You want us to become Ole Miss I take it. I don't.
Thanks for the feedback straight from a facebook comments section. Ole Miss / Oxford is way better than MSU at getting students from out of state, which means they are pulling in more tuition money, more donations, and higher performing students from that subset and as a whole. Pointing that out doesn’t mean I want MSU to be Ole Miss. I simply want MSU to be better, regardless of how good or bad they are right now. And its not just Ole Miss that is attractive to out of state students, its practically every other SEC school as well. But thanks for the “sEcREt ReBel” shout out, circa 1998 Genespage.
One thing y'all NEVER get, we CAN'T tighten admission standards.
We cannot tighten the admissions standards for the university as a whole to be any more selective than the other public schools in the state. However, we can set entrance requirements to any specific college within the university to be whatever we want.
This is already done for the colleges of engineering, architecture, and probably a few others where you have a whole separate application process even after you already get into MSU. Not sure what it is now, but 15-20 years ago you had to have at least a 25-26 ACT and certain GPA to be admitted to the COE. You can set similar requirements for any of the other colleges as well.
The structure should be changed to where you’re a marginal student that gets in with a 2.8 GPA / 21 ACT, you can choose from only a few very remedial degree programs, or enroll in a remedial prep program for college of engineering, college of business, etc. where you have additional prerequisite coursework that must be met before enrolling in one of the “real” bachelor’s programs - 30 hrs or something. A side option is you can retake the ACT and/or apply your grades in the remedial courses to your entering GPA to start the normal bachelor’s program before completing the 30 hrs.
What does this do? It basically says you’ve got a longer path and more tuition payments to come to MSU as a marginal applicant, which is going to encourage those students to either look elsewhere (like JUCO for a year or 2), or still come and bust their *** while also still not getting immediately overwhelmed by the more challenging core courses in the more difficult majors - this helps them get their feet wet. Either way, it’s better retention, higher entering ACT scores, and more support being given to the drop-out risks.
But what we are actually doing is the opposite. We’re not only greenlighting these marginal applicants, we’re giving them aid that should be going to higher performers, waiving their out of state tuition, etc. Its stupid….but its all done just to keep getting those enrollment numbers.
Our primary mission will always be to educate the people of Mississippi. NO out of state student should EVER take the place of even ONE Mississippian that wants to come to MSU.
Just a horrible philosophy. First off, no 17-18 year old HS senior has any control on where they are from. They do control how intelligent they are, how much they love MSU and/or want to be at MSU (or fill-in-the-blank college) and how much they are willing to apply themselves to do well in K-12 and undergrad. Your statement should actually read “NO marginal or bad student should EVER take the place of even ONE high performing student that wants to come to MSU” if you really, truly care about MSU continuously improving.
And of course, MSU is always going to be more popular for Mississippians than it will be for other population areas, so we’re never likely to dip below 50-55% in-state folks. But that still doesn’t mean that the sole mission should ever be, “hey, let’s be THE university of choice for people in the state that’s ranked dead 17ing last in education for decades!”. We have to think way bigger and a lot differently than that. We need the Mississippians we bring in to be either the brightest, the hardest working, or both. But that’s not the philosophy of the school’s leadership or the IHL….for any of the MS public universities.
, no. I just embrace what we are! What we are is the Peoples' University in Mississippi. We do what we are supposed to do very, very, well. I don't mind out of state students at all....so long as we never forget our primary function and it remains our PRIMARY focus, educating the people of Mississippi. MSU as it is has done very well by three generations of my family. I'm the middle one.
