You from Hilliard?  If so...same here!

It depends who is writing the check.  I went where I wanted because I was paying for it.  It wasn't a family dispute because we all knew how great Athens was. 

Am I the only one that believes Ohio University is not the only college in America that has students drinking?  Those that think Athens is the only city with college students partying must live in a cave.  You cannot seriously say that shot glasses and party school rankings affect applications for enrollment.

shot glasses with OHIO's logo are sold under the label "toothpick holder" mind you

Here are a few things that actually affect enrollment:


$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

The inflationary increases for higher education have been 200%-300% higher than normal inflation.  Wages have not increased (except for government jobs) much, if any, over the past decade.  College education investments have lost money over the past decade if they had any noticeable percentage of the assets in equities.  So, folks have less real income, lower savings than anticipated for college, higher debt and fears about affording retirement in the near future.  Plus, college costs have spiraled out of control.  I don't think kids are choosing other schools over OU.  They are choosing less expensive alternatives for all traditional four-year residential schools.  I hear these fears everyday from my clients.  It does not matter which college is the ultimate recipient of the tuition payments. 

College applications were up almost universally across Ohio's public universities this year; ours were down.

BGSU, Cincinnati and OSU, as just three examples, had record or near-record freshman enrollment this year.  Our class was slightly smaller than last year.

Probably not measureable but I wonder how much UCinci's football success last year helped their volume of applications.

It could be that markedly winning football and hoop teams would be of benefit to The University reputation and application-wise.  From this thought, the crazy arguing on this board...but it will no doubt continue.

Yes, overall numbers are good, but the argument here is whether students are choosing other schools over OU. Then a secondary argument was that residential schools are more impacted by economic conditions.

Our applications were down this year; most other schools were up significantly.  BG's freshman class size was up, oiurs was down.




 

BG from what I was told had a terrible freshman classs the year before so they really stepped up the recruiting heavily the past year to get students in the door. I had a personal conversation with an admissions officer 2 years ago and he said that OU had maxed out its dorm capacity for the upcoming year while both BG and Miami were 500 students short of projections. Miami's issue was cost while BG with it being basically open admission was interest. BG was going to be in big trouble budget wise this year if it did not go out and sign a large class. I would look at OU's numbers to be stable on freshman admissions and applications (even if down slightly) and growing in non-traditional students which is what the state is expecting out of OU. As far as total number of applications Miami is probably the best bell weather for OU's numbers and they are about at 17,000 with a lot more out-of-state applications. The ACT/SAT scores at Miami are down from where they were 5 years ago and they are targeting a smaller freshman class. The only significant trend I see is that students are choosing Ohio State over Miami. That would have never happened 20 years ago. Another change is that Kent State has taken over OSU's role as the state safety school and they admitted a freshman class of 6,674. They have really tipped the scales in their favor away from Bowling Green in Northeast Ohio. 

The biggest draws for Ohio are campus and programs. What does UC have but convenient location for a Cincinnati resident? At a school like UC a strong athletic program can be a rally point for the community. The University of Toledo has done this too at times when they great football and basketball. I don't think it would make that much of a difference in Athens as most of the admits don't come from Athens County. Ohio has to get back on the cutting edge with its programs. Some of the framework has been layed for modern multidisciplinary PhD programs in contemporary policy areas. The liberal arts graduate student of today wants to live in community with fellow students and travel using a low carbon footprint vehicle (bike). There is opportunity in Athens county for a collective farm run by graduate students giving back by selling at low cost local food products. The University of Kentucky has a model; I would prefer to set it up as an off campus graduate dorm of 200 students set on acreage in the Plains readily accessible to residents in need. The grad students would not be restricted as part of the program to sustainability majors, they would have full access to university offerings. It gets them away from the daily stupidity on the Athens campus and with unique recognition stir general interest in graduate work at Ohio University.

http://www.ca.uky.edu/SustainableAgCurriculum/csahome.html

I thought they was doing this for fundraiser? (at least the one i went to was for a softball team. You can not hold them to the highest level as if it was their only business. I am willing to give a little more time to people giveing their time to raise money than say a person getting paid for their own gain.

Sounds like a great experience. You had the foresight to take advantage of an up and coming program. Unfortunately these days I see it coming more and more down to money. The development of Ohio State shows this. The first stage was to pass a bill limiting all PhD programs in the state to OSU in the early part of the century. That allowed OSU to move into the Big Ten and build its research. The next stage was OSU using its open enrollment and great size to its advantage. The only public school in the large Columbus market without admission standards ballooned with a huge budget. Then OSU starting in the late 80's translated that size advantage into a money advantage allowing to buy highly ranked high school students for itself. OU on a smaller scale has done the same thing. The state gave the university a medical college cementing its place in the sciences. Then the school used its greater size to provide a greater breadth of choices and experiences then smaller private colleges. Finally the school is raising big dollars for scholarships to go out and buy more students. That is an advantage that schools like Kent State can't afford to do right now but with the OSU model of huge freshman classes now in work there are they a threat to pass us 20 years down the road? Not if Ohio can stay ahead of the game with its programs while using its remote, natural location to its advantage and not its detriment.