shameful

[VFL-82-JP]

When Alabama, OSU, South Carolina, or even UCLA gets within 10 percentage points of a 98% graduation rate for scholarship football players, you let me know. For that matter, let me know when Tennessee does as well. No logical difference? - the proof that there is can be found in the graduation rates.

Come on, Aging. Your ACT and SAT scores are higher than South Carolina's...but both your and their football players have significantly lower scores than the rest of the student populations of the two schools. Your graduation rates are higher than South Carolina's, but unless you hit 100% every year, it is still a matter of degree that you are at 98% and they are at 85% (or whatever they are).

In fact, one could say that, in part, NU's failure to get more juniors and redshirt sophomores into the NFL is a sign of a less successful football program, not a more successful academic one. If an NU student leaves school after only two years, then starts her own company and becomes a billionaire making a real difference in people's lives with her products, you embrace her. You don't bemoan the fact that she lowered your graduation percentage by some small amount. Less world-changing, but the same idea can be applied to successful NFL and NBA athletes.

As I said very early in this thread, once you're on the slippery slope, it's a bit unbecoming to argue about how you're higher up it than the other guy. You're still there together.

 

[gocatsgo2003]

Yep, we addressed that in follow-on posts...you'll get there if you keep reading.

Yep... Deleted the post once I had gotten there, but you were too quick.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

 

[Purple Pile Driver]

JP-I have no problem with an overall lower academic profile for our student athletes. In fact, same with talented actors, writers, musicans etc. However, if the success rate of these students in terms of graduation was significantly different than the overall population then I think you have to reconsider what you are doing. I don't believe there is a significant difference in NU's case and if you review our roster you will see some challenging majors. No basket weaving.

The South Carolina move was initiated to complete with neighboring states standards. Has nothing to do with anything other than insuring they don't lose potential star recruits to those with lower qualification standards. I don't know if you guessed at that 85% graduation rate for the SC football team, but my guess would be lower. To me, an equivalent for NU would be that we lowered our admission qualifications to match OSU, MSU, Iowa etc. We have not done that. If we do lower to that standard, I will close my yap. NU does not sacrifice graduation success, end of story. I think you are making the slope a little more slippery than it really is.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

You could be right, Pile Driver. Maybe I don't appreciate NU's football player graduation rate as much as I should, and it's really a qualitative rather than just quantitative difference. I'm certainly open to hearing that argument in full.

And I'm curious about the number, as well. The typical college football team has attrition (just like the college population at large). Thirty freshmen turn into twenty-five sophomores who turn into twenty juniors and end up at eighteen seniors, roughly speaking. Some transfer, others drop out of school, yet others leave early for the NFL draft. A truncated pyramid, if you will, narrower at the top than at the bottom. Every program is different, and any program has "population bulges" in certain classes over the years, but that truncated pyramid is a pretty good rough model for most programs I've ever scrutinized.

So when you say 98%, do you mean 98% of all freshmen who arrive at NU with a football scholarship stay on to graduation? So that there is no truncated pyramid? Twenty-odd freshmen come in, and, practically speaking, every one of them graduate four years later? That would be hugely different than most programs, it would in fact be qualitatively and even systemically different.

Or does the 98% have some other denominator?

 

[gocatsgo2003]

You could be right, Pile Driver. Maybe I don't appreciate NU's football player graduation rate as much as I should, and it's really a qualitative rather than just quantitative difference. I'm certainly open to hearing that argument in full.

And I'm curious about the number, as well. The typical college football team has attrition (just like the college population at large). Thirty freshmen turn into twenty-five sophomores who turn into twenty juniors and end up at eighteen seniors, roughly speaking. Some transfer, others drop out of school, yet others leave early for the NFL draft. A truncated pyramid, if you will, narrower at the top than at the bottom. Every program is different, and any program has "population bulges" in certain classes over the years, but that truncated pyramid is a pretty good rough model for most programs I've ever scrutinized.

