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After defeating Alabama’s football team in 2022 for the first time since 2006, the University of Tennessee saw a 30.7% increase in out-of-state applications from 2023 to 2024. Many believe the dramatic increase in applications caused their acceptance rate to decline from 87% to 68%.
“I think our acceptance rate increased so much recently because of the success in sports. I think more and more people are realizing what UT has to offer and could see themselves here,” UT freshman Molly Berger said.
Similar to Tennessee, Georgetown University saw a 45% increase in applications in the mid-1980s during a surge of basketball success, most notably after Patrick Ewing led them to a national title. After the team won the Big Ten Championship in 1995, applications increased by 21%.
Marketing professor Doug J. Chung claims athletic programs are the primary form of mass media advertising for most US academic institutions. A national championship win or an upset generates a lot of publicity for the school, which means more public interest, leading to an increase in prospective students and college application evaluations.
Chung published his findings on the effect of collegiate athletics on admissions at Harvard Business School in 2013. His research shows that applications increase by 17.7% when a mediocre team rises to greatness. Schools that want similar results without a winning team must lower tuition by 3.8% or recruit higher-quality faculty.
This phenomenon, the Flutie effect, is named after former Boston College and pro football player Doug Flutie. While playing football for Boston College, his performance increased the school’s popularity and boosted the number of applications by 30%.
“Because of the recent athletic success of [Tennessee] football, a lot more people visit campus and do tours. We have had many more parking problems, too. I circled for two hours and was late for class on my first day because of it. They are also over-admitting students because they are getting so many applications,” Berger said.
For fall 2024 entry, UT received 57,278 applications by their regular admissions deadline, a 19.0% increase and 9,157 more applications compared to December 2022. By the early action deadline, UT admitted 17,552 students, 10,394 students from out-of-state.
“I think that [the increase in applications is because of] the SEC. They play those big schools [like] South Carolina and all of those schools, the tuitions gonna go up because they’re playing the great schools,” senior Braylon Martin said.
When starting the college application process, many students consider sports an essential factor in their decision. College students enjoy tailgating, game days, and the recognition of a winning title.
“I had to take [sports] into consideration [because] I don’t want to be walking around campus bored. I like to see if they have a football team, a baseball team,” Martin said.
UT students are noticing the upgrades in facilities and attendance at their sports events.
“There has definitely been a huge increase in applications to the school because of the success of our football team in the past few seasons, [as well as] before that, because of the D1, SEC climate, especially in basketball. A lot of people end up coming here more for reasons based on athletic viewing occasions, inflating the number of applicants each year. The better our teams do, the more applicants we have, increasing our school population, thus producing more alumni that donate to the school and increasing the amount of tuition money flowing in here,” UT freshman Devan Hall said.
The Flutie Effect is a part of college life and remains unavoidable. Students at these universities thrive in those environments.
Colleges and universities are businesses, and people are concerned that institutions with popular sports teams will emphasize athletics over educational excellence. The spending at many athletic powerhouse schools reflects this data. The college admissions landscape can be challenging, no matter which schools are on your balanced list. Whether this is due to the Flutie Effect or a change in the school’s policies or recruiting strategies, competition for admission is stronger than ever.
