FB: New England Small College Athletic Conference

[Charlie]

Ole Charlie is at it again- Junior must have caught up on his sleep to the point where he's now rested enough to handle another game on the schedule....... and one more hell week getting up at 4:00.

It's the NESCAC folks- get a handle on it. For reference look at what the Ivies do and pull that regimen back by several notches, there won't be a tenth game.

Funny how sentiment and perspective changes from the criticism which followed the bad Colby loss to a totally new perspective following the Mules great win over Middlebury on Saturday.

Based on that great win against Middlebury I'd jump back on the Cosgrove bandwagon if I were you Charlie. Can't remember the last Colby win over Middlebury. Suggest you trust Cosgrove.

Lets not loose perspective Colby's win was a good one and congrats to the team and coach. However Middlebury is not the same team it once was for a myriad of reasons explained. Colby was spanked by Williams and Hamilton so lets not cast our vote for Coach of the year.

[polbear73]

Charlie, if you don't get a perspective on NESCAC and what it is and stands for, your posts are becoming tiresome and, frankly, not worth reading. This is NESCAC, Charlie,  where football's place in the universe is secondary to a lot of things.

[lumbercat]

Ole Charlie is at it again- Junior must have caught up on his sleep to the point where he's now rested enough to handle another game on the schedule....... and one more hell week getting up at 4:00.

It's the NESCAC folks- get a handle on it. For reference look at what the Ivies do and pull that regimen back by several notches, there won't be a tenth game.

Funny how sentiment and perspective changes from the criticism which followed the bad Colby loss to a totally new perspective following the Mules great win over Middlebury on Saturday.

Based on that great win against Middlebury I'd jump back on the Cosgrove bandwagon if I were you Charlie. Can't remember the last Colby win over Middlebury. Suggest you trust Cosgrove.

Lets not loose perspective Colby's win was a good one and congrats to the team and coach. However Middlebury is not the same team it once was for a myriad of reasons explained. Colby was spanked by Williams and Hamilton so lets not cast our vote for Coach of the year.

Charlie-

The Mules have a tough one this week with the league's best. The result will probably provide the "perspective" you need to continue Cosgrove slams- why break your streak.

[BigKat]

Yep the playoff talk is tiresome. And just to level set in pretend land, lets randomly pick Hopkins ranked 20th. They would beat the Nescac champ by 3 tds plus.

[AmherstStudent05]

Amherst has just announced the complete end to legacy admissions. As far as I am aware (but could well be wrong), Amherst is the first NESCAC/Ivy school to announce such a policy. From what I can tell, this policy is effective immediately — the timing of which seems somewhat unfortunate for the children of alumni who were considering applying to Amherst in the next couple of weeks.

I am not sure exactly how  this decision (which is coupled with a significant boost in financial aid) will affect football recruiting in the short term. However, it seems to me that the underlying logic of this move — the desire to create as many places for academically capable students of all backgrounds as possible — should also one day call into question athletic TIPS at Amherst as well. But perhaps I am missing something. Interesting news to say the least.

https://www.amherst.edu/news/news_releases/2021/10-2021/amherst-college-to-end-legacy-preference-and-expand-financial-aid-investment-to-71-million

[SpringSt7]

Wonder how it well affect budgets too unless they just wrapped up a huge capital campaign I'm unaware of. That financial aid has to come from somewhere.

[quicksilver]

SpringSt7 -- Amherst is close to the end of a major capital campaign ($625M).

[nescac1]

At this point Williams and Amherst have so much money (both wayyy over 3 billion endowments, although neither has officially announced June 21 numbers) that both can easily sustain zero tuition for half the entering class. 

It's always been my view that the best way to make these educations more accessible, besides more financial aid, is not to cut back on legacies or athletes or whoever but to expand modestly.  Williams, for example, has basically doubled its non-residential building footprint over the past 25 years without significantly expanding enrollment.  Why not use all those resources to educate more kids?  With a 3.5 billion endowment (I'm guessing but it should be around there now), loads of massive new academic spaces, and nine ridiculously qualified applicants rejected for each they enroll, why not expand to 2500 students?  It would not change the fundamental character of the school and also create less pressure to cut legacies or athletes.    All it would take is a few extra dorms plus activating a few buildings that currently are dormant (Clark, Greylock dining).  Amherst could do the same.  But it's seemingly never talked about. 

[AmherstStudent05]

Just wanted to follow up to say that these changes are apparently scheduled to take effect next year.

