[Mick]

Men's volleyball is the other sport that just feels like something Stanford should do.  I think the problem is that the team really hasn't been very good for most of its history.

I suppose it depends on how you define "hasn't been very good."  Near as I can tell, Stanford has (technically) had a men's varsity volleyball team since 1976, though Stanford's site only shows records since 1985, which is, I assume, when they took it seriously.  I played against Stanford in 1981 when they had two terrific players and the rest were essentially club volleyball players.  And Stanford's varsity was mediocre from 1985-1988.

But Stanford has a strong history.  Stanford won national championships in 1997 and 2010, they were runners-up in 1989, 1992 and 2014.  They made the post-season league tournament (Top 4 of 10+ teams) in 20 of 27 seasons.  Stanford has placed 12 players on the U. S. Olympic team, 27 players on the U. S. National team, 20 first team All Americans (and 32 overall All Americans, but none since Brian Cook in 2014).  Three Coach of the Year awards, two National Player of the Year awards, three NCAA tournament MVPs.

Candidly, they haven't been very good over the past few years.  And they don't have the track record of either of the tennis teams.  But I'd say they're still pretty good.

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It's a total guess on my part which in hindsight is perhaps too low but not by much. 150 is far too high. 

To check my guesstimate, I just counted the freshmen listed on rosters on Gostanford.com, which obviously will have some year to year variation but will be a rough approximation.

Rowing (mens)- 9
Sailing (coed/w)- 5
Fencing (m/w)- 7
MVB- 4
Field Hockey- 2
Wrestling- 8
Squash- 0
Synchronized Swimming- 2
W Lightweight Rowing- 4

Total of 41. And some of these may be walk ons who were not recruited.

My understanding is that they make up about 2 - 3% of the student population, since the proportion of students participating in intercollegiate athletics will go down from 12% of the student population to 9%.  On that basis, we are talking about 150 - 200 students.

BC

I think the two of you are talking about two separate things.  BC is referring to the roster totals, Big seems to be referring solely to single year recruits (BTW, volleyball's number is 5, and the year my son was recruited it was 7).

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I wonder about that.  I also wonder if eliminating sports will reduce either the number of applicants or the yield.

Except for the very narrow slice of applicant that is applying to the school specifically to get a scholarship in that sport, it will be a rounding error in terms of number of applicants.  Other than fencers, nobody is applying to Stanford because it has a good fencing team.

In terms of yield, I think it depends on how exactly the University calculated yield, but it will probably have a negligible effect.  We are talking about 3% of the student population each year, so the yield for those people would have to be dramatically different than the rest of the school for it to make a difference.

I get that, but that's not quite what I was getting at.  Right now, Stanford (35 men's and women's sports teams, I count women's crew and lightweight crew as the same) is the only university that competes at an elite level both academically and athletically.  Arguably, Northwestern (19 sports) and Duke (21 sports) are the closest challengers, maybe Vandy (15 teams).  If Stanford decides to sprint down the slippery slope on the way to eliminating D1 sports in favor of D3 or club sports, that will have a material effect on Stanford's brand.  At that point, Stanford may be equated with Chicago, CalTech, MIT, and others.  I think there are people who apply to Stanford, in part because of that California-healthy, D1 part of the brand and not just athletes.  

I think that's true for yield as well.  Athletics is a minor factor in the calculus of whether a 17 year old intends to attend a specific university, but it isn't a non-factor.  I suspect that Stanford's Goliath of an athletic program factors into both yield percentage and number of applications.  Eliminate sports, and its overall brand is reduced, I suspect. 

I don't have much evidence, but I thought Douglas Chung's study on athletic success and applications was notable.  He noted that Georgetown's applications skyrocketed by 45% as their men's basketball team had success between 1983 and 1986.  Within two years after Doug Flutie, Boston College's applications went up by 30%.  Northwestern's applications went up 30% after they won the Big Ten in football.

I do think it would be interesting to review Stanford's increases in application numbers during the past 30 years and compare it to application numbers. Did apps stagnate during Teevens/Harris and increase dramatically during late Harbaugh/early Shaw? I don't have the time, but if anyone else wants to take a stab at it...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/hbsworkingk...f981976e96

[Mick]

Men's volleyball is the other sport that just feels like something Stanford should do.  I think the problem is that the team really hasn't been very good for most of its history.

I suppose it depends on how you define "hasn't been very good."  Near as I can tell, Stanford has (technically) had a men's varsity volleyball team since 1976, though Stanford's site only shows records since 1985, which is, I assume, when they took it seriously.  I played against Stanford in 1981 when they had two terrific players and the rest were essentially club volleyball players.  And Stanford's varsity was mediocre from 1985-1988.

But Stanford has a strong history.  Stanford won national championships in 1997 and 2010, they were runners-up in 1989, 1992 and 2014.  They made the post-season league tournament (Top 4 of 10+ teams) in 20 of 27 seasons.  Stanford has placed 12 players on the U. S. Olympic team, 27 players on the U. S. National team, 20 first team All Americans (and 32 overall All Americans, but none since Brian Cook in 2014).  Three Coach of the Year awards, two National Player of the Year awards, three NCAA tournament MVPs.

Candidly, they haven't been very good over the past few years.  And they don't have the track record of either of the tennis teams.  But I'd say they're still pretty good.

---

It's a total guess on my part which in hindsight is perhaps too low but not by much. 150 is far too high. 

To check my guesstimate, I just counted the freshmen listed on rosters on Gostanford.com, which obviously will have some year to year variation but will be a rough approximation.

Rowing (mens)- 9
Sailing (coed/w)- 5
Fencing (m/w)- 7
MVB- 4
Field Hockey- 2
Wrestling- 8
Squash- 0
Synchronized Swimming- 2
W Lightweight Rowing- 4

Total of 41. And some of these may be walk ons who were not recruited.

My understanding is that they make up about 2 - 3% of the student population, since the proportion of students participating in intercollegiate athletics will go down from 12% of the student population to 9%.  On that basis, we are talking about 150 - 200 students.

BC

I think the two of you are talking about two separate things.  BC is referring to the roster totals, Big seems to be referring solely to single year recruits (BTW, volleyball's number is 5, and the year my son was recruited it was 7).

---

I wonder about that.  I also wonder if eliminating sports will reduce either the number of applicants or the yield.

Except for the very narrow slice of applicant that is applying to the school specifically to get a scholarship in that sport, it will be a rounding error in terms of number of applicants.  Other than fencers, nobody is applying to Stanford because it has a good fencing team.

In terms of yield, I think it depends on how exactly the University calculated yield, but it will probably have a negligible effect.  We are talking about 3% of the student population each year, so the yield for those people would have to be dramatically different than the rest of the school for it to make a difference.

I get that, but that's not quite what I was getting at.  Right now, Stanford (35 men's and women's sports teams, I count women's crew and lightweight crew as the same) is the only university that competes at an elite level both academically and athletically.  Arguably, Northwestern (19 sports) and Duke (21 sports) are the closest challengers, maybe Vandy (15 teams).  If Stanford decides to sprint down the slippery slope on the way to eliminating D1 sports in favor of D3 or club sports, that will have a material effect on Stanford's brand.  At that point, Stanford may be equated with Chicago, CalTech, MIT, and others.  I think there are people who apply to Stanford, in part because of that California-healthy, D1 part of the brand and not just athletes.  

I think that's true for yield as well.  Athletics is a minor factor in the calculus of whether a 17 year old intends to attend a specific university, but it isn't a non-factor.  I suspect that Stanford's Goliath of an athletic program factors into both yield percentage and number of applications.  Eliminate sports, and its overall brand is reduced, I suspect. 

I don't have much evidence, but I thought Douglas Chung's study on athletic success and applications was notable.  He noted that Georgetown's applications skyrocketed by 45% as their men's basketball team had success between 1983 and 1986.  Within two years after Doug Flutie, Boston College's applications went up by 30%.  Northwestern's applications went up 30% after they won the Big Ten in football.

I do think it would be interesting to review Stanford's increases in application numbers during the past 30 years and compare it to application numbers. Did apps stagnate during Teevens/Harris and increase dramatically during late Harbaugh/early Shaw? I don't have the time, but if anyone else wants to take a stab at it...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/hbsworkingk...f981976e96