Press "Enter" to skip to content

Duck football success fails to attract smarter freshman

Last updated on 11/11/2014

Diane Dietz has the story in the RG, here:

This year, OSU raised the bar slightly, attracting freshmen with an average high school grade point average of 3.59, up from 3.57 the previous year. UO’s freshman class slid a bit to 3.58, down from 3.6 [corrected] last year.

And as this NYT story based on research by UO economists explains it gets worse once they are here. No wonder parents are sending the best students to other schools.

Note: This post was originally titled “Duck football success attracts dumber freshman” because the RG story said “slid a bit to 3.58, down from 3.7 last year”. That is now changed to 3.6 (at least in the current on-line version), so the new headline seems more appropriate given the small size of the drop.

24 Comments

  1. no way 11/11/2014

    You have just insulted thousands of people in our community. Shame on you.

    • anon 11/11/2014

      Right, the article makes it clear that they are less academically achieving. This doesn’t make them dumber. Just stick to the facts, uomatters–that the level of academic achievement has regressed, and skip the speculation on why. Maybe they are dumber, maybe they prioritize watching sports over homework, maybe they drink too much or play video games until the wee hours of the morning… it would be difficult to pin down the cause. Would it be so hard to just say, “they aren’t as good students” without adding a little dig?

      • Anonymous 11/11/2014

        ” … they prioritize watching sports over homework, maybe they drink too much or play video games until the wee hours of the morning …”

        Yeah, none of those makes ’em dumb, just stupid.

    • Anonymous 11/11/2014

      Yes, let’s please wait until the SAT scores are released.

    • way 11/11/2014

      lol — your investment in uomatter’s rhetoric is much, too much.

  2. honest Uncle Bernie 11/11/2014

    So OSU enrollment is soaring while UO is slipping. And now OSU has students with higher GPA. Not good, not good for the Oregon “flagship.” Looks like we are heading toward an Ohio situation, where Ohio State left Ohio University behind.

    • Fishwrapper 11/11/2014

      Well, if anyone would know about an “Ohio situation,” it would be the top guy at OSU…

    • Not a notable alum 11/11/2014

      OSU now has marginally better admission figures. Whoop de freakin do. Last time I checked they had a large engineering college, so I don’t think the relative closeness in these numbers is all that shocking. I suspect UO’s numbers will rebound in the near future. Once UO expands its science programs UO will cruise past OSU.

      • an observation 11/11/2014

        Trustee Connie Ballmer keeps asking about the UO’s online plans.

        • uomatters Post author | 11/11/2014

          UO has 2 rich alums: a sneaker salesman who wants us to focus on sports, and the wife of a software salesman who wants us to focus on online education. We’re screwed.

        • mousey 11/11/2014

          lol, I wonder why?
          She’s also most concerned about competition between UO and OSU when it comes to mission statements and easily the sounding agent for Chairman Lillis.

          • Fishwrapper 11/11/2014

            An online apparel design course may appease her, then…

          • mousey 11/11/2014

            “An online apparel design course may appease her, then…”

            Ha! Yes, and others as well. Seriously.
            Beware the first strokes of community geniality. There is always an order to the flow.

    • Clueless 11/11/2014

      Would be interesting to know how much OSU growth in enrollment is due to their Ecampus (http://ecampus.oregonstate.edu/about/). Not sure how the bump in HS GPA plays into that.

      UO has no leadership or strategy for online education. I’m not suggesting we should be doing online degrees or programs or even classes, but if we aren’t going to play in that arena, we should have good reasons and a clear plan to capture/recapture students who are going that direction.

      Our current academic plan (if it can be called that) is silent on the issue and frankly, that’s just dumb.

      • Fishwrapper 11/11/2014

        According to one source, 4,503 are enrolled through Ecampus (up 19.5 percent or 736 more students from a year ago)

        More info and breakdown of the numbers by clicking the linky.

  3. Not a notable alum 11/11/2014

    The article says “UO’s freshman class fell a bit to 3.58, down from 3.6 last year.” Not the 3.7 figure you quoted.

    • uomatters Post author | 11/11/2014

      You’re right – the numbers in the RG article have been changed. I’m correcting the post.

      • 3.7 would be better 11/11/2014

        Typo. The story did say it was a slight change so I’m surprised that nobody caught it.

  4. whatever 11/12/2014

    Sniping at and insulting our major donors on a blog is not helpful. Maybe they don’t want to support professors who are assholes.

    • Fishwrapper 11/12/2014

      I don’t wish to come across as naive, but when it comes to Ballmer, the issue isn’t that she has money – it’s that she’s a trustee who can’t seem to articulate an understanding of the difference between OSU’s mission and UO’s. It would comfort me greatly to know that trustee slots are filled by folks who are up to the task, rather than qualified by their bank accounts.

      • Anonymous 11/12/2014

        The whole point of the Board is that we sold the governance of the UO (from the State) in exchange for a $1B+ endowment. No one is going to give us a billion dollars without getting a seat at the table, whether they know anything about mission statements or not. It was made clear from the beginning that every single seat was intended for rich donors, which is why the faculty, students, and staff fought so hard to get their reserved seats, and why there was so much pushback.

        It is a nice coincidence when deep pocketed donors also have a rich understanding of the issues, but as you say, you may be a bit naive.

        • Fishwrapper 11/12/2014

          One can always have hopes and dreams, can’t one?

          • Anonymous 11/12/2014

            Well, only as long as it’s just one person. Any more and they might try to unionize.

    • Clueless 11/12/2014

      Or maybe they do since Ballmer just gave UO $50 million. I guess if we faculty weren’t such assholes she would have given $100 M. Ooops.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *