Class of 2020 Acceptance Rate 77%

[Disco Hippie]

I've brought this issue up before and after reading this story, feel compelled to mention it again.  It's great that this year's incoming Freshman class is significantly higher than last year, but that fact that they had to admit 77% of all applicants to get there is very troubling.

http://marquettewire.org/3951973/tribune/tribune-news/applications-decreases-but-enrollment-is-higher-for-class-of-2020/

Am I the only one who feels this way?  I suspect this stat will have a very negative impact on MU's USNWR ranking which has gone down in each of the last 2 years and likely will again this year when the 2017 rankings are released in a couple of weeks due to 40+ schools jumping from Regional Universities to National Universities as a result of the revised Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Learning released earlier this year.  For the record, MU moved up this year from an R3 (Moderate Research Activity) to R2 (Higher Research Activity) among doctoral universities which is great, but with 40+ schools moving from the regional to national category this year (Villanova is one of them), I suspect that coupled with a 77% acceptance rate will cancel out the move up from R3 to R2.  It seems to me the administration just flat out doesn't care about or outright dismisses the negative consequences of having an acceptance rate that high.  Thoughts?

[Tugg Speedman]

All it means is MU has a very low yield (percentage of kids that are accepted that actually enroll).  How does MU get the yield up?  Simple, cut the price of tuition!  More specifically, they need a bigger endowment to offer more grants and scholarships to make the effective cost lower. (I've noted this before ... Harvard has a "list price" of $41k/year.  However 65% of the undergraduates get tuition breaks making the average tuition for them less than $12k.  So they are paying a little more than one-quarter the list price).

Otherwise, Milwaukee needs to raise its profile to make it a more desirable place ... think of why Georgetown is so popular.  I would argue a lot of it that DC is a "cool place" for millennials.  The problem is this summer's riots probably did the opposite for Milwaukee's desirability.

Question, how does MU's acceptance rate and yield compare to similar private urban universities around its ranking?  I'll bet it is "competitive."

(Note you have to compare it to its peers.  Bucky is a bad comparison because it is a state school and it is far cheaper to attend.  So it will naturally have a higher yield meaning a lower acceptance rate.  The size of the tuition bill is the dominate driver of the college choice for most families.)

[Tugg Speedman]

It seems to me the administration just flat out doesn't care about or outright dismisses the negative consequences of having an acceptance rate that high.  Thoughts?

This is wrong.  The administration cares a great deal. 

As a private university MU is huge (yuge!)

Biggest Private Colleges in the US By On-Campus Undergraduate Enrollment

Brigham Young University   30,409
New York University   21,646
Northeastern University   18,579
University of Southern California   17,112
Boston University   16,624
DePaul University   15,801

http://blog.prepscholar.com/the-biggest-colleges-in-the-united-states

-----------------

Did you know that Depaul was the 6th largest private university in the country?  MU is not that much behind them.

MU could cut the incoming class by a third and get the acceptance rate down, but they would have to cut everything else by a third due to the loss of revenue.

Acceptance rate is a very complicated number and I don't think any of your arguments in the first post explain why it is 77%.  It has more to do with the price of tuition, desirability of the location, desirability of the school and the size of the incoming class.

MU is a very large private university, Milwaukee is not a place that "sounds cool" to people outside of southeast Wisconsin, and it is far more expensive that the public school options.  These are the things holding it back.

[GGGG]

Oh here we go again.  The hand-wringing over statistics and the odd role they play in meaningless rankings.

[Tugg Speedman]

Here are the private universities of the Big East using this site

https://colleges.niche.com/

 
                                     Marquette       St. John       Nova       Depaul      Prov      Xavier    G-Town     S Hall
Total Applications           23,432          51.634      14,966      19,957     9,660    10,907   20,115     10,735

Total accepted                 13,462         27,449       7,319       11,948      5,776    7,632     3,413       8,498

Acceptance rate                57%              53%          49%           60%         60%      70%       17%        79%     

Yield                                 15%               10%          23%           20%         18%      17%       46%        16%

MU is #2 applications (behind St. Johns)

MU is fourth is acceptance rate (middle)

MU 7th in Yields  but 5th to 7th are a rounding error better than MU.

