The Impact of College Sports Success on Student Applications

The Impact of College Sports Success on Student Applications

The study examines how success in college sports, particularly football and basketball, influences the quantity and quality of student applications at NCAA Division I schools. Key findings indicate that athletic success can lead to a 2% to 8% increase in applications, with private institutions experiencing even greater effects. The research highlights that both low and high SAT scoring students are attracted by sports success, allowing schools to enhance their admissions outcomes. The analysis also explores how schools leverage increased applications to improve enrollment and tuition rates, particularly in response to basketball success. This work is essential for university administrators aiming to understand the relationship between athletics and academic recruitment.

Key Points

  • Football and basketball success significantly boosts student applications by 2% to 8%.
  • Private colleges see application increases two to four times higher than public institutions.
  • The study utilizes data from 1983 to 2002 across approximately 330 NCAA Division I schools.
  • Increased applications allow schools to enhance both the quality and quantity of incoming students.
,
  • newtopiccyclegrowin
324
/ 31
Southern Economic Journal
2009,
75(3),
750-780
The
Impact
of
College Sports
Success
on
the
Quantity
and
Quality
of
Student
Applications
Devin
G.
Pope*
and Jaren
C.
Popef
Empirical
studies have
produced
mixed
results
on
the
relationship
between
a
school's
sports
success
and the
quantity
and
quality
of
students that
apply
to
the school.
This
study
uses
two
unique
data
sets to
shed additional
light
on
the
indirect
benefits that
sports
success
provides
to
NCAA Division
I
schools.
Key findings
include the
following:
(1)
football and basketball
success
significantly
increases the
quantity
of
applications
to
a
school,
with estimates
ranging
from
2%
to
8%
for
the
top
20
football
schools
and
the
top
16
basketball schools
each
year,
(2)
private
schools
see
increases
in
application
rates
after
sports
success
that
are
two to
four times
higher
than
public
schools,
(3)
the
extra
applications
received
are
composed
of both
low
and
high
SAT
scoring
students,
thus
providing
potential
for schools
to
improve
their admission
outcomes,
and
(4)
schools
appear
to
exploit
these increases in
applications
by
improving
both
the number and the
quality
of
incoming
students.
JEL
Classification:
D010,1230,
J240
1.
Introduction
Since the
beginning
of
intercollegiate
sports,
the role
of athletics within
higher
education
has been
a
topic
of heated
debate.1
Whether
to
invest
funds into
building
a new
football
stadium
or
to
improve
a
school's
library
can cause
major disagreements. Lately
the debate has
become
especially
contentious
as
a
result of
widely
publicized
scandals
involving
student
athletes and coaches
and
because
of
the
increasing
amount
of
resources
schools
must
invest
to
remain
competitive
in
today's intercollegiate
athletic
environment.
Congress
has
recently
begun
to
question
the National
Collegiate
Athletic
Association's
(NCAA)
role in
higher
education
and its
tax-exempt
status.
Representative
Bill Thomas asked
the
president
of the
NCAA,
Dr.
Myles
Brand,
in
2006: "How does
playing
major college
football
or
men's
basketball
in
a
highly
*
Department
of
Operations
and Information
Management,
The Wharton
School,
Philadelphia,
PA
19104,
USA;
E-mail
dpope@wharton.upenn.edu.
t
Department
of
Agricultural
and
Applied
Economics
(0401), Virginia
Tech,
Blacksburg,
VA
24061,
USA;
E-mail
jcpope@vt.edu; corresponding
author.
We thank
Christopher
Bollinger
and three
anonymous
referees for
many
useful comments
and
suggestions
that
significantly
improved
the
manuscript.
We
also thank Jared
Carbone,
David
Card,
Charles
Clotfelter,
Stefano
DellaVigna,
Nick
Kuminoff,
Arden
Pope,
Matthew
Rabin,
John
Siegfried,
V.
Kerry
Smith,
Wally
Thurman,
and Sarah
Turner,
as
well
as
participants
of
the NBER's
Higher
Education
Working Group
and seminar
participants
and
colleagues
at
U.C.
Berkeley
and N.C.
State Universities.
The standard disclaimer
applies.
Received
April
2007;
accepted
February
2008.
For
example,
a
history
of
the
NCAA
provided
on
the
NCAA's
official web site
states,
"The
1905
college
football
season
produced
18 deaths and 149 serious
injuries, leading
those
in
higher
education to
