Quick reference of school sizes (since it has come up lately)
Just putting this here to help with discussion. I know the numbers are not exact, but should be good enough to get in the general ballpark of school sizes. I can't remember if I did undergrad only or total, but I was consistent in how I did it.
The ones with yellow highlight on the numbers are private schools.
53 Replies
2y
(In response to this post by HokieAl)
2y
That explains a lot of things right now in a nutshell.
(In response to this post by HokieAl)
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Vippie1
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Enrollment and living alumni is only one of the (potential) causation factors that determine media ratings and attendance, which ultimately drive value. All things equal bigger is better but far from determintive in who gets in and who gets left out in conference realignment.
(In response to this post by HokieAl)
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RJHokie
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(In response to this post by hokiesrule98)
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(In response to this post by RJHokie)
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Truthahn
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It would be nice to land a big one next time. Just sayin'.
(In response to this post by HokieAl)
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While it's focused on Miami, UNC, FSU and Clemson, there is alot of numbers and comparisons of like schools. Just for thought
(In response to this post by HokieAl)
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HouClone
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(In response to this post by DMV Gobbler)
Who determines which school is the "flagship"?
Because if we accept that UVa is the flagship of Virginia, why do we not question whether Penn State is the flagship of Pennsylvania rather than Penn?
I don't know, kinda sounds like a name it and claim it think to me. Ditto for being a "public ivy".
** Edited by Maroon Baboon at 6/14/2024, 12:40:06 PM
(In response to this post by DMV Gobbler)
2y
In Virginia, that would be UVA because they were the first public university in the Commonwealth. William & Mary, Washington & Lee, and Hampden-Sydney were all founded before UVA, but all of them were private schools at the time of UVA's founding. W&M didn't become public until the early 1900's.
(In response to this post by Maroon Baboon)
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RJHokie
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(In response to this post by mrcaniac)
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a university system. I do not accept that uva is the flagship school in VA. We simply don't have one.
(In response to this post by Maroon Baboon)
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And UVA is considered the flagship university of Virginia.
(In response to this post by IB4TECH)
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dayooper
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So it can’t be a flagship. PSU is public and receives public funds. Penn does not.
A flagship school is a public school that is usually the most recognizable school, has the highest amount of doctoral candidates and gets the most state funding. Michigan receives little state funding, but is the flagship of Michigan. MSU, much like VT would be the flagships for their state if UofM and UVA didn’t exist.
(In response to this post by Maroon Baboon)
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Truthahn
2y
I think Texas State is a flagship university, and North Texas, and UL-Monroe, too, I think. But none are the main university in their state. They are just the main one leading their group. For lots of systems, it probably has more to do with where the system's admin offices are than prestige.
Does UVa even have any affiliated universities? Is UVA-wise one? If so, those two are in UVA's system, so that is probably why UVa-C is a "flagship".
(In response to this post by Maroon Baboon)
2y
And same with your PSU example. But in most states, it probably is "The University of ..." that is the flagship. With the "States", "Techs", and city name/directional/person name schools being secondary.
Obviously not in VA though.
(In response to this post by Maroon Baboon)
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mjfhokie
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It doesn't matter if it is University, Tech, or State, if you put "THE" in front you are the defacto flagship.
(In response to this post by HokieNoVA)
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EDGEMAN
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LOL!
As for "public ivy," don't forget that UNC was put on probation by their accreditation agency for academic fraud. They have put athletics ahead of academics for decades...probably since their old Southern Conference days.
(In response to this post by Maroon Baboon)
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(In response to this post by HokieAl)
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Lots of these students are remote learning and / or graduate students.
Don’t know how the TV networks think about this, but my guess is ratings numbers are more important as there are a number of rabid fans that didn’t attend the school they watch.
(In response to this post by HokieAl)
2y
Living ALUMNI (or more specifically people or received their undergraduate degree from the institution) - are far more likely to be more passionate about the athletic programs, donate to the school athletic programs and, this is more important than many realize, to influence regional political and business decisions.
While living alumni (anyone whoever attended a school is considered an alumnus) and undergrad enrollment is important, if you drill down into the numbers, schools which have higher drop-out/transfer rates and commuter/on-line/satellite campus schools are going to have less of the above.
(In response to this post by CMU Hokie)
2y
Even between what a school shows on their site vs their alumni association, there is quite often a different number. I tend to give more validity to whatever the alumni associations say. But you are right, the numbers can be very sus and probably do include online people and many of the other categories you listed. I also guarantee there is no consistency between schools and how they count their numbers.