Compared to this group, I don't think MU is that bad.

You see different?  Is this the wrong crowd to measure against?

[Herman Cain]

I've brought this issue up before and after reading this story, feel compelled to mention it again.  It's great that this year's incoming Freshman class is significantly higher than last year, but that fact that they had to admit 77% of all applicants to get there is very troubling.

http://marquettewire.org/3951973/tribune/tribune-news/applications-decreases-but-enrollment-is-higher-for-class-of-2020/

Am I the only one who feels this way?  I suspect this stat will have a very negative impact on MU's USNWR ranking which has gone down in each of the last 2 years and likely will again this year when the 2017 rankings are released in a couple of weeks due to 40+ schools jumping from Regional Universities to National Universities as a result of the revised Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Learning released earlier this year.  For the record, MU moved up this year from an R3 (Moderate Research Activity) to R2 (Higher Research Activity) among doctoral universities which is great, but with 40+ schools moving from the regional to national category this year (Villanova is one of them), I suspect that coupled with a 77% acceptance rate will cancel out the move up from R3 to R2.  It seems to me the administration just flat out doesn't care about or outright dismisses the negative consequences of having an acceptance rate that high.  Thoughts?

MU needs to learn to play the ratings game better. It is actually stated as part of the strategic plan. So I think the Board of Trustees should start putting a bit of pressure on Dr. Lovell to take a more proactive posture.

One of the things that US News considers is high school counselor ratings of the school. I asked MU admissions many times to come to the very highly rated local public schools in our area, and they just seem to be asleep at the wheel.

The biggest problem we have is our endowment is not high enough. We need to be able to offer full ride scholarships , which will get the stats of accepted students up . Also unfortunately one of  the factors US News considers is faculty pay, and we need to be able to get that up as well.

If MU falls out of top 100, I think it is time to revisit the whole Dr. Lovell situation.

[GGGG]

One of the things that US News considers is high school counselor ratings of the school. I asked MU admissions many times to come to the very highly rated local public schools in our area, and they just seem to be asleep at the wheel.

Yes.  Let's send our administrators across the country to various public high schools.  Not because it would be fruitful in terms of attracting students, but because it would impact a survey that has NO MEANINGFUL IMPACT on the education that Marquette provides.

The biggest problem we have is our endowment is not high enough. We need to be able to offer full ride scholarships , which will get the stats of accepted students up . Also unfortunately one of  the factors US News considers is faculty pay, and we need to be able to get that up as well.

I would agree that Marquette needs to increase its endowment in support of both scholarships and faculty support.  (More endowed chairs, etc.)  Both will substantively impact the education Marquette provides at a reasonable cost.

[Herman Cain]

Yes.  Let's send our administrators across the country to various public high schools.  Not because it would be fruitful in terms of attracting students, but because it would impact a survey that has NO MEANINGFUL IMPACT on the education that Marquette provides.


I would agree that Marquette needs to increase its endowment in support of both scholarships and faculty support.  (More endowed chairs, etc.)  Both will substantively impact the education Marquette provides at a reasonable cost.

I agree the survey has no meaningful impact on education. Unfortunately, parents who pay the bills look at these things.  Life is competitive and we need to get our numbers to more accurately reflect the quality of our education.

[GGGG]

I agree the survey has no meaningful impact on education. Unfortunately, parents who pay the bills look at these things.  Life is competitive and we need to get our numbers to more accurately reflect the quality of our education.

Parents who base their decisions on where their kid goes to school on USN&WR rankings are morons.

[Disco Hippie]

One of the things that US News considers is high school counselor ratings of the school. I asked MU admissions many times to come to the very highly rated local public schools in our area, and they just seem to be asleep at the wheel.

Could not agree more with your above statement MU Fan in NY!  I too, am both originally from, and moved back to the NYC area after graduation where I've lived ever since.  With the exception of southeastern WI and the greater Chicago area, MU makes virtually no effort to recruit at public high schools. Only catholic schools and that's a huge mistake in my view, because they're always going to get students from Catholic schools to apply there.  Perhaps they just don't have the bandwidth or maybe they're afraid doing so will decrease the Catholic character of the institution.  I personally could give a crap about the latter but I understand that's a concern of the admin.  In any event, I received the accepted student list for this year's class of those who applied from southeastern CT and of 40 or so students all but 7 or so were from private Catholic high schools.  Interestingly, the 7 accepted students from public high schools all attended THE SAME public high school.  Why?  Because 1 student from that particular public high school matriculated at MU 5 years ago, had an incredibly positive experience so much so that 2 of this student's 3 younger siblings also ended up at MU, have told their friends and now you have 10+ people applying to MU from that high school every year due to positive world of mouth and also because it's now on that schools' guidance counselors' radar.  (Full disclosure I know a counselor there).   MU did not have a single accepted applicant from any other public high school in Fairfield County, CT (The NYC suburb part of the state).  Given MU's very high acceptance rate, I suspect that means they didn't have a single applicant, accepted or rejected, from any other public high school in southeastern CT.    Because 1 student and 2 of their younger siblings went to MU several years ago and all had a good experience, you now have 10+ students applying there every year.   I suspect that could easily be replicated if they made even a cursory effort to recruit at public schools.  All it takes is one!  Instead, they seem content with getting the 1 or 2 students they always do from the few catholic schools there.  It's a shame.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

Parents who base their decisions on where their kid goes to school on USN&WR rankings are morons.

Yes. But there are a lot of morons out there.

My hot take on the situation without little to no background knowledge is that the acceptance rate is likely higher because they tried to grow the class size in an effort to curb the cost of tuition.

[forgetful]

Parents who base their decisions on where their kid goes to school on USN&WR rankings are morons.

Two things.  The rankings are most definitely not meaningless (the 77% statistic is meaningless though); if they were it wouldn't be a priority for just about every administration in the country.  Won't go into all the details but here are a couple. 

1.  Like TAMU says, there are a lot of morons out there.  In fact, they make up the vast majority of the population.

2.  USNWR is important publicity.

If a University saw a drop in one year of 10-20 pts, heads would roll many would be fired. 

[forgetful]

The biggest problem we have is our endowment is not high enough. We need to be able to offer full ride scholarships , which will get the stats of accepted students up . Also unfortunately one of  the factors US News considers is faculty pay, and we need to be able to get that up as well.

If MU falls out of top 100, I think it is time to revisit the whole Dr. Lovell situation.

Endowment is a problem.  Faculty pay is not.  MU's faculty salaries are competitive with the top 100, so they are not dropping because of that. 

I'm not saying salaries aren't low for faculty (they are), they are just low almost everywhere.

As for dropping out of the top 100.  If it happens, Lovell will likely have a year to fix it, or he will be gone.

[GGGG]

Two things.  The rankings are most definitely not meaningless (the 77% statistic is meaningless though); if they were it wouldn't be a priority for just about every administration in the country.  Won't go into all the details but here are a couple. 

1.  Like TAMU says, there are a lot of morons out there.  In fact, they make up the vast majority of the population.

2.  USNWR is important publicity.

If a University saw a drop in one year of 10-20 pts, heads would roll many would be fired. 

That's the problem.  Too many people think it means something substantive, but it doesn't.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

That's the problem.  Too many people think it means something substantive, but it doesn't.

Unfortunately, we can't change that. We can't control the masses. We can only control how we react to them.

To be clear, I'm not saying going all in on USNWR. I'm just saying ignoring it could lead to negative (even if unfair) publicity.

[4everwarriors]

Parents who base their decisions on where their kid goes to school on USN&WR rankings are morons.

