<p>So LSU won the NCAA baseball title, but since this is CC I thought it might be a good place to analyze the academic side of things.</p>
<p>The graduation rate of the team is around 40%. Is it good for the university to have pretty much half the baseball team their as if it is a minor league team?</p>
<p>Blake Dean, one of the team's best players was drafted in the 10th round. He has been at LSU for 3 years and never even decided on a major. I mean why even feign that he's attending the school for academic reasons?</p>
<p>I was just wondering what the consensus was. I mean I think it's tremendous the positive publicity and identity athletics has brought LSU, but it's getting to the point where it's almost contrary to the academic side of things.</p>
<p>I knew about LSU’s sports obsession when I enrolled, but it does get to be a bit too much sometimes. As an applicant, I never once got an email about LSU student accomplishments (all the other colleges bragged as much as they could), awards, new rankings, or anything of that nature. I did get an email from the admissions department Thursday about the baseball team’s win, though.</p>
<p>As I understand it, athletics brings in a good deal of revenue for colleges. The athletes are like work horses. LSU keeps them to do a job and make money, all the while making them feel important. The coaches would much rather have them on the field practicing than in the classroom. </p>
<p>So I guess the baseball players can have a good time for four years and bring in millions for the school. That will help keep tuition down and services up while I get my degree.</p>
<p>As a baseball fan, this is one of my pet peeves. If a student is lucky enough to get a scholarship to go to college based on his baseball ability, he should take full advantage of that and get a degree. How many players have season ending injuries, or just don’t make it? So they leave school early, with no degree, and now no job. What a waste!</p>
<p>This is particularly irksome to me with players from really good schools, like Tulane, Vanderbilt, and even Rice! </p>
<p>My God, who wouldn’t want to go to Rice, and then you don’t even get a degree from there?</p>
<p>I know there’s money involved. If you don’t take that offer when you’re hot, it can cost you millions in signing bonuses. But unless you invest that money in a gold mine, it’s not going to support you the rest of your life.</p>
<p>Same thing with the kids who don’t even go to college, and sign right out of high school. Okay. You play for a couple of years. Then you get hurt. You don’t even have a degree to fall back on. And if you want to go back to school, it’s going to be on your own dime. No one’s going to give you a sports scholarship when you’re hurt.</p>
<p>It doesn’t help that they have agents pushing them to make that money so they can take their 10 percent commission.</p>
<p>Of course, not all ball players are like this. </p>
<p>We do have gems like Wally and Nick, who excelled not just at their sport, but in academics as well. They are the reason I watch LSU baseball.</p>
<p>Except that besides a couple of players, none of them get full rides. The NCAA restricts all division I teams to 11.78 baseball schollies total. There’s 34 people on LSU’s baseball roster. What most schools tend to do is to spread out the scholarships among the majority of the players. The only people I can think of who are on full rides are Chad Jones and Jared Mitchell because they both have football scholarships. So in point, most baseball players are paying to go to school.</p>
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<p>Maybe your signed up for the wrong newsletters? I always get the e-mails about when we have Truman scholars, Goldwater Scholars, Rhodes Scholars, etc.</p>
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<p>To be honest, that number seems a little low, and I wouldn’t mind knowing what your source was if it’s true.</p>
<p>Based on this past years NCAA APR. The LSU baseball squad has an APR of 921. According to NCAA a score of 900 approximately equals 45% Graduation Success Rate, while a score of 925 is approximately a 60% GSR. </p>
<p>Now, I’m not trying to condone athletes leaving early without their degree, because I believe in the value on the degree if nothing else but for a fall back or to use it after your pro days are over. I’m just trying to put it into perspective. </p>
<p>LSU as a whole doesn’t even that great of a GSR. Most GSR are based on 6-year rates. LSU’s are (cumulative percentages): ~26% after 4-years, ~38% after 5 years, and ~60% after 6 years. </p>
<p>But again to put it into perspective, if LSU baseball’s squad does have a graduation rate of ~40% that’s ~14 players who graduate within 6 years. At 60% (which would meet LSU norm) that would be ~20 players who graduate within 6 years. That’s a difference of 6 players. If the GSR is actually higher than 40%, which I believe it to be (possibly around 50-55%), you are looking at 2-3 players more who don’t graduate or leave early when compared to the general LSU population.</p>
