if i were s slick marketer I’d send kids around and other reps, but not mention the numbers. Why draw attention to them? I’d tell them the other fine things about the school and highlight how desirable it is. most people don’t look this hard at the numbers. trust me. the people on CC are a rare breed.
It’s marketing, the school re-branded and focused their ‘recruitment’ towards candidates who would most likely fit Geneseo. Though, some some rooms reopened on campus so they’re probably trying to fill those spots as well
@Dustyfeathers, I didn’t mean that I would bring the numbers up, but I would point out how meaningless they are
if it did come up. And I agree with you. I doubt many people look at it as carefully as all of us on here do.
@anonymous1568732, what do you mean by “the school rebranded”? What kind of new kids do you think they’re now targeting? I agree about the rooms. I ran the numbers last night, but didn’t write them down. The increased enrollment definitely accounts for a decent amount of the increase in admission rate, but not all of it.
I’m not sure how much this might have affected things, but they did cut out 3 majors because of budget cuts. They announced the changes in November of 2010(pretty sure it was then) and phased the majors out over the next few years.
One of the majors they cut was Computer Science. I guess it made sense from a money standpoint, but I think it really changes the school for the worse. Even some of the most un-STEMy LACs, like Sarah Lawrence, have a Computer Science department. I think it really hurts the Science and Math majors at Geneseo.
I’ve thought about writing to the school about it. If anyone is interested in banding together to see if it could have some impact, please PM me. I’m sure they won’t bring back the major, but maybe some pressure could convince them to at least offer enough courses for a minor.
I think there’s a general, non-CS Intro To Programming course, and then the Math department and all of the Science departments have their own specialized computer courses. But there’s no Data Structures course, no Web Programming course, no Intro To Object-Oriented Programming. It’s pretty sad, considering how popular CS is at other schools, and how useful programming skills are in today’s world.
Looking at Geneseo’s Common Data Set (https://www.geneseo.edu/sites/default/files/sites/ir/CDS_2015-2016_C_FirstTime_FirstYear_FreshmanAdmission.pdf), it has a 73% acceptance rate. I really like the school, but most information on the web puts its acceptance rate in the 30s or 40s . . . making this kinda weird. According to the school, a large part of this has to do with Western/upstate NY having much fewer high school students than usual, due to a declining birth rate/general depopulation of NYS.
I’m relatively new to all this, but from my research, the boom of students applying to college has peaked many years ago and the trend is downward for the next few years. Shifting demographics and all. Most tail end of the Boomer generation’s kids are finished college now and Gen X is much smaller. There are small colleges in CT that are now poaching students from neighboring NY by dangling the same in-state tuition rates to fill beds, they got the idea from Mass colleges who have done that to them.
Shifting demographics will not affect brand name schools bc they can count on OOS and International students to fill their coffers and boost their specs. Less well known schools --especially small publics are the ones that will be affected the most.
Binghamton has Computer Sciences and Engineering, STEM students GENERALLY speaking are the highest scoring students and have the highest GPAs to boost their school’s specs.
It sounds like Geneseo with only S & M (*giggle) will be at a disadvantage in this numbers game.
My mistake…there is engineering at this school. Apologies. but my theory doesn’t change.
I’m a Geneseo alum from a long time ago, and I agree with Mom2abc above- there was a boom in college admissions back in the 2000s that has now fizzled out, and Geneseo is back to scraping out the slightly above average middle-of-the-road students. It’s still a very good school with great programs & professors, but the competition for students is higher now than 10 years ago. So there might be a decline in student quality.
Also, I always cringed whenever President Dahl compared Geneseo to other colleges, even 20 years ago. I would have been accepted at any of those “peer institutions” but was not willing to pay (ahem, my parents were not willing to pay!)- I don’t think I could say the same for most of my classmates. Even if Geneseo is on par with Colgate or Boston College, it is debasing to constantly talk about keeping up with the Joneses. Geneseo does some things very well, and it should focus on those things. I loved Geneseo and I would not have changed my decision to attend, knowing what I know now… unless I had been offered some really good scholarship money from a sweet private school… that would have been tempting. But I didn’t apply anywhere that would consider me a top student.
I got into Stony Brook, which is supposed to be about as hard to get into as Geneseo 3.8 W GPA (with a letter from my counselor explaining it is lowered because of medical problems junior year) 1370 SAT, good rec letters, lots of community service. Is getting into Stony Brook an okay indication of getting into Geneseo?
I can tell you that speaking with the head of guidance at my son’s high school, they are very clear to students that Geneseo is the hardest to get into of the SUNY schools and, in fact, discourage kids with lower than 90 GPA from even applying. The fact that they might take 70% or more of the applicants and they still have very high average GPA, SAT and ACT confirms this fact. If the averages were declining while the acceptance rate was going up, that would be a concern. They have mastered the art of getting the near the top students to apply and getting the rest to not apply. (Not sure they shouldn’t want more applicants, but given the applicants remain high quality, who am I to question their process,)