(In response to this post by marcbvtgm)
2y
(In response to this post by HokieAl)
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also.
(In response to this post by CMU Hokie)
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I85Hokie
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It says it generally includes the main campus only and does not include online enrollment. It more or less aligns with the top 10 in this list except it includes Rutgers and also FIU (!) which is obviously not in the Power-5.
** Edited by I85Hokie at 6/14/2024, 8:41:38 AM
Link:
Top 10 campuses
(In response to this post by CMU Hokie)
2y
According to their website, they have 44k students at main campus and 24k students at other campuses.
Now y'all are going to cause me to dig into each one to be more accurate haha. I hate when the data has variations.
(In response to this post by I85Hokie)
2y
(In response to this post by CMU Hokie)
2y
Latest data for enrollment statistics is from Fall '21:
There is a discrepancy in "Total" maybe due to FTE (full time equivalent) vs raw number.
** Edited by 33laszlo99 at 6/14/2024, 11:17:27 AM
Link:
IPEDS/NCES
(In response to this post by HokieAl)
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EDGEMAN
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...campus locations? 74K is a massive amount of students for one campus.
(In response to this post by HokieAl)
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I could probably find this more detailed info for all the schools but that's too much work haha
(In response to this post by EDGEMAN)
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The size of those B1G schools is eyepopping.
(In response to this post by HokieAl)
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mjfhokie
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From the GT website:
"The Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the nation's top public research universities with more than 45,000 students who study in person at the main campus in Atlanta, at Georgia Tech-Europe in France, at Georgia Tech-Shenzhen in China, as well as through distance and online learning." They have approximately 27,000 in Atlanta of which 18,415 are undergrads. Also note that they are admitting only 3,900 students per year.
I do not think that the French or Chinese (or online) students likely play into GT football or sports fans at all. For that matter, most graduate students either have no allegiance or default to their undergrad school if they are sports fans. That puts GT solidly in bottom of the list, not top 20. Based on this, I think these numbers are very suspect.
If we do want to count Online enrollment, Liberty University should be the favorite Virginia target of the SEC and BIG with 110,000 total student enrollment.
** Edited by mjfhokie at 6/14/2024, 9:12:25 AM
** Edited by mjfhokie at 6/14/2024, 9:16:20 AM
(In response to this post by 33laszlo99)
2y
I didn’t think GT had grown that much. Kinda scary they have a campus in China as they do a boatload of US military research
(In response to this post by mjfhokie)
2y
Lots of suspect data in what is reported online for schools. Well my project just got bigger. I'll come back with more accurate numbers for each. Thanks for catching that.
(In response to this post by mjfhokie)
Yeah its combined. GT has ~18K undergrads but ~27K grad students.
(In response to this post by 33laszlo99)
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(In response to this post by UpstateSCHokie)
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MVIII
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Didn't realize they were that small.
(In response to this post by HokieAl)
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(In response to this post by MVIII)
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"because Catholic" not "because alumni"...plus, religion aside, a lot of fans who became fans just because they were a prominent and successful program before media eyeballs came to matter so much
(In response to this post by MVIII)
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Truthahn
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I'm pretty sure she has never been to ND.
(In response to this post by Pylons)
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And nobody gave a flying crap about ND football.
(In response to this post by Pylons)
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(In response to this post by HokieNoVA)
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Gadfly
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during the program's resurrection by Ara Parseghian in the 1960s.
Then I lost my religion and ND fandom in the 1970s.
(In response to this post by HokieNoVA)
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replay every week, and I watched every week. I'm sure a lot of other people became fans the same way.
(In response to this post by Gadfly)
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EDGEMAN
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...a century ago...lol
(In response to this post by MVIII)
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When TV college football was in its infancy the installed television market was predominantly in the NE corridor - also a large percentage of Catholics - also much lower percentage of the public had an alma mater to root for. Made it easy for ND to gain market share.
Now almost everyone - including every Baptist bubba in bama has a large screen TV, can watch practically every game of any team they want, don't have a religious orientation and a much higher percentage attended school - or at least a directional variant of a school that plays football. Many old time ND fans don't understand the effects of this demographic shift.
(In response to this post by EDGEMAN)
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EDGEMAN
2y
...worked in my office. He was a huge Giants fan, and I asked him who he pulled for in college football, Syracuse? He said probably ND since he was raised Catholic.
** Edited by EDGEMAN at 6/14/2024, 12:39:26 PM
(In response to this post by RTFC)
2y
(In response to this post by HokieAl)