It seems we go round in circles Mr. BisonFan.

Think Intuitively. I didn't say UWyo nor U Id would go down to 1-AA. It could just be the teams you mentioned in North and South Dakota, Montana, and some regional/commuters in Washinton, Idaho, and Utah. I listed all those states because in 1989-1990 there was a joint ad campaign by all those state's travel and tourism bureau's called something like the Great Northwestern Centennial 1889-1890 to 1989-1990 as that mass slug of Greater Northwestern states were admitted to the union at that time. No other time, except definately the the admitance of the 13 Original Colonies were that many states admitted to the union all at once. That was the significance of it. Wyoming and Idaho are not dropping and I didn't say that.

Now, the matter of lesser enrollment. I don't know what kind of an idea you have about the quality of academic institutions are and how to measure them, but I can tell you right now there is now inherent relationship between the amount of students a university enrolls and the quality of education provided at the institution. If you made that argument you could say the University of South Florida with 40k students provides a better education than Harvard with 20K. Thats totally bogus. It could be argued at some universities that the slightly smaller enrollment reflects higher admission standards because they only admit very selectively or more selectively than other institutions. Enrollment and freshman enrollment has no inherent relationship to the academic quality of the institution.

I know that the USD's journalism program has very high national merits. They are a good solid flagship university (among the 2 flagships located there) for the State of South Dakota. You don't have Tom Brokaw as an allum and not have some academic rep.

Here are their freshman stats for what I assume is last school year:

2,570 applied, 2,134 admitted, 1,078 enrolled

They admit almost everyone who applied but only about half of those admitted enrolled.

Here's SDSU:

3,748 applied, 3,586 admitted, 2,073 enrolled

A bit better admitted/enrolled ratio.


Btw, where the hell do you get off comparing my comparison of USD/SDSU/UND/NDSU to comparing USF and Harvard!?!?!!?!?!?

That's the craziest thing I've ever heard!

I was talking about the public flagships of 2 small ag states and you're talking about a public regional of one of the largest state and one of the nations top private schools.

Simply mind boggling.

I'm still curious why USD only enrolled 1100 vs. 2100 at SDSU when the 2 are supposed to be very comparable (like UND and NDSU are).

That still does not prove academic merits.

SDSU has an engineering college. USD doesn't.

People that live in state in South Dakota are not going to look into gaining admission only into one school. They are going to see if they can be admitted into more than one school to keep their options open. They may choose one school over the other based on the major or field that they would like to study.

You can not measure the academic quality of a school based on freshman enrollment.

I can use USF comparable to Harvard, as you are basing your very simplistic measure on enrollment. That is not a measure at all, and I was pointing out the ludicracy of it.

Look at this. The University of Michigan enrolls 39K. Michigan State enrolls 45K. I can tell you right now that the University of Michigan is a better academic school than Michigan State. Michigan is a very solid and very reputable Land Grant school, but its not on the level of U of Michigan.

The admitted to enrolled ratio that you speak of can not inherently corelate to academic performance. It may be a sign that SDSU has some more popular majors than USD.

The other thing that you did not account for, looking at those numbers that you posted is this. Universities are designed with an enrollment capacity. I have driven on I-29 before by Brookings but did not stop to drive into town and see the SDSU campus. I have also been to Vermillion, and did see the campus there, including driving by the Dakota Dome. What I remember about the Brookings area is that it is relatively flat, lots of cornfield surrounding the town. Vermillion, though is on the Missouri River, in a tight, well defined river valley, a major US river mind you. The USD campus seemed tucked into the town. Seemed like not a lot of room for expansion. The University is the oldest in the Dakotas, as it was established in 1862. Heck its even Older than the University of Kansas, the University of Nebraska, Kansas State, University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, the University of Colorado and Colorado State, and even the University of Texas, Texas A & M and Texas Tech. The only school that beats it out in age in that longitudinal tier of states in Baylor University. So you have a very historic university for that Great Plains region. What I am saying is that the USD may have constraints to expand. That may be the reason why they admit less than SDSU. SDSU, located in a flat country probably aloud it to expand, and it may have a greater capacity then USD. The reason why more people enrolled at SDSU might be because they have more popular or maybe practical majors -- Maybe not different than the relationship of U of Michigan and Michigan State.

