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BTBIR III

the great equalizer is

WINNING

bowl wins… college world series appearances… basketball games on ESPNU and knocking off "bubble" teams… a football stadium… we'll be there sooner than expected… we're going to LEAP past UCF…

all within due time, my friends

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Re: BTBIR III

FAUfasho said

I agree that people may be apathetic. Here's my .02, being that I am only a junior now, I still remember what it was like my senior of high school and I have a feeling that this is how it is at many other high schools in the area. High school students don't think highly of FAU. We aren't at the point where most of our students want to go to FAU, they settle for FAU, honestly I was one of these students. I didn't get in to FSU, UCF, but I got into FAU and I figured that I'd go here for a year or two, then transfer to a "real" university. But once I got involved with the band and found out FAU has a lot to offer, I stayed. But I think that most high school students just look at FAU as a fall back school. I know a lot of my friends from high school that when I said that I was going to FAU, they were like "FAU?! what a crappy place." I hate to say it, but I honestly think its going to take at least another 10 years for incoming freshman to be REALLY excited about FAU. Our football team is helping with this a lot. But I think the truth is that people come here and don't expect it to be that exciting. Their mindset is "Oh, its just FAU, you should have been at the Gator game last week" or so on and so forth. FAU is in a sticky situation, to be cliche "beggers can't be choosers" and right now it seems that FAU is sort of playing the role of the begger. They want people enrolled and that means that students with lower GPA's and minimal extra curricular activity in high school are going to get in. We all know how frustrating it is to not be able to pack the Burrow, which I think we should be able to pack EVERY game, but its just not going to happen for awhile. The only thing we can keep doing is keep supporting our teams and just wait. Again, this is just my opinion.

I hear what you are saying and I think FAU has gotten a bad rep.  That is changing now, in part because of the success of the football team, but also because of Frank Brogan and his vision for what FAU should become.  I know everyone here hates the "commuter school" label, but for much of the school's existence, that's what we were.  UCF and USF were/are the same way.  I'm sure if you lived in Orlando or Tampa 5-10 years ago and said you were going to one of those schools, you would have received the same "UCF/USF…what a crappy place" response.  I think that is just what people think when they think of the local university they grew up 10 minutes from.  This is where athletics come in.  Take UCF for example.  It was long seen as a commuter school…then what changed?  They committed to facilities, especially athletics facilities.  They built a new football stadium and arena.  They created the true university feel on campus.  They were always a solid school academically(just like FAU), but people just perceived them as a place to go, earn a degree and leave.  I remember reading articles about their first game in their new stadium.  There were countless quotes like "Today, we became a real university"  and how the university and community came together like never before.

As our facilities grow, our reputation will improve as well.  This is why I get so upset when people complain about spending money on athletics.  Athletics is a driving force for the university.  Get athletics right and everything else improves.  Often it is the first thing prospective students see.  UF is a fine institution with terrific academics, but what do people think of first when you mention UF?  Gators football and basketball.  You don't see UF alumni walking up to a stranger wearing a Gators hat and saying "Go Gators" because they have a good business program. 
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yah i grew up in tampa, and 10 years ago thats exactly what USF was, and even to this day they dont have enough room on campus to make it a really good on-campus school.  The campus itself is massive and they are continuing to grow and buy more property.  It was the success of the football program that has turned that side of tampa into BULLS COUNTRY

Its only a matter of time that the same happens to us in BOCA
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Re: BTBIR III

I didn't get in to UCF, my fall back school was FAU. Helluva fall back, huh?

I agree with OwlCountry in a lot of the points he is making. For example: last year, what I call the "re-founding fathers" of the prOWLers, the 17 people involved were all involved in a high school team, club or student government. During last summers orientations, there was a breakout sessions called "getting involved." The people that were in there mostly raised their hands to the following questions:
"How many people in here were in the high school band?"
"How many people were in a high school club/student government?"
"How many people were on a high school sports team."

Not many people, and the ones that I spoke at ZERO raised their hands, to this question "how many have never been involved in anything and want to get involved now."

High schools place a big emphasis on GPAs and extra curriculars. But do colleges really look at extra-curriculars as anything more than a "tiebreaker" for a group of students who have the same test scores and same GPAs?

