Who Does MU Compete With For Students?

[WellsstreetWanderer]

I was accepted at Illinois but decided to attend a smaller campus and MU was far enough away but not too far.
Two of my children attended Univ. Of San Diego . I was impressed with the B school. 40 per class max.
Kids I spoke to from West Coast who were accepted to Mu and chose elsewhere went to places like Wash U. In St. Louis or Pacific 12.

[muwarrior69]

I applied to 3 schools, was accepted to all 3, and seriously considered all 3.

They were UW-Madison, St Norbert, and Marquette. I chose Marquette, but any of the three would have been decent fits.

It might be helpful to think of different groups of competitors for different student profiles. We are a competitor with UW for students from Wisconsin. We are a competitor with Dayton for affluent Chicagoland Catholic high school students, etc.

I was accepted to Rutgers, NJIT, Lehigh and Marquette. When I attended in the mid '60s most of my school mates at MU were from middle class blue collar families. Some had more than two siblings attending as well. My parents or many of my class mates parents could afford (tuition, room and board and books) to send us to MU today.

[lurch91]

Surprised that no one has mentioned Notre Dame as school Marquette competes with for students. It might be that most students that get into Notre Dame, attend Notre Dame but I know some fellow Marquette alumni that were accepting to ND but chose not to attend.

[GGGG]

I was accepted to Rutgers, NJIT, Lehigh and Marquette. When I attended in the mid '60s most of my school mates at MU were from middle class blue collar families. Some had more than two siblings attending as well. My parents or many of my class mates parents could afford (tuition, room and board and books) to send us to MU today.

And my guess is that most of your school mates went to Catholic high schools...

[Tugg Speedman]

Surprised that no one has mentioned Notre Dame as school Marquette competes with for students. It might be that most students that get into Notre Dame, attend Notre Dame but I know some fellow Marquette alumni that were accepting to ND but chose not to attend.

This

[MomofMUltiples]

elephantraker - my daughter spent one semester at U of San Diego. The academics were great, but she decided that she couldn't speak (or live) Californian.  Came home for Christmas and transferred to Marquette.  My pocketbook thanked her.

[Knight Commission]

This is validating.  I've been saying MU and Dayton are virtually the same school for 25 years(including a couple weeks ago after talking to a recent Dayton grad) , with no basis, just my knowledge of the two schools.  Similar caliber of students, socio eceonomic background.  This doesn't surprise me at all.

[warriorchick]

No offense, Heisy, but if you want to find out what Marquette's competition is, you need to talk to the admission folks, not the advancement folks.

Here's some stats at a glance for the most recent freshman class.  It doesn't name the competition, but it has other data.  One thing I found interesting - only about a third came from Catholic/Jesuit high schools.

[lurch91]

This

So, we don't compete with ND for srudents, even though some apply to both, but choose ND......

[Herman Cain]

So, we don't compete with ND for srudents, even though some apply to both, but choose ND......

Safety School

[jsglow]

We had about 20 accepted students at today's pregame function.  They all got nice swag and got plenty of opportunity to ask questions.  It's true that metro Chicago now accounts for more kids than WI. Been true for better part of a decade.  Probably about 20-25% of kids now come from what I'll call distant locations outside the Midwest.

[LAMUfan]

This a funny conversation to me, I grew up in Santa Monica, my final schools were ucsb, iu, bu, and mu.  I have no explanation for anything, I think I liked beer

[Dish]

As much as I loved my MU experience and friends, if I could do it all over again, I'd have gone to school some place warm.

[MU_Beav]

University of Oregon, OSU, University of Portland, and MU. MU it was and never regretted my decision, although a football team would have been nice. Also had never experienced private/Catholic education up to that point. Am indebted to the Jesuits - Zeps, Leahy and Donnelly, in particular.

[Newsdreams]

Safety School

Or decide not to attend due to tuition. ND only gives need based FA.

[WarriorHal]

When I attended in the mid '60s most of my school mates at MU were from middle class blue collar families... My parents or many of my class mates parents could afford (tuition, room and board and books) to send us to MU today.

Since you mentioned middle class, did you leave a NOT out of that last sentence?

Also, I wonder how much attendance from the NY/NJ area dropped off in the years after Al McGuire left Marquette. I doubt it ever bounced back.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

Boston College, Georgetown, Gonzaga, Seattle U, Holy Cross, and Fordham were all on my list. Picked Marquette because I couldn't imagine cheering against Marquette in basketball.

[GooooMarquette]

Thinking about it now, im probably a bad case study. I picked a program rather than a school.

That's a good point.  My younger daughter applied to MU in part because they have a good J-school...but also applied to Arizona State and Mizzou, which have great J-schools.  She got accepted to all three and had a hard time saying no to MU (she's a huge MUBB fan and my wife and I are both alums), but in the end she chose the best J-school (Mizzou).  Fortunately, it was also the least expensive of the three.

[kryza]

Miami of Ohio

[Tugg Speedman]

That's probably accurate for most public high school students outside the Milwaukee area. Catholic high school students in other parts of Wisconsin (like I was) still consider MU.

Agree

This is also consistent with their statement that they said certain kids consider state schools and other kids that consider Jesuit/Catholic schools. So that they don't perceive the state schools (Madison or Champaign) as competition but do the other Jesuit/Catholic schools like Dayton.

[Eye]

Always thought I was an outlier as far as MU students from back in the day and MU BKB fans. Small message board sample, but some confirmation. Grew up in La Crosse and very few others in my public HS had MU in their thought process. Many more people at the Catholic HS in town considered/attended MU and/or currently have MU on their sports radars. Only other accepted at was DePaul. If my parents hadn't grown up in Milwaukee and my dad hadn't started taking me to MU games was I was a kid, I probably wouldn't have had MU in the thought process, either (never considered UW-Moscow for one second).

[TheGym]

I have recently sent three of my kids off to college (two went to Marquette) and it was true for them that they did not consider Madison or one of the big state schools.  However, I know plenty of in state students who preferred Marquette but could not get over the price difference.  They ended up at either Minnesota or Wisconsin.

To say Marquette does not compete for kids who consider the big state schools is not accurate.  It seems to me they are writing off a potentially big market.  Marquette needs to a much larger endowment to provide better financial aid packages to compete for those students.

[Frenns Liquor Depot]

Also, I wonder how much attendance from the NY/NJ area dropped off in the years after Al McGuire left Marquette. I doubt it ever bounced back.

As someone from the east coast I know that the large amount of urban/semi urban options with similar profiles make it hard for MU to rise to the top.  Just in my specific example I seriously considered Villanova and Providence but looked at Seton Hall, Fordham, Fairfield and Duquense.  Then aspirationally BC and G Town. Lots of choices and all were far enough away from home.  Granted this list is very dated 20 years at this point.

[SuddenSam]

Surprised that no one has mentioned Notre Dame as school Marquette competes with for students. It might be that most students that get into Notre Dame, attend Notre Dame but I know some fellow Marquette alumni that were accepting to ND but chose not to attend.

Bless their hearts!!

[jsglow]

As someone from the east coast I know that the large amount of urban/semi urban options with similar profiles make it hard for MU to rise to the top.  Just in my specific example I seriously considered Villanova and Providence but looked at Seton Hall, Fordham, Fairfield and Duquense.  Then aspirationally BC and G Town. Lots of choices and all were far enough away from home.  Granted this list is very dated 20 years at this point.

I think that's spot on.  Admissions thinks that too.  Focus is very much west of the Mississippi for recruiting dollars.  That's were the population growth is too.