale doesn't care at all about exclusionary turf. BU was just added, Harvard didn't blink.

UConn's research budget is about half that of the lowest ranked AAU members, who are themselves currently being threatened with expulsion (even though the AAU seems to be back in the business of adding schools).

In other words, UConn needs to up its game in terms of research. That being said, it is ahead of Nebraska and Syracuse!

Well UConn and everybody else are hoping sequestration doesn't happen, that would kill everybody's research grants. Harvard and Stanford might come out ahead relative to everybody else, but every department is going to suffer. No idea what happens to AAU membership then...

 

[Rumrunner]

Every public school has a large jump from 4 year to 6 year. Function of mission of state supported schools, even cal's, uva's and wisc's of the world.

But 50% is a only a 28% improvement. Of course you're going to see a larger improvement going from 4 to 6 when you have such a wide ocean in front of you. And in the end, 50% puts you way way down the list as compared to ACC schools.

By any metric, Louisville would be an outlier.

 

[Rumrunner]

Link to Louisville's 2011-2012 Common Data Set showing its horrible 22% graduation rate.


http://louisville.edu/institutionalresearch/institutional-research-planning/common-data-set.html

Yet another stat that jumps out at me is that only 20% of undergrads live on campus or campus-affiliated housing. Louisville is basically a commuter college.

Now I'm not knocking Louisville. Not all colleges have to be selective and live in dormitories. But there is no getting around that among every BCS university today, Louisville is dead last in an awful lot of criteria. It is the definition of an academic outlier.

 

[MattMang23]

Link to Louisville's 2011-2012 Common Data Set showing its horrible 22% graduation rate.


http://louisville.edu/institutionalresearch/institutional-research-planning/common-data-set.html

Yet another stat that jumps out at me is that only 20% of undergrads live on campus or campus-affiliated housing. Louisville is basically a commuter college.

Now I'm not knocking Louisville. Not all colleges have to be selective and live in dormitories. But there is no getting around that among every BCS university today, Louisville is dead last in an awful lot of criteria. It is the definition of an academic outlier.

It is Boise State with a bigger fan base and success in a greater number of sports.