Spoken like an administrator stuck in da 80's. Kids have choices and universities, like it or not, are locked in a very competitive race for da best and the brightest. Eater a school can change as need be, or it will likely end up dyin' on da vine, ai na?

[GGGG]

Spoken like an administrator stuck in da 80's. Kids have choices and universities, like it or not, are locked in a very competitive race for da best and the brightest. Eater a school can change as need be, or it will likely end up dyin' on da vine, ai na?

I'm not stuck anywhere.  The school I work for does nothing proactively with regards to rankings.  And you know what has happened?  Record enrollment.  Graduation rates at our highest levels in over a generation.  Best fundraising years ever the last two years.  Believe me, there are plenty of alternatives to playing the rankings game.

Let's go back up to what Disco Hippie said above...  "I received the accepted student list for this year's class of those who applied from southeastern CT and of 40 or so students all but 7 or so were from private Catholic high schools.  Interestingly, the 7 accepted students from public high schools all attended THE SAME public high school.  Why?  Because 1 student from that particular public high school matriculated at MU 5 years ago, had an incredibly positive experience so much so that 2 of this student's 3 younger siblings also ended up at MU, have told their friends and now you have 10+ people applying to MU from that high school every year due to positive world of mouth and also because it's now on that schools' guidance counselors' radar."


BINGO!  This is it.  There is no more positive marketing exercise than giving your students the AUTHENTIC and positive experience they are expecting.  That is worth 100 times more than directing resources toward the ranking system FOR THE SAKE OF THE RANKINGS.

Put it this way.  Increase professor pay because it attracts better professors who can give your students a better educational experience.  Increase your endowment because you can be better able to compete for students that you want in your class.  If you do this type of stuff, and your ranking increases....great!  BUT DON'T DO IT FOR THE SAKE OF RANKINGS! 

[Herman Cain]

I'm not stuck anywhere.  The school I work for does nothing proactively with regards to rankings.  And you know what has happened?  Record enrollment.  Graduation rates at our highest levels in over a generation.  Best fundraising years ever the last two years.  Believe me, there are plenty of alternatives to playing the rankings game.

Let's go back up to what Disco Hippie said above...  "I received the accepted student list for this year's class of those who applied from southeastern CT and of 40 or so students all but 7 or so were from private Catholic high schools.  Interestingly, the 7 accepted students from public high schools all attended THE SAME public high school.  Why?  Because 1 student from that particular public high school matriculated at MU 5 years ago, had an incredibly positive experience so much so that 2 of this student's 3 younger siblings also ended up at MU, have told their friends and now you have 10+ people applying to MU from that high school every year due to positive world of mouth and also because it's now on that schools' guidance counselors' radar."


BINGO!  This is it.  There is no more positive marketing exercise than giving your students the AUTHENTIC and positive experience they are expecting.  That is worth 100 times more than directing resources toward the ranking system FOR THE SAKE OF THE RANKINGS.

Put it this way.  Increase professor pay because it attracts better professors who can give your students a better educational experience.  Increase your endowment because you can be better able to compete for students that you want in your class.  If you do this type of stuff, and your ranking increases....great!  BUT DON'T DO IT FOR THE SAKE OF RANKINGS!

MU set for improvement in the rankings as part of the strategic plan. Bottom line is Lovell needs to figure it out. He is an engineer and they lay out all the formulas in the wide open.

What I am saying and the Disco Hippie are saying is that we need to use the resources we  have more intelligently. High School counselor ratings are part of the forumula. In the NY suburbs there are lots of great public schools, among the best in the country.  They are scattered among the catholic schools we already recruit from. Many of the kids know each other from extra curricular or living in the same town. Very easy to show up at the public high school counselor office and give our pitch. I was on the school board for many years and know the weight these counselors have on university reputations. All it takes is to consistently come in and give your speech and get to know the counselors. We are ideally positioned to make the counselors life easy because not every kid in the school is going to get into an Ivy League and MU can provide a very compelling alternative where the kid can actually get admitted.