OwlCountry is on to something here. If FAU is going to at least slightly alter the way they look at students who are applying, NOW IS THE TIME TO DO IT.

My step-sister, captain of her high school volleyball team for two years, involved in clubs and has a 4.2 GPA with moderate SAT scores DID NOT get in to UF. When I was a high school senior, that was a guarantee (6 years ago). With budget shortfalls, FSU and UF Are cutting back on the number of students who they enroll.

Just like the recruits that are rejected and overlooked by those schools,
LET'S TAKE THE "LEFTOVERS" AND MAKE THEM STARS.

I'm a proud lifetime member of the FAU National Alumni Association. Are you a member? Join now at www.faualumni.org.
Tradition in the Making, One Alum at a Time…
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Re: BTBIR III

Being from NY I can't say what it's like to live close to a major university and not want to go there. I lived about 20 minutes away from Hofstra and C.W. Post and I know a lot of people who went to both schools and didn't say oh I hate it here I want to go to a real school or I don't like being so close to home I want to get out of here. I'm sure there are plenty of people that feel like that.

I have made many friends since first coming down here and some from around this area. When I asked one of my friends who transfered from FAU to UCF then to UF why she hates FAU.. her response "UCF and UF are SOOO much better then FAU because I want a college town, I went to class at FAU then went to my dorm room or to my parents house on the weekend, because there was nothing to do around here"

Sounds harsh but a lot of people I think feel this way. There's some stuff to do in Boca like Wishing Well, Duffy's, Club Boca/Radius (whatever it's called now), Ale House(s),Dubliner and the rest of Mizner park. When I was here in '99 there was no sports bar or anything like that in Boca. There was Ale House but that was about it, and it's not like you could go to Ale House and see an FAU Basketball game on TV at that time.

When FAU won it's first ever Football game I was at Fledge's place at the student apartments and we had to bring a portable radio outside and listen because we couldn't get good reception inside. Things have obviously changed A LOT since then.

I believe things will change more and more as the years go on. Once we get the stadium on campus and we can have other sporting events here then just football, we can have concerts as well. I also believe Fraternity/Sorority houses are imperative to FAU's growth. If people want this to feel like a "real school" we need greek housing on campus. Once that happens and the party's start and people visting drive down "Fraternity Row" or whatever it may be, it gives incoming kids a sense of excitement and sense that this is a "real school".

As a former Greek myself we need them to get more involved as well. I know I'm not the only Greek from FAU on this board and they may agree with me but Greek life is important at FAU. The fraternities and sororities should be setting the standards right now. They should be at every football, basketball and Baseball game. Right now the only fraternity that shows up to basketball is ATO since most of them are the Rowdy Rex's.

I'm not sure what the Greek population is on campus right now but if most of the brothers from each fraternity showed up at every BBall game I think we'd have more then 800 people for an important conference game late in the season on a weekday night.

I know everyone has an excuse why they can't show up whether it be work or studying or just no interest in that sport but if Greeks started to show up to basketball games for instance it would not only make it known that Greeks support athletics but that they are an integral part of this university. There's no better rushing tool then free publicity, if you guys showed up with letters on to every home game even people who are thinking of rushing but aren't sure can say hey those guys are EVERY game and they are awesome I want to join that fraternity.

Sorry I'm just ranting but I think everyone gets my point and success doesn't happen overnight. We WILL get there someday and we WILL be successfull

My two favorite teams are FAU, and who ever is beating FIU!
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Re: BTBIR III

so smitty if ur step sister didnt get in to UF, is she coming down here?

and Jared i agree, and honestly disapointed in my fraternity not showing up to the games, back when i was in the chapter we were more active in athletics….and it is sad to see that the only greek organization that shows up on a consistant basis is ATO, more power to them!!!!
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Nunzio42 said

so smitty if ur step sister didnt get in to UF, is she coming down here?

and Jared i agree, and honestly disapointed in my fraternity not showing up to the games, back when i was in the chapter we were more active in athletics….and it is sad to see that the only greek organization that shows up on a consistant basis is ATO, more power to them!!!!