question
the
game's
place
on
their
campuses" (http://www.ncaa.org/wps/portal).
The 1905
season
led
to
the
establishment of the
Intercollegiate
Athletic Association
of the
United States
(IAAUS),
which
eventually
became the NCAA in
1910.
750
This content downloaded from 128.135.12.127 on Fri, 13 Dec 2013 10:41:36 AM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
College
Sports
Success
&
Student
Applications
751
commercialized,
profit-seeking,
entertainment
environment
further the educational
purpose
of
your
member
institutions?"2
Some
analysts
would
answer
Representative
Thomas's
question
by suggesting
that
sports
does
not
further
the
academic
objectives
of
higher
education.
They
would
argue
that
intercollegiate
athletics
is akin
to
an
"arms
race" because
of the
rank-dependent
nature
of
sports,
and
that
the
money
spent
on
athletic
programs
should
be used
to
directly
influence
the
academic
mission
of the
school instead.
However,
others
suggest
that because
schools
receive
a
variety
of
indirect
benefits
generated
by
athletic
programs,
such
as
student
body
unity,
increased
student
body
diversity,
increased
alumni
donations,
and increased
applications,
athletics
may
act
more as a
complement
to
a
school's academic
mission
than
a
substitute
for
it.
Until
recently,
evidence
for the indirect
benefits
of the
exposure
provided
by
successful
athletic
programs
was
based
more
on
anecdote
than
empirical
research.3
Early
work
by
Coughlin
and
Erekson
(1984)
looked
at
athletics
and
contributions
but
also raised
interesting questions
about
the role of
athletics
in
higher
education.
Another
seminal
paper
(McCormick
and
Tinsley
1987)
hypothesized
that schools
with
athletic
success
may
receive
more
applications,
thereby
allowing
the schools
to
be
more
selective
in
the
quality
of
students
they
admit.
They
used
data
on
average
SAT
scores
and
in-conference
football
winning
percentages
for
44 schools
in
"major"
athletic
conferences
for
the
years
1981-1984 and
found
some
evidence
that
football
success
can
increase
average
incoming
student
quality.4
Subsequent
research
has further
tested
the
increased
applications
(quantity
effect)
and
increased
selectivity
(quality
effect)
hypotheses
of
McCormick
and
Tinsley
but has
produced
mixed
results.5
The inconsistent results
in
the
literature
are
likely
the
product
of
(1)
different indicators
of
athletic
success,
(2)
a
limited
number of
observations
across
time
and
across
schools,
which has
typically
necessitated
a
cross
sectional
analysis,
and
(3)
different
econometric
specifications.
This
study
extends
the
literature
on
the indirect
benefits
of
sports
success
by
addressing
some
of the
data
limitations and
methodological
difficulties
of
previous
work. To
do this
we
constructed
a
comprehensive
data
set
of school
applications,
SAT
scores,
control
variables,
and
athletic
success
indicators.
Our data
set
is
a
panel
of
all
(approximately
330)
NCAA
Division
I
schools from
1983
to
2002. Our
analysis
uses
plausible
indicators for
both
football
and
basketball
success,
which
are
estimated
jointly
in
a
fixed effects
framework.
This allows
a
more
comprehensive
examination
of the
impact
of
sports
success on
the
quantity
and
quality
of
incoming
students.
Using
this identification
strategy
and
data,
we
find evidence
that
both
football
and
basketball
success
can
have
sizeable
impacts
on
the
number
of
applications
2
Bill
Thomas
is
a
Republican
congressman
from
California
and
previous
chairman of the
tax-writing
House
Ways
and
Means Committee.
The
full letter
was
printed
in
an
article entitled
"Congress'
Letter
to
the
NCAA"
on
October
5,
2006,
in
USA
Today.
3
A
leading example
of the anecdotal
evidence has
been dubbed "the
Flutie
effect,"
named after
the Boston
College
quarterback
Doug
Flutie,
whose
exciting
football
play
and
subsequent
winning
of the
Heisman
Trophy
in 1984
allegedly
increased
applications
at
Boston
College by
30%
the
following
year. Furthermore,
Zimbalist
(1999)
notes
that
Northwestern
University's
applications
jumped
by
30% after
they
played
in
the 1995
Rose
Bowl,
and
George
Washington
University's applications
rose
by
23%
after its
basketball
team
advanced
to
the Sweet
16
in the 1993
NCAA
basketball
tournament.
4
The
ACC, SEC,
SWC,
Big
Ten,
Big
Eight,
and
PAC Ten conferences
were
typically
considered
the
"major"
conferences in
college
basketball
and football
at
that
time.
Today
the
ACC, SEC,
Big
Ten,
Big
Twelve,
Big
East,
PAC
Ten,