Strangely enough, One of the schools MU competes  for kids with in the northeast is Boston University. It is larger but has the same sort of urban feel to the kids. I have spent hours convincing parents and kids to take choose Marquette and the one big hurdle I always have to overcome is the US News ranking. I can usually close the deal by making the case they will get more personal attention at MU and  make the claim it is the BC of the Midwest ( BC rated higher than BU for the snob appeal) and we have dedicated alumni, which I can demonstrate by getting them to go to one of our road games and they see all the gold shirts in the stands. It would be a helluva lot easier if we were in the 50s in the US News.

[forgetful]

I'm not stuck anywhere.  The school I work for does nothing proactively with regards to rankings.  And you know what has happened?  Record enrollment.  Graduation rates at our highest levels in over a generation.  Best fundraising years ever the last two years.  Believe me, there are plenty of alternatives to playing the rankings game.

Edit:  I was wrong about who Sultan worked for, I know nothing about his university. 

Do you honestly believe this?  Because I know for a fact that they have lobbied hard and spent considerable money and efforts ensuring that USNWR (and other rating agencies) don't change some of their metrics that favor your University and other like minded institutions. 

But to be clear, I agree with most of your general sentiments. 

[keefe]

Endowment is a problem. 

Speak for yourself, son...

[muwarrior69]

Endowment is a problem.  Faculty pay is not.  MU's faculty salaries are competitive with the top 100, so they are not dropping because of that. 

I'm not saying salaries aren't low for faculty (they are), they are just low almost everywhere.

As for dropping out of the top 100.  If it happens, Lovell will likely have a year to fix it, or he will be gone.

Maybe, just maybe if Marquette sent a letter to it's freshman like the University of Chicago did; alumni, parents and students would know MU is interested in "education" where all ideas and opinion are welcome for discussion. Then maybe, just maybe donations to the University may increase the endowment.

http://www.npr.org/2016/08/26/491531869/university-of-chicago-tells-freshmen-it-does-not-support-trigger-warnings

[4everwarriors]

Maybe try somethin' like dis, hey?

Georgetown University to offer preferential admissions status to descendants of 272 slaves whose sale it profited from in 1838 - New York Times - Breaking News
https://apple.news/AZ2wfOVw0OrG0VPFBtCeoNw

[GGGG]

Maybe, just maybe if Marquette sent a letter to it's freshman like the University of Chicago did; alumni, parents and students would know MU is interested in "education" where all ideas and opinion are welcome for discussion. Then maybe, just maybe donations to the University may increase the endowment.

http://www.npr.org/2016/08/26/491531869/university-of-chicago-tells-freshmen-it-does-not-support-trigger-warnings

Why on earth would you make this political?

Marquette has actually done a very good job fundraising over the past decade.  While a lot of it has been focused on buildings, the market value of the endowment has increased from about $400M in 2010 to $550M last year.  Still below its peer institutions no doubt, but hardly insignificant. 

[mu03eng]

Marquette has actually done a very good job fundraising over the past decade.  While a lot of it has been focused on buildings, the market value of the endowment has increased from about $400M in 2010 to $550M last year.  Still below its peer institutions no doubt, but hardly insignificant.

While I agree, my concern is that they don't seem to have expanded the group of people they are getting the money from. I believe we're less than 20% of the alumni population donating so I think we're doing good getting money from the "converted" but we haven't seemingly increased the amount of available converts.

[GGGG]

While I agree, my concern is that they don't seem to have expanded the group of people they are getting the money from. I believe we're less than 20% of the alumni population donating so I think we're doing good getting money from the "converted" but we haven't seemingly increased the amount of available converts.

That's actually very common these days where 5% of the people give 95% of the donations.  Simply put, the most cost-effective way to raise money is by focusing on bigger gifts from a smaller number of donors.  That doesn't mean you ignore everyone else.  You just don't invest the time to raise it.  You just have to make sure to keep adding people to the pipeline.