Agreed to both of the above posters about Greeks at games. As Smitty (and I think some other people) noted, Greeks don't often show up and even schedule their events on top of basketball/football games. That's juat a reality of it right now.

Greek housing will change things, in the sense that it will not only attract more people to rush but also raise our reputation among high school students. That being said, Greek housing isn't going to correct lazy Greeks if that's the true problem, you know? I was talking to someone from ATO and he said that a lot of people don't rush because, quite frankly, the Greeks don't offer much in the way of programming/incentives. (Don't shoot the messenger on this)

To their credit, not only was ATO at the last home basketball game but also SigEp and two sororities (I can't remember their names, I'm sorry… but most likely the big ones). That's a start. Whether that turns into a consistent thing remains to be seen.

Regarding the general students being apathetic… I wasn't involved in a single club in high school. I was involved in the school news, though. If I was in high school now, of course, it would be different as I'd want to have been in not only the news but also Debate Club, Golden Key, and the Yearbook Committee. So I'm a prime example of going from nothing in high school to being actively involved on-campus in college; as a result, I believe in turning "leftovers" into movers and shakers, much like I believe a person who had a 2.5 in high school could graduate college summa cum laude.

But I think the number of people that actually do this is much, much lower than the FAU BOT hopes for and we're starting to see that now. A recent new article talked about how recent data showed that people entering FAU with low high school GPA's nearly always have low college GPA's or fail out entirely. As a result, FAU is not and can not allow people with low GPA's (2.5ish) but okay SAT (1000+) scores to get in… they're just too much of a liability. They have to have a minimum GPA score… and expect that minimum GPA to go up over the next couple of years.

Regarding UCF… essentially what they did is, knowing that getting better students by raising yourself from Tier 4 to Tier 1 in the U.S. News Ranking takes a lot more time (and money) if even possible, they instead went a different route by going gonzo with amenities. It wasn't just the stadium or the basketball arena. Those were sort of on the tail end of things. It was a new exercise center, a new student union (with mall food court dining, IIRC), the whole Greek row, a $3 million pool project and of course more dorms. Now they're building even more dorms and turning their arboretum (a habitat for different plant species) into a themed arboretum so you walk through one area themed like Japan, one area themed like South America, etc.

Not only that, since UCF has ~45k+ students, that's almost 20k more student's A&S fees to put towards things like concerts, festivals, carnivals, etc. Programming Boards and clubs at FAU are constantly saying, "Yeah, we'd like to spend $100,000 on an event… but it would be the only event of the year…" so instead they do things like take 100 people to Islands of Adventure (which they did today for a cost of about $6000). That's another issue that's not going to improve without admitting more students or raising A&S fees… and that's a whole 'nother discussion.
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Re: BTBIR III

My step-sister laughed at me when I asked her if she applied to FAU. We all know how highly I speak of FAU and she has been inudated with FAU since she was in 8th grade. However, her friends are all going to UF, FSU and USF because they are "real schools" with "stuff."

When I call her for her birthday on Monday, I'll interrogate her on what that "stuff" is.

Greek housing is a long way away. I'm not saying that I have the accurate or most updated answer, but I did do an 11-page report on it in 2006 and if that is the correct and most up-to-date report on the status of greek housing, it's a LONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNG way away.

And ATO was the only greek organization to show up for the Bury the Burrow in Red Greek attendance competition last year. Again, all of them that were there were wearing Rowdy Rex's shirt, but hell, whatever works.

I'm a proud lifetime member of the FAU National Alumni Association. Are you a member? Join now at www.faualumni.org.
Tradition in the Making, One Alum at a Time…
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Re: BTBIR III

smittysahoot said

My step-sister laughed at me when I asked her if she applied to FAU. We all know how highly I speak of FAU and she has been inudated with FAU since she was in 8th grade. However, her friends are all going to UF, FSU and USF because they are "real schools" with "stuff."

When I call her for her birthday on Monday, I'll interrogate her on what that "stuff" is.

Good. I'd especially like to know what "stuff" USF has because I've never thought of them as a school with "stuff."
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Re: BTBIR III

With what happen last night, it makes our game with FIU on Wed., HUGE if we want to keep a handle on the ninth spot & host a game in the playoffs.
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