So when you say 98%, do you mean 98% of all freshmen who arrive at NU with a football scholarship stay on to graduation? So that there is no truncated pyramid? Twenty-odd freshmen come in, and, practically speaking, every one of them graduate four years later? That would be hugely different than most programs, it would in fact be qualitatively and even systemically different.

Or does the 98% have some other denominator?

98% of everyone who walks on campus.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

98% of everyone who walks on campus.

And is this true of the student body as a whole? Also 2% attrition? That's it? Or is it higher for the larger population?

As it pertains to the football players specifically...none go early to the NFL? None have family emergencies and leave NU for another college closer to home? None get kicked out for violations of the school honor code? None flunk out (really? everyone passes?)? None drop for medical reasons? 100 enter, and only 2 leave over the course of four years?

That is truly incredible. Where can I find literature on this, it's pretty astounding.


EDIT: okay, did just a bit of research on my own. I found a page on the NU registrar's web site that shows graduation rates for the student body as a whole:

http://www.registrar.northwestern.edu/academic_records/enroll-grad_statistics/graduation_rates.html

According to that site, somewhere between 90% and 95% of all freshmen who entered the university in 2007 or earlier graduated within 4-6 years (within 2-3 years if they were only pursuing an associate's degree).

So the football team is, apparently, outperforming the student body as a whole when it comes to graduation rates?

Or, maybe the definition of "graduation success rate" is more complex than it appears on the surface, and has exceptions...? No way of knowing.

Here's an article from 2013 that almost supports your 98% contention (it says 97%, but who's quibbling):

http://collegefootballtalk.nbcsport...ps-football-graduation-success-rate-rankings/

Significantly, though, again--that term "graduation success rate" is undefined. Does it allow exceptions for medical hardship? Family hardship? Transfer? How is the number calculated, specifically? It doesn't say.

I'm dying to learn more, Pile Driver, because 98% (or 97%) continuity from freshman entry through graduation is certainly potentially significant and notable. Dying to learn more, if you know where to find it. Thanks!

 

[gocatsgo2003]

And is this true of the student body as a whole? Also 2% attrition? That's it? Or is it higher for the larger population?

As it pertains to the football players specifically...none go early to the NFL? None have family emergencies and leave NU for another college closer to home? None get kicked out for violations of the school honor code? None flunk out (really? everyone passes?)? None drop for medical reasons? 100 enter, and only 2 leave over the course of four years?

That is truly incredible. Where can I find literature on this, it's pretty astounding.

NU's football team graduation rate is typically better than the student body writ large. Even the guys who medical typically stick around and graduate.

We actually, really do do things a little differently.

 

[Gladeskat]

I understand that you're aging, Aging, but I don't think scholarship athletes have ever been like normal students. If you only want to cheer for athletes who are "normal" students, you should probably focus your fandom on Division 3. (And I suspect that, even there, outstanding athletes get a break on admissions.)

Wow! You're way off on that. That's certainly not the case at Northwestern.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

NU's football team graduation rate is typically better than the student body writ large. Even the guys who medical typically stick around and graduate.

We actually, really do do things a little differently.

You really do seem to.

Okay.

I'm officially impressed. And I concede the point. NU truly approaches student-athletes differently than most other institutions in the US.

Rail away at South Carolina to your hearts' content, those scurrilous bastiges!

 

[Gladeskat]

One more thought, this one striking a little closer to home for NU grads.

(1) What's the average ACT or SAT score of your football team's players? Your basketball team's players?
(2) Could you (assuming you did not get an athletic scholarship) have gotten into NU with that ACT/SAT score?

If the answer to (2) is "no," then NU is doing the same thing as South Carolina (and a LOT of other schools at all levels), just perhaps to a lesser degree. It's one long slippery slope; if you're on it, you're on it. No bragging about how you're not quite as low down the slide as others.

In other words, your football players may be more intellectually gifted than South Carolina's football players on average (I'm certain they are, and more academically gifted than the Vols' players to boot)...but if they're not as bright as everyone else who got into NU has to be, you are no more "doing it right" than anyone you point fingers at; just a little less blatantly "wrong."

