Undergrad applicants on the rise

By John Henry

Published Dec. 4, 2007

Missouri's success on the football field might be translating into an increase in the number of prospective students applying to the school.

Admissions Director Barbara Rupp said that so far, MU has seen a 20 percent increase in the number of undergraduate applications submitted this year in comparison to last.

Rupp said it is too early to tell whether or not the Tigers' winning season heavily influenced the application increase but admits it was a factor.

"The numbers of visitors to the campus have been really strong all fall, and part of that is because of football," she said. "A lot of people when they come here for a visit will just go ahead and apply."

Over the last decade, the Undergraduate Admissions Office has grown between 2 to 8 percent annually in submitted applications. But they have never seen an increase as big as the one the school is experiencing now, Rupp said.

She said she believes there have been a number of factors that have helped contribute to MU's overall increase in submitted applications.

"We think it (football) is certainly part of the effect, but we have also been doing a lot of recruitment efforts this year," she said. "We have an extra person in Chicago, we have been visiting more high schools and doing more mailings."

Marketing Department Chairman Ratti Ratneshwar said something similar happened when he taught at the University of Connecticut. He said that the university experienced a major spike in applicants when its men's and women's basketball teams won their respective basketball titles.

"I think there are certainly schools like (University of) Notre Dame and BC (Boston College) where athletic success has had a pretty nice impact on the applications and interests in the university more broadly defined," he said. "I think it's good. It certainly doesn't hurt."

Ratneshwar said the amount of publicity the football team has received from the national press likely helped to increase the nation's familiarity with MU as an academic institution. He thinks exposure can only be prolonged if the university's teams continue to win.

"It's what we call in marketing terms a halo effect," he said. "Basically your success in one area — whether it is justified or not — reflects in some other area."

Because of the football team's season, University Development Department spokeswoman Beth Hammock said that MU has received a lot of feedback from alumni curious about things happening around campus.

"When our development officers talk with our alumni, we hear a lot of positive responses from people who are just really excited about the success of the football team this year," she said. "It has been a thrilling year to be associated with the University of Missouri."

Hammock pointed out that the increase in alumni contact is not primarily a result of the football team's successes but instead the result of MU's For All We Call Mizzou fundraising campaign. In that campaign, MU has seen this fiscal year's alumni donations outpace donations from the last fiscal year by more than $6 million.

"We think that we will see an increase in contributions to intercollegiate athletics because of the football team's success," Hammock said. "We think that will happen next year, but so far we have not seen an increase in donations that we can directly attribute to our success with football this year."