Isn't that why you take the whole of one vs the whole of another? Or you're claim is the upper tier of ND grads are tipping the scales to make up for the poor schmucks that barely graduated? Or you think the lower tier of the graduating state schools weighs the hyper-successful down?
Why are you trying so hard to make the case for state schools? Did you attend one? No shame in it, I didn't attend ND. Wish I could've but I did not have rightly ordered priorities when I was younger. I hope my children have an opportunity to attend ND and I would actively steer them in that direction if they ask for my input. Even if they were given partial/full rides to attend other schools, I'd want them to sit down and consider ROIs for the "average student".
So first off, apologies to everyone, because I’m clearly very guilty of derailing the Bowen decommit thread.
My point on the stats are just that football recruits that can qualify for ND are probably above median for many State schools and below median for ND. On top of the fact that the college experience of athletes is just wildly different than the median student at any school.
So much of the “success” variable could already be predicted by family background / test scores, and so I’m trying to encourage more thinking on the margin when talking about the value added by Notre Dame compared to another school. We’ll just never get the data to compare the outcomes for similar kids.
I attended ND, but if I’m making the case for state schools, it’s because:
1) some recruiting posts are overly disrespectful of other colleges or exaggerating the relative differences in a way that pretends Notre Dame grads are undisputed superiors
2) Notre Dame has a reputation of being the Midwest Duke in terms of how haughty we can be about the school, and it makes me cringe.