[NU Sports] Ryan Field fans ... (fwd)

[John Labbe]

For one thing, I was just calculating something different.  I was  
estimating how many undergraduate degrees would be awarded over a  
20-year span, and you estimated how many living alumni there are for  
each school.

For OSU, there are somewhere between 300 and 400 thousand living  
alumni.  According to the first link below, there are "more than  
300,000 living alumni" and according to the second link, there are  
"nearly 400,000 living alumni."

http://ohiostatebuckeyes.collegesports.com/school-bio/osu-welcome.html

http://www.osu.edu/dosomethinggreat/index.php

But you're right.  I underestimated the number of degrees awarded each  
year.  After some digging, I found that OSU awarded 8500 bachelor's  
degrees in the last academic year.  I think my estimate was off because  
I multiplied the graduation rate by the current enrollment, but  
obviously, some of those who will not graduate are already no longer  
students.  For my calculation to have been accurate, I would have  
needed to multiply the graduation rate by the sum of the number of  
students in each incoming class for the last six years, not by the  
number of current students.

Your calculation is a bit high because you fail to take into account  
that 50 years ago, OSU wasn't as big as it is today.

http://www.ureg.ohio-state.edu/ourweb/srs/srscontent/degree/ 
degintro.html

Northwestern is conferring a total of about 5500 degrees a year  
(including 2000 undergrad) compared to OSU's 12000 total degrees (and  
8500 undergrad).

http://www.ugadm.northwestern.edu/freshman/facts/

Well, no matter how you want to explain it, I think the point is that  
next week's game in the Shoe is going to be a bear.




On Nov 6, 2005, at 10:27 PM, Mike Nolan wrote:

>> I agree that OSU clearly has many more alumni than we do, but I think
>> you've got your numbers a little out of whack here.
>>
>> We have fewer than 2000 students per class.  So over 20 years, we  
>> would
>> graduate a little over 35,000, not 200,000.  And OSU does have 50,000
>> students, but that's undergrad and grad school.  They only have about
>> 35,000 undergrads, and a six-year graduation rate around 65%.  So that
>> yields 35000(.65)/6=3800 graduates per year or about 75,000 over 20
>> years, not a million.
>
> I think your numbers are on the low side.  NU admits about 1800  
> freshmen
> a year, 90% of whom graduate.  That means about 1600 new alumni per  
> year.
>
> Let's assume they average living 50 years from when they graduate,
> that would mean there are around 80,000 living alumni, just counting
> those who only did their undergraduate work at Northwestern.  I think
> the number I've seen published for living alumni including graduate and
> professional schools is in the 120,000 range.
>
> By comparison, Ohio State graduates around 9600 students a year  
> (bachelors,
> masters and PhD), so using the same 50 year period as for NU there are
> probably around 480,000 living OSU alums.
>
> However, I would guess that more than half of the OSU alums continue to
> live within 6-8 hours of Columbus while Northwestern alums, since they
> have a wider geographic diversity in the first place, are much more
> dispersed.
>
> As I live in a college football town myself, I am very familiar with
> the extent to which the football team can dominate the local social  
> scene,
> even among non-alums.  (In Nebraska's case, it dominates the whole  
> state
> since UNL is the only 1-A team in the state.)
>
> Most of the major football schools are not located in major  
> metropolitian
> areas (ie 2 million or more).  The biggest exceptions are probably USC
> and UCLA, and neither school is exactly a big draw in the LA area.
> The Coliseum has an official capacity of 92,000 but they averaged  
> 85,229
> last year.  Yes, USC drew a school and conference record 511,000 fans
> last year, but only 345,000 in 1999.  The Rose Bowl also seats over  
> 90,000
> but UCLA's average season attendance is usually around 55,000-60,000  
> and
> they have had only only season where their average attendance has been
> above 70,00 once, in 1998.
> --
> Mike Nolan
>
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