and
independent
Notre Dame
are
considered
the
major
conferences/teams.
5
More detail
about
this
literature
is
provided
in the
next section.
This content downloaded from 128.135.12.127 on Fri, 13 Dec 2013 10:41:36 AM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
752 Devin
G.
Pope
and
Jaren
C.
Pope
received
by
a
school
(in
the
range
of
2-15%,
depending
on
the
sport,
level
of
success,
and
type
of
school),
and
modest
impacts
on
average
student
quality,
as
measured
by
SAT
scores.
Because
of
concerns
with
the
reliability
of the
self-reported
SAT
scores
in
our
primary
data
set,
we
also
acquired
a
unique
administrative data
set
that
reports
the SAT
scores
of
high
school
students
preparing
for
college
to
further
understand the
average
"quality"
of the student
that
sports
success
attracts.
These individual-level data
are
aggregated
to
the
school
level and
allow
us
to
analyze
the
impact
of
sports
success on
the number
of SAT-takers
(by
SAT
score)
who
sent
their SAT
scores
to
Division
I
schools.
Again,
the
panel
nature
of the data allows
us
to
estimate
a
fixed effects model
to
control for
unobserved school-level variables. The results
of
this
analysis
show that
sports
success
has
an
impact
on
where
students send their SAT
scores.
This
analysis
confirms and
expands
the results
from
the
application
data
set.
Furthermore,
this
data
makes
it clear that students with both low and
high
SAT
scores are
influenced
by
athletic
events.6
Besides
increasing
the
quality
of enrolled
students,
schools have other
ways
to
exploit
an
increased
number of
applications
due
to
sports
success:
through
increased enrollments
or
increased
tuition. Some schools that offer automatic admission
to
students who reach
certain
quality
thresholds
may
be forced
to
enroll
more
students
when
the demand
for
education
at
their
school
goes up.
Using
the
same
athletic
success
indicators and fixed effects
framework,
we
find
that
schools with basketball
success
tend
to
exploit
an
increase
in
applications
by
being
more
selective
in
the students
they
enroll.
Schools with football
success,
on
the
other
hand,
tend
to
increase enrollments.
Throughout
our
analysis,
we
illustrate
how the
average
effects that
we
find differ between
public
and
private
schools. We find
that
this differentiation is
often
of
significance. Specifically,
we
show that
private
schools
see
increases
in
application
rates
after
sports
successes
that
are
two to
four times
higher
than
seen
by
public
schools.
Furthermore,
we
show that the
increases
in
enrollment that take
place
after
football
success are
mainly
driven
by public
schools.
We also
find
some
evidence
that
private
schools
exploit
an
increase
in
applications
due
to
basketball
success
by increasing
tuition
rates.
We
think
that
our
results
significantly
extend
the
existing
literature and
provide
important
insights
about
the
impact
of
sports
success
on
college
choice.
As
Siegfried
and Getz
(2006)
recently
pointed
out,
students often choose
a
college
or
university
based
on
limited information
about
reputation.
Athletics
is
one
instrument that institutions
of
higher
education have
at
their
disposal
that
can
be
used
to
directly
affect
reputation
and the
prominence
of their
schools.7
Our
results
suggest
that
sports
success can
affect the
number
of
incoming
applications
and,
through
a
school's
selectivity,
the
quality
of
the
incoming
class. Whether
or
not
the
expenditures
required
to
receive these indirect benefits
promote
efficiency
in
education is
certainly
not
determined in the
present
analysis.
Nonetheless,
with
the
large
and detailed
data
sets
we
acquired,
combined
with
the fixed effect
specification
that included both
college
basketball
and
football
success
variables,
while
controlling
for
unobserved
school-specific
effects,
it
is
our
view
that
the
range
of estimates
showing
the
sensitivity
of
applications
to
college
sports
performance
6
In
Pope
and
Pope
(2007),
we use
these data
to
also show that
sports
success
has
a
differentiated
impact
on
various
demographic
subgroups
of students and
to
illustrate the
limited
awareness
that
high
school students
may
have
with
regards
to
the
utility
of
attending
different
colleges.
7
Reputation
can
be
thought
of
as
either academic
reputation
or as
social/recreational
reputation.
This content downloaded from 128.135.12.127 on Fri, 13 Dec 2013 10:41:36 AM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
/ 31
End of Document
324
You May Also Like

