(06-26-2015 12:40 AM)nzmorange Wrote: (06-25-2015 10:32 PM)lumberpack4 Wrote: (06-25-2015 06:36 PM)nzmorange Wrote: (06-25-2015 06:21 PM)lumberpack4 Wrote: [quote='nzmorange' pid='12153909' dateline='1435269194']
What's the deal with GT. It's a good engineering school, so the alums *have* money, and GT has historically fielded competitive teams, so there *should* be band wagon fans, especially in Atlanta (high pop, and few good pro teams). But, AD revenue is extremely low. What gives? I know UGA is in the state, but other schools are able to do well with nearby major rivals.
Unless my info is out of date, you need to pass the first semester of calculus to get a degree from GT. If that is the case, that alone is barrier. GT is also a smaller university than most realize and nearly every woman or foreign student they have admitted over the past 30 years is akin to a lost athletic donor. Women just don't make athletic donations like men, no do people not brought up on US Football or basketball.
The calc is irrelevant. It impacts on the field success, sure. However, GT has had plenty of success regardless. Based on their actual historical level of success, they should be better supported.
I'll compare the rest against Syracuse, which runs a relatively high revenue AD.
The women point is also over-blown. I'd be willing to bet that GT has far fewer women than most universities (as a percentage of the total population - GT is 67% male, SU is 45% male).
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreview...-tech-1569
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreview...rsity-2882
The size is also somewhere between wrong and misleading. As per wikipedia, GT is 23k students with ~14.5k undergrads. That's ~2k bigger than Syracuse on the whole with 500 fewer undergrads (GT is more graduate student-centric).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_In...Technology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syracuse_University
GT also has a (very slightly) higher percentage of American students. SU is "about 10%," whereas GT is "approx. 9%."
http://www.admission.gatech.edu/apply/in...l-freshman
http://www.syr.edu/currentstudents/inter...dents.html
Going by your metrics, GT should have significantly more money than Syracuse, but that isn't the case. What gives?
Comparing Syracuse to GT is like comparing an Aardvark to an Armadillo - other than the four legs and a tail, they don't have much in common. Old, Northeastern Universities have had centuries to build an alumni base and historically have had much wealthier student bases.
GT is barely 100 years old, faces direct competition from the NBA, NFL, and MLB, as well as being crowded out alumni wise in it's own metro area by UGA and probably Auburn.
"Old, Northeastern Universities have had centuries to build an alumni base and historically have had much wealthier student bases."
Georgia Tech - 1885 (first season 1892)
Syracuse - 1870 (first season 1889)
As per wikipedia, there's a 15 year difference in the schools' ages, and a 3 year difference in the programs' ages.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_In...Technology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syracuse_University
Also, GT is an elite
engineering school. You are the only one on the planet who thinks that they have a non-wealthy alumni base.
http://www.thebestschools.org/blog/2012/...rs-degree/
(12 of the top 15 jobs have "engineer" in the name, including all of the top 5)
"GT is barely 100 years old, faces direct competition from the NBA, NFL, and MLB, as well as being crowded out alumni wise in it's own metro area by UGA and probably Auburn."
...unlike Syracuse which only has to compete with the Bills and Sabers in upstate, and the Knicks, Nets, Yankees, Mets, Red Bulls, Pinstripes (MLS expansion this year), Rangers, Islanders, Devils, Giants, and Jets in NYC metro area, and significant alumni groups from G*d knows how many major schools.
....and then the Patriots, Celtics, Red Sox, Revolution, Bruins in the state to the right, and the Eagles, Steelers, Pirates, Phillies, Penguins, Fliers, 76ers, and the Union in the state to the south.
[b]I think that you need to leave the south. You clearly have a dramatic misconception of Syracuse University, and the northeast in general.
[/i]
I think you are the one who knows very little about the South and must know very little about what majors and what family pedigrees generate wealthy alumni for most of the 20th Century. Big money does not come from Engineering - it comes from the lawyers, medical doctors and dentists, the business majors, etc. The engineers do make good money, but they don't flock to Wall Street, investment banking, or deal in what used to be cash oriented business. Syracuse has had a Law school and a B school for 100 years.
You don't seem to understand what it means to be a STEM university and how that affects everything else.
You also didn't seem to understand that GT faces their competition in their home market, not in far away DMA's. How many pro teams in Syracuse or Central NY for that matter? Cornell give you a lot of competition? How about SUNY Binghamton?
GT is not like Syracuse, not even close. The closest analogous schools in the ACC are VT and NC State and even then they are more diverse "cow colleges" when compared to GT.
The closest comparison in the NE to GT is MIT. If MIT attempted to play Division I sports then you have a nearly direct comparison, except that MIT is located in urban Boston and was drawing from the NYC-Boston Corridor and the world for many decades before the South became tolerable for non-Southerners through he advent of air conditioning and the end of segregation.
You seem to be oblivious to the fact that most of the South was a hot, humid, poor, de-facto rural **** hole until the 1960's. Perhaps you need to travel more. Since I've been in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, the Yukon, BC, Saskatchewan, Albert, Ontario, Quebec, PEI, NB, and Nova Scotia and have had the opportunity to visit about 45 or so university campuses, I think I know a little about what university is similar to another.
(I am hoping to check off my last two continents - Antarctica and South America later this year).
The last two times I was in Syracuse I said I would never go back, that I would stop at Cornell and then head to Happy Valley PA. My reasoning was that I found Syracuse rust-belt depressing - like Toledo or but not nearly as far gone.
Based on some of the other Syracuse fans postings I will try Syracuse again in the future using their guides - I will look past the rusting bridges and the busted pavement and concrete.