In his 2013 study, Doug Chung of the Harvard Business School discussed "The Flutie Effect" – the phenomenon of athletic success driving increased applications to a university, named after the 30 percent surge in applications Boston College experienced after Doug Flutie's Hail Mary heave toppled mighty Miami in 1984. Chung cites numerous examples of this effect at schools big and small, public and private.

• Notre Dame, Oregon, Texas, Northwestern and Penn State all received more applications following successful football seasons.
• Success in men's basketball drove increased interest in Georgetown, George Mason, Butler and Northern Iowa.
• In a 2009 study, Devin Pope from Penn's Wharton School and Jaren Pope from Virginia Tech concluded that success in football or men's basketball can increase applications received by a school anywhere from two to 15 percent (more successful teams create larger increases).

This spike in applications following high-level athletic success allows more selectivity in admissions and may attract more qualified applications as judged by standardized test scores.

• Chung estimated the selectivity rate for a typical public school can improve by 2.5 percentage points after high-profile athletic success.
• Pope and Pope found that a school can expect to admit more students scoring 600 or better on the math and verbal portions of the SAT, scores that place these students among the nation's top 25 percent.
• Schools experiencing high-level athletic success can anticipate admitting more students from the next tier of SAT scores as well – those scoring 500 or better in these sections.

Athletic success certainly isn't the only way by which universities can achieve these positive effects but, in another study, Pope and Pope compared the increase in SAT scores sent to a school by prospective students in the wake of athletic success to other prominent decision-drivers for prospective students.

• A school would have to significantly lower tuition – anywhere from six percent to a whopping 32 percent – to produce the same increase in applications resulting from a Final Four run in men's basketball or finishing the football season ranked in the Associated Press Top 10. Virtually no university budget could withstand such a drastic tuition slash.
• A school's US News rankings would have to improve by half (i.e., 50th to 25th) to match the impact of athletic success. Such a jump would require significant investment across the entire institution and require time for the results to be seen and evaluated.

Greatness in athletics is one proven method to help build stronger universities. We see potential for Gopher Athletics to achieve greatness, but this requires modern resources for all 750 Gopher student-athletes. Our Nothing Short of Greatness campaign is asking for private contributions to fund these projects, which supports the type of successes that produce the positive effects highlighted above. In this way, greatness in Gopher Athletics creates a stronger University of Minnesota.

If you would like to support our Nothing Short of Greatness campaign, please click the "Donate Now" button below and also share information about the campaign with your fellow Gopher fans.