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2 hours ago, Box and Won said:

Maryville continues to increase its enrollment.  I'm not sure I see the appeal of that school.  I went to a Buzz Bissinger book signing there 3-4 years ago, and it did not strike me as a fun place to go to spend four years.

http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/news/2016/08/24/maryville-university-sees-record-freshman.html

They continue to build -- large new dorm complex was in progress last time I was over there and is likely done or close to done. Plus they have philanthropic money from the Donius, Huttig and John E. Simon families. 

Oh, and such amenities! I mean, the St. Luke's Hospital Cafeteria is within a brisk walk, as is the snack shop at the outpatient center. And I saw a bunch of Maryville students at the Walmart on Manchester and 141 yesterday. Does SLU have a Walmart within 3 miles? I think not. 

But I guess you do have to give them credit for this. 

 

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2 hours ago, Box and Won said:

Maryville continues to increase its enrollment.  I'm not sure I see the appeal of that school.  I went to a Buzz Bissinger book signing there 3-4 years ago, and it did not strike me as a fun place to go to spend four years.

http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/news/2016/08/24/maryville-university-sees-record-freshman.html

 

-the west county location that SLU didn't threaten to become?

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1 hour ago, bonwich said:

They continue to build -- large new dorm complex was in progress last time I was over there and is likely done or close to done. Plus they have philanthropic money from the Donius, Huttig and John E. Simon families.

The Donius Student Center is very nice for sure.

I know one thing they did to bolster enrollment was to move to Division II, increase the number of sports and to market themselves as an institution with a proud heritage of athletics. 

Maryville fields teams in Lacrosse, Men's and Women's Golf, Wrestling, Cross Country and Track and Field, Swimming and Diving, Bowling and Tennis in addition to more traditional college sports.  That is a lot of sports for a school of 2,700 students.

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  • 11 months later...

Positive news on the enrollment front.

Quote

The numbers suggest that a slow and declining enrollment may be reversing itself. Data for the entire undergraduate student body won’t be in for a couple of weeks, but the school’s leaders are feeling confident.

“Our goal was 1,600 students, as of now we’re projecting (1,640) new first-year undergraduate students, so it will be a little above goal,” SLU President Fred Pestello said. “It looks like we’ll enroll the strongest class we’ve had in terms of high school (grade-point average) and ACT score will put us in the top 9 percent in the country in terms of profile.”

The average ACT score for the freshman class is 28.2, the highest in the school’s history, according to a university spokesman.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/education/after-layoffs-in-the-spring-st-louis-university-rebounds-with/article_a87cafbc-be79-5190-bd20-eefc80570da9.html

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29 minutes ago, Box and Won said:

A few other stats not included in the Post-Dispatch article:

The class of 2021's average high school GPA is 3.9

28% of the class is the first member of a family to attend college

1,000+ members of the class received named scholarships.

The GPA number sounds great, but half the high school kids in the country have 4.0 GPAs due to grade inflation.  Every college administrator is pointing at the average GPA of their incoming freshmen, because that number goes up every year.  The ACT numbers are a better indicator.

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3 hours ago, cgeldmacher said:

The GPA number sounds great, but half the high school kids in the country have 4.0 GPAs due to grade inflation.  Every college administrator is pointing at the average GPA of their incoming freshmen, because that number goes up every year.  The ACT numbers are a better indicator.

Yes, I can attest to this. I just spent the past two years teaching high school, and As are a dime a dozen. There are many reasons, but I'll point to two that in my experience were the most serious egregious causes of this:

1) The world of education is shifting toward more and more teacher accountability. This is great, but really is has translated into if a kid has a low grade it's a reflection of a bad teacher... so teachers don't even bother anymore and just give a grade that will satisfy administrators. 

 

2) We had a policy at the high school I taught that kids could retake tests literally as many times as they wanted to. I'm not joking. If a kid didn't feel like studying and got a 30 on a test, they could just come retake it whenever before the end of the year. We would have students retaking things in April that were originally from October. This went for papers as well...

 

We couldn't "punish" a kids grade for any behavior, and the school defined not turning in work as a behavior... so deadlines meant nothing. We had to grade and give them the grade they would have gotten if it was in on time.

 

this is t a joke... it's the current state of education reform, especially in the inner cities.

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  • 1 year later...