Not trying to insult you, just keeping it real as we continue this fine discussion. *thumbsup*

Are you going to say that about a school that graduates 95-100% of its players? A school which has maintained the same standards for their athletes for over 40 years, anyway. Standards for athletes are, on average, lower than the rest of the student body, but they're still quite high. Significantly better than the average for students applying to college, nationwide.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

Are you going to say that about a school that graduates 95-100% of its players? A school which has maintained the same standards for their athletes for over 40 years, anyway. Standards for athletes are, on average, lower than the rest of the student body, but they're still quite high. Significantly better than the average for students applying to college, nationwide.

You're a little late to the game, Glades, I just tossed the victory flag onto your table. See post above yours.

 

[Gladeskat]

You're a little late to the game, Glades, I just tossed the victory flag onto your table. See post above yours.

You need to start signing the NU fight song as well.

I was getting pretty steamed reading this thread until the last few posts.

 

[Deeringfish]

When Alabama, OSU, South Carolina, or even UCLA gets within 10 percentage points of a 98% graduation rate for scholarship football players, you let me know. For that matter, let me know when Tennessee does as well. No logical difference? - the proof that there is can be found in the graduation rates.

I think they should attach some bonus or penalty for graduation rate or a standardized test showing improvement of a students skill set over 4 years.

 

[YesterdaysCat]

Ah, didn't know that. Thanks. So if the max composite SAT score went from 1600 in the early 1990s to 2400 today (50% increase), let's give the football players a 50% boost as the best available approximation of where they might be currently (why will NU not report this publicly?). So they'd have an average, today, in the 1500s. Compare that with the 25th percentile of the student population at large (2040), or the average student (2170).

Again, not casting aspersions. Just pointing out that it is easy to scoff at South Carolina in the OP's reading of a recent article, when in fact NU makes similar exceptions to their own standards when it comes to big-time, big-money athletics.

Uh, you're trying to approximate SAT scores based on 25-year-old data from when the SAT was centered on a 1600 scale and before the SAT was re-centered in the mid-1990s, too. For example, a 1034 in 1991 was a lot higher after re-centering. (How much higher? Do the research! I'm not here to do your dirty work.) If you're trying to create some sort of equivalent score, you have to jump through many more hoops, and you have to account for the fact that SAT scores have risen at the higher end (i.e., the student type that scored higher than average in the past is now scoring even higher now, due to better preparation and perhaps better teaching).

If we were second behind Stanford in the early 1990s, why don't you find the highest current average SAT scores that have been reported and assume Stanford and Northwestern are higher than that?

That makes a lot more sense that whatever pre-algebra mathematics you're attempting.

 

[YesterdaysCat]

I think they should attach some bonus or penalty for graduation rate or a standardized test showing improvement of a students skill set over 4 years.

It does not work unfortunately because if anything has been proven over the years, schools like North Carolina and Auburn will cheat. Schools will even hand kids diplomas that weren't earned just to tout a higher GSR.

 

[YesterdaysCat]

NU has consistently graduated between 98% and 100% of the scholarship athletes on its football team - tops in the country over the last 20 years, I believe. One would be hard pressed to say these young men do not belong in the university.

Mm, I agree with a lot of things that you say, but how should I put this? Northwestern received 35,099 applicants to be part of its Class of 2020. Northwestern accepted only 3,751 students (10.7%).

That means 31,000+ students were denied admission to Alma Mater! I don't really have more than a guess, but maybe 28,000 would have graduated from NU if they had been admitted. The hardest part about NU in recent years has been getting into NU!

So yes, when NU graduates 98% of its football players, it's wonderful, but who does "belong" and "does not belong" in the university is a laugh. The football players belong because they were admitted due to their athletic gifts primarily, while 31,000 "regular students" were denied for writing a poor essay response to "What would you paint on The Rock if you were admitted into NU?"

 

[VFL-82-JP]

You need to start signing the NU fight song as well.

I was getting pretty steamed reading this thread until the last few posts.

Hah! You sing it, I'll smile indulgently.