February 3rd, 2022 at 2:24 PM ^
Just my two cents, but bit of a ruse. It’s what you do when you have nothing else to promote. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Chicago, MIT, CalTech, etc. all do quite well in the strength of their core academics without all of the exposure from strong athletics. Stanford stands on its own really as being in that same milieu and having both and Berkeley is a kind is in that same range but just a lesser version of Stanford without being as good in either. No matter how much of a homer I am for Michigan, the Michigan’s, UCLAs, Duke’s, Northwestern’s, Vandy’s, UVAs of the world are clearly a step down in prestige and have tried to use sports to raise their profiles. I think it is important for campus culture and alumni giving to a point, but I am not convinced that it leads to world-class academic reputations because if that were true Texas A&M would be a top 20 world university. It is not despite all of the giving because most of the giving goes to sports and most of the people that want to go there are from Texas or the South. To be truly world-class you need to attract the best talent, whether it is students, faculty, or athletes, from around the globe.
February 3rd, 2022 at 2:40 PM ^
I'm not sure why this is being downvoted, but it's a perfectly valid and fair question.
As much as I love Michigan and as proud as I am of its academic pedigree, I don't think we're in the class of schools that can stake the strength of their brands on academics alone (i.e., Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, etc). Big-time sports and our competitiveness therein is such a big part of our identity that if we decided to de-emphasize it, the reputation and overall cachet of the Michigan name would take a hit from which it might never recover (yes, I know the University of Chicago went this route in the 1940's and lived happily ever after, but the prominence and overall reach of intercollegiate athletics at that time weren't anywhere near what they are today).
February 3rd, 2022 at 3:37 PM ^
Some people just automatically downvote any post that isn't simply a link to a recent article about UofM.
February 3rd, 2022 at 3:39 PM ^
At my institution, I have served on athletic committees. The AD always makes the point that the year after we have had success in a major sport, undergraduate applications increase. He has evidence and there is some truth to it. My institution is not top 10, but is pretty good and we get applications from around the US and the world.
February 3rd, 2022 at 4:09 PM ^
As much as people shit on the University of Alabama's academics and dismiss it as football factory with a university attached to it, the dominance of their football program and the larger-than-life reputation of Nick Saban has been a boon for all of the factors that enhance the academic pedigree of a large state school (e.g., number of applications, percentage of out-of-state applicants, donations from wealthy alumni, faculty recruiting and retention, research funding, licensing revenues, etc).
February 3rd, 2022 at 6:24 PM ^
This has been mentioned above, but my understanding is that Alabama heavily recruits not just athletes but strong students from around the country. A young woman works in our office over the summer goes there for the honors program, and had a lot of options out high school. I do think football dominance raised their profile.
February 3rd, 2022 at 10:39 PM ^
By at least 27%, possibly as much as 42%.