<p>“I knew about LSU’s sports obsession when I enrolled, but it does get to be a bit too much sometimes. As an applicant, I never once got an email about LSU student accomplishments (all the other colleges bragged as much as they could), awards, new rankings, or anything of that nature. I did get an email from the admissions department Thursday about the baseball team’s win, though.”- Sleepy_Sentry</p>
<p>I’ve received e-mails about student awards and honors plenty of times. They even have a section devoted to current LSU students who have received notable awards on the front page. [Only</a> One LSU](<a href=“http://www.lsu.edu/now/]Only”>http://www.lsu.edu/now/) </p>
<p>I suggest you read each of the people’s bios including Chancellor Michael Martin’s. When I went to orientation, the one thing they stressed about the most were they more proud of these students than the student atheletes. </p>
<p>Since you’re now an LSU tiger, you should not hate on LSU athletics that much. Athletics are big at EVERY large state university. You name it: UNC, UM, UT, USC, UF, UA, etc. they all are big on one sport or another. As you can tell from the list, these schools have fairly good academic programs. </p>
<p>You made a sacrifice of turning down a $30,000 s.ship from Tulane in order to go LSU. I’ve seen your stats in other boards, and I bet LSU gave you a pretty good deal. If all LSU was just focused on sports, you and I would not have scholarships to go to LSU.</p>
<p>“Since you’re now an LSU tiger, you should not hate on LSU athletics that much.”</p>
<p>Definitely not. There’s actually a great reason for every student to support LSU sports: money. LSU’s athletic department is totally self-sufficient, so it doesn’t cut into the university’s money, annnd…</p>
<p>Besides, LSU baseball is just fun to watch. Honestly, I don’t care how well the players are doing academically. If they opt to major in general studies, barely keep up the grades to stay enrolled, then get drafted before getting a degree, that’s their choice. I don’t think it’s a great choice, but since it provides so much money and entertainment for the university, I’m alright with it.</p>
<p>Just to clear things up, I’m not saying LSU students don’t accomplish things, they definitely do. I was complaining that the admissions office wasn’t doing enough to get the word about good students out.</p>
<p>I actually never signed up for a mailing list. When I applied the admissions office got my email and put me on some sort of list, because I got emails from them. I shouldn’t have to look around LSU’s site and sign up for a mailing list to hear about the good students. Everywhere else I applied, I was automatically added to a general mailing list that included accomplishments in both academics and athletics.</p>
<p>I do not hate LSU sports, and in my post, acknowledged the revenue they bring in. I think athletics are a very valuable endeavor. I just get a little perturbed sometimes when the achievements of athletes overshadow those of scholars.</p>
<p>They got their numbers directly from an NCAA source. It’s actually listed at 45%, so I was a bit low.</p>
<p>You all make some good points. </p>
<p>If you take a look at the roster, there are players who want to become doctors, engineers, etc. Surely they are the ones that graduate. Also they don’t play.</p>
<p>So what you have is a situation where the good players, the ones who play a lot, are either going pro (a very low percentage ever make it to the Big Leagues) or are leaving with no degree or even if they do graduate, likely one without much merit to it.</p>
<p>I know what sleepy sentry means a bit. While it is true LSU highlights its good students, especially the ones who have accomplished nationally recognized scholarships, even I was on the frontpage of the website as an “outstanding out of state freshman,” the thing is nobody cares. If you “follow” the fan page on Facebook, they will list some education acheivements, and all the comments will be related to athletics. It’s as if academics are trivial at times.</p>
<p>And when they brag about an LSU department being ranked highly, they usually twist some sort of ranking to make it sound much better than it is.</p>
<p>A school like Stanford or UCLA that rakes in athletic titles is still always an educational institution first. </p>
<p>I’m just not sure it’s sending the right message to Louisiana’s youth that the only way you will make something of yourself is through athletics. Especially when you consider the state’s education system is floundering.</p>
<p>And it’s mostly a misnomer that LSU athletics brings in lots of revenue to the university. It is self-sustaining, one of the few universities that isn’t losing money on it, but that said it’s not as if LSU winning football games is paying for our scholarships.</p>
<p>I found this release from former AD Skip Bertman. It is a bit dated (2 years ago), but I imagine nothing much has changed. It’s called Rick Reilly… but it’s a Bertman letter.</p>
<p>Side note, sort of off topic- It always cracks me up when an LSU student or fan calls him or herself a “national champion” as if he or she was a member of the football or baseball team. And it does happen. I remember a column in the Reveille when the writer was talking about being called a racial slur and ended it with “Don’t hate me cause I’m black, hate me because I’m a national champion.” Absolutely hillarious.</p>