I hate to break it to you but admissions are slowly inching up. IMO that sweet spot is 3.7 GPA and 26.5 ACT with a respected STEM component. That still provides for a chunk of students with potential but lower boards.
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What you are stating here about admissions is precisely what I said when I first posted in this thread a couple pages back.
OUPride stated Ohio University had a "lost decade" under McDavis which is complete nonsense. Our total applications for the Athens campus continuously increased while our admission standards slowly rose during that time-frame.
Attracting a record number of applicants year over year while slowly raising admission standards is exactly the approach OU needed during a demographic bubble. It capitalizes on the demographics of today without sacrificing the long-term core student-base that Ohio has successfully attracted for decades.
And that's fine. We just have to agree to disagree on our respective visions for what Ohio should be and where in the state of Ohio hierarchy it will fall.
But you do have to understand that your vision of a college that's one step above open admissions will have repercussions in other areas: rankings obviously but also faculty recruitment (and the subsequent ability to attract high end research funding), the ability to attract 30+ ACT kids away from OSU, Miami and UC, the breadth of companies and other organizations willing to come to Ohio to recruit and the university's reputation around the state.
As I said earlier, I think that's a realistic target that maintains a good reputation and a spot among the top 4 universities in the state system. Unfortunately, demographics are no longer going to be as favorable as they were the last decade to make those improvements in the coming years, which is why Ohio needs to get creative if they're going to increase their profle.
OTOH, Nellis says he doesn't plan on increasing admissions standards, so who knows where Ohio is heading. I'll be interested to see what comes from these public forums.
I could not be less concerned about Ohio's ability to attract the same kind of kids it has attracted for decades and decades.
It's very simple for me: Ohio University is the complete "college experience." The way your talking, you'd think Ohio has completely abandoned all our academic standards. That just isn't the case. Our standards have slowly risen while applications have boomed.
Many other schools are going to struggle as online classes cut into the value of attending a 4-year University.
OU isn't immune to that entirely, but we could not be better positioned to fight that. Ohio Unviersity can offer "more" than just classes. They can offer college.
I'm simply not afraid that talented students from the region are going to lose interest in living in Athens for 4 years.
[QUOTE]OSU sent 600 kids to their branch campuses last year that are 26+. That might be a good place to start.