March 30, 2008

Amid Basketball Euphoria, Davidson's Admissions Officials Fret About Yield

Christopher Gruber, Davidson College’s vice president for admissions and financial aid, spent the weekend worrying. Interviewed Saturday by NPR—after Davidson’s 73-to-56 romp over Wisconsin, but before Sunday afternoon’s 59-to-57 loss to top-seeded Kansas—Mr. Gruber was trying to guess how the sudden flood of basketball-generated publicity would affect the 1,700-student college’s all-important yield figure.

For those who may know more about basketball statistics than admissions equations, yield is the proportion of high-school seniors who, having been offered admission to a college, go ahead and accept the offer. Even the most savvy admissions professionals can see yield fluctuate from year to year. If yield is too low, an institution may need to accept students off its waiting list—assuming it’s fortunate enough to have a waiting list. But if yield is too high, the college can end up converting double rooms to triples, or putting students up in motels.

Mr. Gruber said the Wildcats’ basketball success was already bringing Davidson unsolicited applications, some from students eager to join the team. “Right now,” he said, “instead of having an incoming class of 470, I think there’s great concern that we may have an incoming class of 570 or 670, which we would not have great ease in accommodating.” But since the college had already made its admissions offers, which were posted to a password-protected Web site last Thursday afternoon, there was not much Mr. Gruber could do but keep his fingers crossed.

Also interviewed was Robert Baker, director of sports management at George Mason University, which reached the Final Four in 2006. He said the university “conservatively” estimated the value of the related publicity at $677-million. —Lawrence Biemiller

Comments

1. The director of the George Mason sports-management center says that a Final Four appearance is worth $677-million, and the NPR interviewer lets it pass as if the guy were Barack Obama.

   According to a March 14 press release on the George Mason Web site, the number actually refers to a claimed “$677,474,659 in free media … earned by Mason during the 2006 NCAA Tournament ….” [Emphasis added.]

   It’s not hard to think of questions about a sports-management director’s personal stake in making this claim, the precise calculation that produced such a precise result, the real value and cost of the $677-million (assuming that number has any credibility), whether the GMU president would prefer — on purely financial grounds — a $677-million donation over a Final Four spot, etc. But nothing but giggles and guffaws at NPR.

   Well, anyway, basketball is trivial. I’m pretty sure that NPR and other sophisticated media outfits ask the right questions on the important matters of the day, helping our country to have the best-darn-educated voters on the planet! (Earth is still considered a planet, right?)

   — S. Britchky    Mar 31, 01:58 AM    #

2. Davidson will figure it out. Although only 6% of their students receive a Pell Grant, they have room to bring that to 0% by withholding institutional aid from those students who are Pell-eligible in their admit pool. They can low-ball everyone else, too, bringing them even more net tuition revenue without worrying about an overly large class.

   — J. Barton    Mar 31, 06:48 AM    #

3. Yield Concerns — What a great problem to have. That notwithstanding, it was fun to watch those Davidson young men during the tournament.

   — GT    Mar 31, 07:28 AM    #

4. The kinds of comments Barton makes are disturbing chiefly because they are so knee-jerk now, as well as simply uninformed, uneducated. Without going into the full range of the details on economics of the revenue streams of the small colleges like Davidson, and what they spend their money on, before you pop-off just take into account that Davidson just last year eliminated all student loans, for all students. And how did they do this? Their own money. They will simply forgo all of the net tuition revenue loans generated. This is miserly self-interest? This is “withholding aid?” Where in the world does that uninformed idea come from??? No. Dropping loans will have genuine economic consequences for the school, and for many of the other small liberal arts colleges which have also undertaken such initiatives (not all, but many). Unfortunately, at there mere mention of a school’s name now, re: any topic at all, and there has lately come to be a near-instantaneous cynical, bitter little pop-off along the lines of Barton’s “evil rich college, huge endowment, just interested in making it bigger at the expense of the common man.” Nothing could be less accurate. As if a school such as Davidson is just amassing its money rather than spending it on the educational program, which it is, even in the face of forgoing now a great deal of that supposedly over-abundant net tuition revenue. This really demonstrates a profound lack of knowledge about the economics of these schools. Recent Congressional idiocy, based on equally profound lack of knowledge, coupled with the usual half-baked, one-sided reporting we get so much of now, often even from knowledgeable sources (e.g., the Chronicle could really do a better job on this topic), and the general public’s seemingly endless growth of unwillingness to listen to anything that disagrees with the opinion they have already formed, combine to produce the knee-jerk uninformed popular opinion pop-off like Barton’s.

   — SeenItAllBefore    Mar 31, 08:57 AM    #

5. Yes, Mr. Gruber, one of the country’s most capable admissions officers, will figure it out. It is refreshing to see a school that emphasizes a strong academic tradition, a culture with a outstanding honor code, and a wonderful sense of community make it that far. Maybe next year – let’s hope so, as The Wildcats made the tournament such an interesting dance this year.

   — Ross in Pawleys    Mar 31, 09:02 AM    #

6. And people keep trying to argue that success in sports doesn’t help with recruiting students.

   — Al    Mar 31, 12:43 PM    #

7. The students who qualify for admission at Davidson are not predisposed to select their college based on a good showing a basketball tournament. I suspect their yield will be fine.

   — Bill    Mar 31, 01:25 PM    #

8. Success at anything can attract new students to a college or univeristiy but athletic success seems to have a more significant impact since is so well publicized. I would venture to guess that new and/or increased financial aid initiatives can have a most significant impact on attracting more applicants!

   — Timothy Gallineau    Mar 31, 01:46 PM    #

9. I disagree with Bill. In 2007, Davidson had 3,992 students apply, 1,127 accepted (28.2% acceptance rate), and 467 enrolled (41.4% yield rate). While there has been a little fluctuation in their freshman enrollment and yield rate, it has been impressively consistent (http://www3.davidson.edu/cms/x5052.xml).

   It is entirely conceivable that some students, who are fairly equally between Davidson or Furman or Grinnell, etc. could be easily swayed to Davidson for such an exciting aspect of campus life (especially since we are so close to that decision making time). When you are a student who can choose between highly selective liberal arts colleges, high profile events (both positive and negative) can have a significant impact.

   A 5% increase in their yield rate would mean an additional 55 students. That would have a HUGE effect on virtually every part of the institution.

   — ESJ    Mar 31, 02:52 PM    #

10. Don’t you all have papers to grade and lectures to prepare? Stop playing around on the Internet and get back to work THIS INSTANT.

    — B.B.Gunn    Mar 31, 04:16 PM    #

11. Other issues aside, which I am not qualified to speak to, not only did the Davidson players play exciting basketball, the players exhibited nothing but class and intelligence on the court and in interviews. The college’s decision to travel their student body to the game(s) was one of the finest form of sharing (sports) success and appreciation I have ever seen an institution offer their students. A true sharing of the wealth (with the students that created it) tournament success can bring. If they need a psych. prof., I’m there.

    — Ed Wilfong    Mar 31, 06:49 PM    #

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