<p>Well I was just curious to see how many spots schools which won a NCAA national chamiponship in basketball or football went up. What I found was rather suprising, schools which won a national championship in the last five years have gone up the most spots out of any schools. Most recently Florida won the national championship in basketball it went up from spot 50, to 47. On the otherhand Texas won the national championship in football and also went up, from 52 to 47. The same is true for USC, which went from 30 to27. The same happened to Syracuse, Miami, Arizona, Ohio state after there national chamiponships. </p>
<p>I'm not trying to make this seem as if athletics was the only reason these schools are moving up so much and are so high up on the list but can we correlate a high rise only based on the fact they won a national championship, or is there something else?</p>
<p>Any sort of publicity that huge would result in more people interested in the school, which could easily cause a slight increase in rankings within a year or two.</p>
<p>But also you may be misinterpreting some of the rankings. 50 to 47, 52 to 47, 30 to 27, those are all only single spot increases due to ties. A single spot is hardly something to debate about.</p>
<p>It's widely believed that well-publicized athletic success for a school can cause a significant increase in applications. If so, then it's reasonable to suppose that more applications could lead to increased selectivity, which in turn could boost a school's USN&WR ranking.</p>
<p>There's even a name for it: the "Flutie</a> Factor", after Doug Flutie of Boston College:
[quote]
Flutie's 1984 "Hail Mary" pass, and the subsequent rise in applications for admission to Boston College, gave rise to the admissions phenomenon known as the "Flutie Factor." This idea essentially states that a winning sports team can increase the recognition value of a university enough to make it a more elite school.
[/quote]
I've heard a rumor that the "Flutie Factor" was so powerful that even Boston University (a different school with a similar name) saw a significant increase in applications. Apparently many applicants confused BU with BC, because many BU applicants specifically cited Doug Flutie as an inspiration.</p>