FAQs of The Impact of College Sports Success on Student Applications

How does college sports success affect student applications?
Success in college sports, particularly in football and basketball, has a measurable impact on the number of applications received by universities. The study found that schools achieving notable success can see an increase in applications ranging from 2% to 8%, depending on the sport and the institution's profile. This effect is particularly pronounced in private colleges, which experience application surges that are two to four times greater than their public counterparts. The findings suggest that athletic performance can enhance a school's visibility and attractiveness to prospective students.
What types of students are attracted by sports success?
The research indicates that both low and high SAT scoring students are influenced by a school's athletic achievements. This dual attraction allows universities to diversify their applicant pool, potentially improving their overall admission outcomes. The presence of successful sports programs can enhance a school's reputation, making it appealing to a broader demographic of students. As a result, institutions can leverage this increased interest to select from a larger and more varied applicant base.
What are the implications of increased applications for universities?
Increased applications due to sports success provide universities with the opportunity to be more selective in their admissions processes. Schools can use this influx of applications to enhance the quality of their incoming classes, as they can choose from a wider range of candidates. Additionally, institutions may also respond by increasing enrollment numbers or adjusting tuition rates, particularly in the wake of successful basketball seasons. This strategic approach allows schools to capitalize on their athletic successes to bolster their academic profiles.
What data sources were used in the study?
The study utilized a comprehensive dataset covering approximately 330 NCAA Division I schools from 1983 to 2002. This dataset included information on student applications, SAT scores, and indicators of athletic success. By employing a fixed effects model, the analysis controlled for unobserved school-level variables, allowing for a more accurate assessment of the impact of sports success on student applications. The use of longitudinal data strengthens the findings, providing insights into trends over time.
How do private and public schools differ in their response to sports success?
The study reveals significant differences in how private and public institutions respond to sports success. Private schools tend to experience much larger increases in application rates following athletic achievements compared to public schools. This disparity suggests that private institutions may have more flexibility in adjusting their admissions strategies and tuition rates in response to increased demand. Furthermore, the findings indicate that public schools often increase enrollment numbers in response to successful sports seasons, while private schools may focus on enhancing selectivity.

Related of The Impact of College Sports Success on Student Applications