[jumpshot]

nescac1: the topic of expansion was last considered seriously when Morty Shapiro was president, who resisted the pressure from some on the board for many reasons ... faculty/student ratio, tutorials, and economics since the College actually incurs an incremental "loss" with each additional student. Many higher-education administrators mistakenly think that growing enrollment improves the bottom-line, when, in fact, no student, for example, comes anywhere close to covering the full cost of a Williams education. Modest expansion should not be ruled out, simply requires careful consideration of many variables, as I'm sure you realize, among them intangible or unintended impact on culture, as we've seen in the past. 

[nescac1]

Not to belabor a topic too much that has little to do with football (I don't say NOTHING because when there is pressure to bring in any type of student not currently represented without expanding enrollment, folks often point to massive football rosters as one place to potentially cut, given that in some cases 1/10 first year male students are football recruits), but absolutely agree that expanding enrollment is resource-intensive, financially ... but again, when a small liberal arts school has an endowment over 3 billion dollars, and an ability to raise 500-600 million every ten years through a big fund drive, increasing the size of the student body by something like 10-20 percent is barely going to make a dent in the overall financial picture. 

As for the rest of it, you can just hire more faculty (it's a HUGE buyer's market in academic right now and probably forever) to keep the ratio the same, and most of the physical plant expansion -- both at Amherst and Williams -- has already happened.  These schools have MASSIVELY more square feet per student than they did 30 years ago, with very close to the same enrollment.  Williams, for example, has built a new student center, humanities complex, THREE new science buildings, two new dorms, a theater and dance complex, and library, with a new art museum forthcoming, all enormous, state of the art facilities that could do just fine with more usage, in just the last 25 years.   The school could easily accommodate another 50 students incoming per year, maybe more, with a bit more investment in dorms, and again, just actually using buildings that are currently fallow or underused (the Williams campus already has several and another building soon to need a new use after the new art museum is built).  So whenever these schools, whose enrollment has barely budged (for most of them) in decades say "let's add more of

• type of student by cutting [y]," I'd just rather then consider merely adding
• , considering the MASSIVE demand for a NESCAC education from elite applicants and ever increasing endowment-per-student figures .... that way, it's not a zero sum game. 

[SpringSt7]

I think I actually learned it on this board if I remember correctly, but Williams has either the most dorm rooms per students or the most single dorm rooms per student of any school in the country. Something along those lines. Moral of the story is that they have a ton of square footage. And it's even crazier when you actually step foot on campus and realize how much land that square footage is spread out upon. They could very easily get rid of some of the old converted frat houses that only house like 18-20 students each and add a million other things.

[D3FLETCH]

Amherst has just announced the complete end to legacy admissions. As far as I am aware (but could well be wrong), Amherst is the first NESCAC/Ivy school to announce such a policy. From what I can tell, this policy is effective immediately — the timing of which seems somewhat unfortunate for the children of alumni who were considering applying to Amherst in the next couple of weeks.

I am not sure exactly how  this decision (which is coupled with a significant boost in financial aid) will affect football recruiting in the short term. However, it seems to me that the underlying logic of this move — the desire to create as many places for academically capable students of all backgrounds as possible — should also one day call into question athletic TIPS at Amherst as well. But perhaps I am missing something. Interesting news to say the least.

https://www.amherst.edu/news/news_releases/2021/10-2021/amherst-college-to-end-legacy-preference-and-expand-financial-aid-investment-to-71-million

Not good for Amherst or the NESCAC. Puts a lot of pressure on Athletics to Tip legacy students. What could go wrong...

[Nescacman]

Amherst has just announced the complete end to legacy admissions. As far as I am aware (but could well be wrong), Amherst is the first NESCAC/Ivy school to announce such a policy. From what I can tell, this policy is effective immediately — the timing of which seems somewhat unfortunate for the children of alumni who were considering applying to Amherst in the next couple of weeks.

I am not sure exactly how  this decision (which is coupled with a significant boost in financial aid) will affect football recruiting in the short term. However, it seems to me that the underlying logic of this move — the desire to create as many places for academically capable students of all backgrounds as possible — should also one day call into question athletic TIPS at Amherst as well. But perhaps I am missing something. Interesting news to say the least.

https://www.amherst.edu/news/news_releases/2021/10-2021/amherst-college-to-end-legacy-preference-and-expand-financial-aid-investment-to-71-million

Not good for Amherst or the NESCAC. Puts a lot of pressure on Athletics to Tip legacy students. What could go wrong...

Tipping legacy student-athletes is a one way road to last place in the NESCAC (unless his last name happens to be Berlutti)....

[polbear73]

Man,

Biddy's going to need a bodyguard on her way out of town.