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Norrine Bailey Spencer, director of Undergraduate Admissions, said she feels as though the storied athletic program at Tech has helped to give the university exposure.
"Certainly increased national attention through the media has brought awareness to our institution from many fronts," Spencer said. "We are grateful for that and happy to talk to students about the academics needed to become a part of this amazing spirit."
Pope also described college athletics as an "arms race," in which universities are constantly devoting more money to athletics to stay competitive with one another. Because of this, Pope stressed that his research is not an indicator of how good an investment athletics are for universities.
"This study identifies the short-run benefits of athletics for colleges and universities," Pope said. "It does not address whether putting more money into sports programs is really the best use of resources."
Though Pope did not specifically study the effects of Tech's recent basketball success or its appearance in the 1999 Sugar Bowl, the college football national championship, he noted that he would expect them to fit his research.
Referred to as the "Vick Effect" by several of his colleagues, Pope noted that the teams second-place finish would have corresponded with a 6 percent or 7 percent application increase.
Pope's research shows that after the initial application boom, the numbers will gradually stabilize after two to three years, though they may never return completely to their original averages.
At George Mason, Walsch notes that his university could still be feeling the effects of its positive publicity.
"It hasn't continued at the level that we first experienced, in the first six to nine months after the Final Four, but the increase was fairly stable and has held," Walsch said. "One of our challenges after the Final Four was over was to figure out what we could do to maintain the intense interest in the university."
Possibly the biggest challenge for schools experiencing the increase in interest in their programs is keeping themselves in the limelight.
Walsch noted that their attempts to remain appealing to incoming freshman have been difficult, but not pressure inducing.
"We knew it would subside a bit, but we wanted to do our best to maintain it," Walsch said.
"In terms of the overall institution, we've always tried to be better this year than we were last year, and that will continue forever."
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CORRECTION: Norrine Bailey Spencer is a 'she' and is also a 'Dr.'
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Did the researchers interview any of the applicants and ask them if the athletic performance of the college was instrumental in their application to that school? Also, did they factor in the increased numbers of students applying to college in the last 10 years? I did see a similar increase in applications to Syracuse University when the Dome was buit and SU became a Big East basketball school. Prior to that it was an expensive school with a medium/low SAT and GPA applicant pool. Succssful atheltics is a good marketing tool.
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Do you want people to apply to a school because of a strong academic environment or because some thugs can win a football game? The students applying due to athletics are applying for the wrong reasons. These are the students in their third year of college that do not have a major. Why are you in college in first place? If you don't even know why, then why waste your (parents) money?
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