Nice!  From the Biz Journal...

Quote

Saint Louis University expects to enroll a record 1,900 first-year students this fall, a 25% increase from fall 2018. The university last set an enrollment record in 2011 with 1,707 students, officials said.

"I am immensely proud that the largest class in SLU history is also the most diverse," Fred Pestello, president of SLU, said in a statement. "Increasing affordability and student diversity are two of the primary commitments I made when I began at SLU five years ago, and we continue to make progress in those areas."

SLU increased the number of both underrepresented minority and first-generation students  this fall, officials said. The incoming freshman class also is bringing with it a record amount of financial assistance — $54 million.

"The national trends indicate that students and their families have a great need for financial assistance," Kathleen Davis, SLU's vice president for enrollment and retention management, said in a statement. "The projections show that this will continue for the foreseeable future. Saint Louis University is not immune to this."

This year's freshman class is also among the brightest, official said, with an average high school GPA of 3.92 and ACT scores placing them among the top 10% of all students tested in the U.S. Students hail from 45 states and more than 35 countries.

SLU raised a record $119.4 million in gifts in the fiscal year ended June 30, thanks in part to a $50 million gift last August from billionaire philanthropist and political donor Rex Sinquefield and his wife, Jeanne Sinquefield.

The fiscal 2019 total, raised from donations, pledges and bequests, includes 18 gifts of $1 million or more, officials said. The recent fiscal year topped the prior year's record funds raised of $98.7 million.

 

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All good news. One stat I'm curious about is the geographic breakdown of the incoming class. I think undergrad enrollment is still about 2/3 from Missouri and Illinois every year, and we need more of a national brand.

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23 minutes ago, RiseAndGrind said:

25%! That’s huge. Put some more money into basketball 

i know they said the ACT scores are still high but I’m hoping the standards for admission were not lowered. 

I'm curious about that as well. A bit superficial but I wish the acceptance rate was lower than the low 60s. Hopefully the increase in admissions was commensurate with applications.

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2 minutes ago, Slu let the dogs out? said:

I'm curious about that as well. A bit superficial but I wish the acceptance rate was lower than the low 60s. Hopefully the increase in admissions was commensurate with applications.

I just did a quick Google search, and our rate actually compares pretty favorably to that of our peer schools.

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32 minutes ago, RiseAndGrind said:

25%! That’s huge. Put some more money into basketball 

i know they said the ACT scores are still high but I’m hoping the standards for admission were not lowered. 

My guess is it is the very rare application that gets rejected. 

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1 hour ago, Pistol said:

All good news. One stat I'm curious about is the geographic breakdown of the incoming class. I think undergrad enrollment is still about 2/3 from Missouri and Illinois every year, and we need more of a national brand.

Tons of kids from Chicagoland so 2/3 doesn't sound unrealistic. Perhaps it was just my major but it seemed like everyone in my classes were from New York/Minneapolis/California.

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16 minutes ago, NashvilleBilliken said:

Forgive my ignorance here, but why are less kids graduating? Are there simply less kids in the world now or is something else going on?

American demographics are trending toward a poorer, more diverse population.   Graduation rates closely track income.

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1 hour ago, RiseAndGrind said:

25%! That’s huge. Put some more money into basketball 

i know they said the ACT scores are still high but I’m hoping the standards for admission were not lowered. 

 

1 hour ago, Slu let the dogs out? said:

I'm curious about that as well. A bit superficial but I wish the acceptance rate was lower than the low 60s. Hopefully the increase in admissions was commensurate with applications.

 

1 hour ago, Box and Won said:

I just did a quick Google search, and our rate actually compares pretty favorably to that of our peer schools.

US News has it at 64% as of 2017, compared to 89% at Marquette, 71% at Loyola, 72% at Creighton, 72% at DePaul, 74% at Xavier, 78% at Mizzou, and 62% at Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Marquette's acceptance rate is the real outlier. I thought DePaul's was higher and Marquette's would be low-70s.

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38 minutes ago, NashvilleBilliken said:

Forgive my ignorance here, but why are less kids graduating? Are there simply less kids in the world now or is something else going on?

Yes, as I understand it the number of high school/college-aged kids has been on the decline since the millennial generation finished school.

So, it's great to SLU to record record enrollment despite there being fewer kids in the world.

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