Originally Posted by 301Lowes
Ferd just touched on something that the admin surely knows: UD is in trouble not just with athletics. If you've sent a kid off to college in the last few years, you know what a fustercluck the whole admissions process is, and not just because of Covid. The top students in this country have data available to them so that they know who the top 20 schools are for the discipline they want to study. And the ease of applying to schools is so easy now, that it's not uncommon for a kid to apply to 20+ schools. In our time, we had little data available to us so if you were from Ohio or went to a Catholic HS in the midwest, Dayton was known and a good choice. You applied to maybe 3 regional schools and that was it. Many of you were probably top students in your day. You went to UD and thought little of it. Today? UD isn't even getting applications from those students or if you are from OH it's your ultra safety(yes, an uncomfortable truth). Our kid applied to 10 schools, including UD only as a courtesy to their parents. UD ended up being the cheapest option at the end of the day due to all the money UD threw at them(even cheaper than in-state schools). But they were never going to UD. UD was only on the list for them because Dad was an alumnus. This is a reality for UD and will only get worse in the future. The implications of this are many and not positive for UD. What's happening on the sports front is also happening on the academic front.
|
I would generally agree with your assessment, but I don't think UD is competing with the top 20 schools in any discipline - or necessarily wants to. they are aiming at that next level student that has upside potential and can't get into one of those "top 20" schools. UD typically checks all of the boxes as a "super regional" Masters Level school. The game changer IMHO is to legitimately have a $1Billion+ endowment and to legitimately be considered a national research institution. That type of success breeds more success and lets you compete with the big dogs. If you watch/listen closely to UD's marketing, they hint/skirt around those topics. Also, make no mistake, being in the BE would pay dividends towards those goals.
