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Subject: Rural Location Is A Big Deal Author: An Observer [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] Date Posted: 03:54:25 05/23/08 Fri In reply to: Sprint66 's message, "Re: Cornell needs to win a football title..." on 00:06:25 05/23/08 Fri Sprint mentioned Cornell's rural location and I am surprised that this influence does not get discussed more frequently on this board. For a variety of reasons, American 18-year-old kids today want more than ever before to spend their four college years in urban locations. New Haven and West Philadelphia have, over the space of no more than fifteen years, gone from being huge liabilities to being neutral factors. Morningside Heights transformed from a liability to being Columbia's biggest marketing advantage by far. Cambridge remains a plus and Providence a modest positive as well. Princeton isn't urban but its easy access to New York and Philly mitigates the drawback to an extent. It's a testament to the Cornell coaches in upstate New York that the Big Red has gained so much on the Tigers athletically when no other Ivy has. I see bad things ahead for Dartmouth. Through no fault of the school, a smaller percentage of high school kids want to go to the North Country. There will always be plenty of high quality kids who do but, on a relative basis, the Big Green will have to work harder and harder to win. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

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[> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Re: Rural Location Is A Big Deal Author: Curious [Edit] Date Posted: 01:03:31 06/04/08 Wed Yale is the curious outlier. Two decades ago, New Haven probably kept it from joining Princeton and Harvard in the top echelons of the league, although Carm Cozza certainly overcame that disadvantage, to his great credit. Today, while many high school students may still want to avoid New Haven, there are others who are drawn to its gritty urban landscape, in the same way that Penn no longers suffers as much from its location. Yet the Bulldog athletic program has never really budged from the lower division. I have Eli friends who accept it on faith that Princeton and Harvard, quite simply, accept more marginal students in the name of winning sports teams. I always tell them that published SAT scores and other academic statistics challenge that view of the world. Not sure how to explain the apparent underachievement in New Haven today.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Re: Rural Location Is A Big Deal Author: Princeton Fan [Edit] Date Posted: 21:39:57 06/18/08 Wed I have respect for varsity programs such as those at Yale and Columbia which succeed despite being located off-campus. It strikes me as a recruiting hardship to tell busy student-athletes who are rushing from class that they have to take a bus to and from practice.

[> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Dartmouth Author: Go Green [Edit] Date Posted: 21:50:53 06/18/08 Wed Historically, Dartmouth hasn't had any problems attracting football talent to Hanover. The reasons we fell on hard times have been well-discussed (raising AI unilaterally in the mid-90s, not keeping up in the arms race in facilities, other programs just getting better), but Hanover per se has never been cited as a reason. We've dug ourselvse into a hole, and are trying to dig ourselves out. The athletic department is certainly talking a good game. A couple of weeks ago, Big Green Alert linked to a school newspaper article in which our A.D. boldly proclaimed that the incoming athletes for next year were arguably Dartmouth's finest ever (which is saying quite a bit). The only sport where its been surmised that Dartmouth's location is really a disadvantage is men's basketball (although having a more impressive gym than Leede Arena would help). Ironically enough, Chris Lincoln surmised that as much as Hanover is a negative ("There's nothing to do in this town") among men basketball players, the exact same thing is a postive for recruiting women's basketball players ("Parents know that they can send their daughters to Hanover and have piece of mind that nothing's going to happen to her"). Its right there in Playing the Game.