I wonder if that waiver might one day apply to my out-of-Ohio granddaughter?

OSU always had an edge in attracting the 700+ SAT score kids with its graduate reputation. Their freshman class size is only 7,000 when Ohio's is 4,500 yet Ohio State's overall undergrad is 45,000 students compared to 17,000 at Ohio. They can get away with this because they are located in the center of the state with branch campuses about 45 minutes out. Ohio isn't going to be able to convince a student from Cleveland to attend a branch campus in Southeast Ohio for a year to get in. Secondly, where OSU has a research mission to serve the state and can restrict its admission to the brightest, Ohio reserves 25% of its enrollment for the best and brightest of SE Ohio. Beyond the Appalachian scholars its mostly lower ACT/SAT score students. In the rich Ohio suburbs Ohio runs about even with Miami as far as admissions. Third, the lower selectivity makes Ohio less of a magnet for out-of-state students. OSU has used its traditional edge in attracting 700+ SAT score kids to improve its USNWR ratings which had a snowball affect for them in upping admissions. The question is can Ohio do anything about it? The communications school is already one of the top in the country. The other schools are solid but don't have the dollars to reach elite status. To be specific the state has put the handcuffs on research areas and PhD programs. Overall the academics are very good though.

From a recruitment perspective Ohio is a very competitive state. What the school needs to do is target areas of the south where there aren't many quality universities. Tennessee is an example. UT is not that great and the other public universities have no reputation. Georgia is another state like that. Those students are locked out of UNC or UVA by all the NJ/NY kids that go there out of state. Ohio looks better on the resume and at worst its going to be confused with Ohio State. Its normally assumed that schools within a state that carry the state name are in the same quality tier with the higher rated school more reputable in research. California is a great example with UC schools and then there is Cal Poly which isn't on the same level as UC Berkley or CalTech but feels high end by having that Cal name on there. Ohio, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts etc. all have some of that effect. Virginia now has it in VT, VCU, UVA, VMI with classy names for the others. OU not a member in the Big Ten is a plus for student recruitment in the south where its SEC country.

OUPride this was a good discussion because we didn't know how large the gap in merit based aid is between OU and OSU and the need based scholarship strategy that OU is going with. The question is does the school want to commit $40 or $50 million a year to go head on with Ohio State with merit scholarships or would it be better to go into the South and offer more need based scholarships? With Ohio already playing a big role the state as the major employer in SEO, medical college and distance learning what does the school have to lose by bumping the non-Ohio residents on the Athens campus up to 40%? That is 900 more a freshman class, about 3200 more in 4 years and 8% more OOS against an 40,000 student system enrollment. Set a minimum target of 10% of the freshman class from the different quadrants in Ohio. Its good for the state to pull in more OOS because it raises the enrollment bar across the state and OU is one of the few schools capable of attracting a high number of OOS. It would reduce the party school feel of the University without tons of kids from Ohio suburbs. Less OSU fans on campus.

To add some history to the discussion I can remember when Robert Glidden toward the end of his tenure made some comments that Ohio's tuition if it were raised the value of the school would thought to be worth more. He also said that to be considered at top public university you should have at least 25% of your entering class in the Top 10% of their high school class. Clearly he favored moving Ohio toward the Miami strategy of becoming aggressive with merit aid. Need-based aid criteria is set by the US Department of Education. Money is from Federal matching dollars. Core merit based grants I'm guessing also work this way. OSU is doing well in signing up students that qualify for both need and merit.

Institutional funds can be used after that point and The Promise campaign has raised millions to support the OHIO Signature Awards. Students admitted to the Honor's Tutorial College receive a full ride and 4 year renewable scholarships begin for other students as low as 22 on the ACT for out-of-state students (up to $7,000 per year). That is the award gap the school wanted to fill to be super competitive. Almost every admitted student is able to get some scholarship relief. The 4 year tuition guarantee in place at Ohio. To get back to Miami's pricing model of charging $10,000 more than Ohio for OOS students to then give them a $15,000 discount is like new car pricing. With cars once the base price goes above $30,000 dollars most people will automatically dismiss it as too much. Ohio instead grew enrollment to maximize state matching dollars per FTE for core operations so it could keep tuition down. Part of the FTE game is transfer students which OU has opened up more to. Pricing at Ohio is going to be plenty competitive. They need to put a lot of money into the marketing side to increase the number of students from outside Ohio. Back in the 70's it was one tution in-state or OOS which is why so many students from NY & NJ came out to school in Ohio so that new OOS scholarship will help.

https://www.ohio.edu/admissions/signature /

Their freshman classes are around 7,000 and their total undergrad enrollment is 44,000 in Columbus. Assuming an average of 5 years to graduate, that would put their transfer enrollment (which would include kids from other 4 year universities including out of state) at around 20% of the Columbus campus.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, Ohio actually has the largest branch campus network in the state with 8 campuses enrolling 13,000 undergrads. That's 36% of the university's total undergraduate population. At OSU, it's four campuses enrolling only 8K students or 12% of their total. Also as I discovered, transfer requirements are somewhat easier at Ohio than OSU. The branch campus argument doesn't hold water in trying to pretend there is no difference.

Frankly, I don't think there is anything wrong with OSU or Ohio sending kids to a branch campus. These are still public universities, and if there is a method to give a kid a second chance to prove himself, I'm all for it until I see data that these transfers aren't graduating at a level at or near those who came in as freshman. Hell, all of the University of California campuses (including Berkeley and UCLA) take thousands of transfer students from the California community colleges every year. Nobody is saying that devalues the education there.

As much as I hate everything about OSU I do have to give props to Urban Meyer for being generous with Coach Solich and allowing the Bobcat coaches to make multiple trips to Cbus to gather tips and best practices from the Buckeyes.

Well to play revisionist history, imagine how strong Ohio public higher education would be today if the state legislature hadn't declared a fledgling college in Columbus the state flagship and given nearly 100% of their support to Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical in 1906. While I'll agree that OHIO and Miami could have done things differently in the late 60's, there were also considerable socio-economic issues going on, as well as a war, I believe. I would be willing to bet Vern and Miami's President were both scrambling to maximize their long term viability in the face of turmoil, and while having all those restrictions being removed for the first time in 60 years. And if you were getting screwed for that long, how conciliatory would any President of a public university have been? I can't be too hard on them considering decades of discrimination. If if's and but's...

I was second floor Biddle back in '96-97 and hope that place is still kickin' as a dorm. They haven't turned it into a coffe house or anything have they?

I agree, Freshman year in the dorm and East Green in general was one of the best years of my life.

I don't know of any states that split the A and M. States either adopted a singular flagship model where the A&M was combined with the classical Arts & Sciences university: California, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Ohio. Or, they split those two functions: Indiana, Michigan, Texas. Which states have two Morrill Land Grant Schools with one having the ag and the other having the engineering?

I'm surprised that Miami came that close. I always thought that there was a lot of animosity towards Miami due to its rather prominent role as a finishing school for Southerners in the decade before the war.* In any event, I know that both Ohio and Miami were severely hindered by their links to the Presbyterian and Methodist churches, which were seen as having too much control over the schools' governance and curriculum.

*Miami more concerned with being a finishing school for affluent out of state students than with providing Ohio with a proper state university. Funny how institutional culture and priorities carry on for generations.

Bump . . . so someone can answer my extra credit question and earn undying fame on BA. ;-)