But look at those numbers closer that you have. Only 83% of the people that applied to USD were admitted, and 95.7% of the applicants that applied to SDSU were admitted. This most likely reflects slightly tougher admission standard at USD compared to SDSU.

Again you are not accounting for the designed capacity of the university. Just because the university is bigger, doesn't make it better. It looks like those admission figures reflect that USD is a school with a designed capacity of 8,000 (2,000 x 4) for undergraduates and maybe 9 or 10K with grad students. And SDSU is a school designed for 14K for undergrads, and probably 16K with grad students. Now tell me which one is closer to its capacity according to recent enrollment figures? USD according to that analysis.

Now, I mentioned popularity of majors. The other thing is that some of these students admitted may have went to school in another state, like the University of Minnesota, University of Iowa, Iowa State, the University of Nebraska, because the availability of majors not available at a school is SD. The University of Minnesota has a special reciprocal tuition arrangement with midwestern states including both of the Dakotas. Many students at the University of Nebraska are from the state of South Dakota.

The other thing, given the economy, is that some students may not choose to enroll, because they can pay cheaper tuition at another state u located closer to where they live, like Dakota State or Black Hills State, or Northern State. The other thing is that they may choose to go to a junior college or a community college their first year or two that is located closer to home and tuition is cheaper and staying with parents means hardly no housing costs. Or they simply may be admitted but choose not to attend because they can't afford right now due to the economy. There are many reasons as to why they didn't enroll, which have no inherent relationship to the academic quality of the institution.

You think in too simplistic terms on this issue. Think about the designed capacity of the University, the economy, the reasons why people do enroll and why people don't enroll, the type of majors offered at both schools or more, tuition costs at both schools and other regional schools, junior colleges/community colleges, etc. and you can see there could be a multiple reason why those numbers ended up being that way. They have no inherent relationship to the academic quality of the institution.

I don't understand why you're so hell bent on tying academics into all of this.

Athletics and academics are water and oil, church and state, DON'T MIX THEM!!


When talking about public institutions, esp. in states where there are 2 flagships, you would think the state would want to keep things about even.


If SDSU gets twice as many students, shouldn't it then get twice as much money from the state to support those students?

Also, since they're both public schools, admission is more or less fixed which means that the more students you have the more money you make.

Lastly, more freshman means that many more people who will potentially come to the games.

Go back to my previous post. What did I say?

I made an observation about the schools of the Big Sky, Great West and the Dakota Flagships. That observation being that if you are a flagship school you are going to get more attendance. If you are a flagship, even in rural states of the Dakotas, you are slightly better academically compared to regional/commuter in other small or medium sized western states (the UNC's, the SUU's, the Idaho State's, Eastern Washingtons, etc). The flagships of the Dakotas are slightly better if not much better than these schools in academics.

General rule of thumb, depending on what Division you are talking, and here we are talking about 1-AA and schools that could move up to 1-AA. If you are a flagship, you have higher visibility. If you have higher visibility, you have higher attendance.

I can't necessarily explain why USD was at 6.3 K in attendance which is middle of the road here. But the other 3 Dakota flagships were 9K, 10K, and 13K respectively. Which is more than those other regional/commuters out west. Those other regional-commuters have to deal with being 2nd or 3rd or even 4th, 5th, or even 11th status in their states that they are located in along with possible pro sports and other minor league sports and the Dakota and Montana flagships don't have to deal with that. They are the tops in their states. So their is a corelation between flagships status, thus, academic reputation, (because they are the most important schools and sports teams in the three states of ND, SD, and MT), so thus they have greater following that those Western US 1-AA commuters/directionals. The academics comes in as it is corelated to the level of importance the schools' sports teams are in the state.

This is the same at the Div. 1-A, with only Idaho and Nevada being the exception. Name any state, and I will tell you the top public institutions in those states (ie the flagships) have the best academics and the biggest sports followings compared to regional/directionals in their states and other regionals and directionals in other states. Its like that with every case, except Idaho and Nevada.

The funds allocated to SDSU and USD. I don't have numbers, but I would suspect it would be fairly equal as USD is home to the higher-costing medical school, and the law school, and SDSU doesn't have that. SDSU likewise has the engineering and ag school, but I doubt they compare to the amount of funds it takes to run a medical school and then throw in a law school.