UD’s Sweet 16 trip means millions of eyes on school

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If the University of Dayton follows the example of other Cinderella schools that surprised the college basketball world, its trip to the Sweet 16 could mean millions of dollars worth of media exposure, boosts in both applicants and fundraising and a buzz about the school that even money can’t buy.

Since Saturday’s win against Syracuse, UD has had close to 23 million Twitter impressions, said Sundar Kumarasamy, vice president for enrollment management and marketing at the school.

Several high profile Twitter accounts have mentioned the school, including YourAnonNews, collegefession, SInow and FOXSports.

“This is not just one person talking about this,” Kumarasamy said. “There is a network effect.”

People are talking about Dayton’s basketball success across the community and the country, he said. Go to a school and teachers or neighbors are talking about it. In Baltimore, a UD alum had people congratulate her because she has a UD sticker on her car.

“Many of these people tweeting weren’t even born the last time we went to the Sweet 16,” Kumarasamy said. “We are introducing the Dayton brand to them. We are the underdog. We are the Cinderella.”

Other Cinderella schools in recent years — lowly seeded, under-the-radar teams that exceeded expectations — saw benefits that continued long after the tournament was over.

George Walter, vice president for enrollment services at La Salle University in Philadelphia, said that school’s surprise visit to the Sweet 16 in 2013 was an opportunity to showcase the entire the university, not just athletics.

“It really is a great opportunity to provide a light to shine on your campus, not just the young men on the basketball court,” he said. “We talked about how proud we are of all of our students. It added to the experience people know about LaSalle.” For example, he said, at this time last year, the school also had four graduates named Fulbright Scholars.

“You get to tell your story to a very large audience. People hear about you who may not know about you.”

La Salle was able to exceed its enrollment goal but more noticeable was the increase in applications, Walter said. “We’ve had an almost 6 percent increase in applications,” he said.

Butler University in Indianapolis saw a 35 percent jump in applications following the school’s back-to-back appearances in the national championship game in 2010 and 2011, said Marc Allan, associate director of public relations.

The school used to have about 6,500 applicants; this year, it had about 9,300. The school didn’t see an enrollment increase because they are not trying to grow the university, he said.

Butler also had an increase in donations. “Giving was up in the 7 to 8 percent range in the first couple of years,” Allan said.

According to university information, in fiscal year 2008-2009, 5,406 alumni donated about $7.9 million. In fiscal year 2010-2011, 6,314 donors gave $9.6 million.

Butler lost in 2010 to Duke and in 2011 to the University of Connecticut but gained significant national exposure because of the back-to-back tournament runs.

“The publicity is extraordinary,” he said.

According to the University of Dayton’s media relations office, its TV monitoring service TV Eyes, showed at least 2,000 hits nationally for “Dayton Flyers” and at least 900 for “University of Dayton” between last Wednesday, the day before the Ohio State game, and Tuesday morning. A Google News search for “Dayton Flyers” showed at least 1,300 hits and for “University of Dayton” is at least 1,700, the school said. Dayton was on the Sports Illustrated website and an NBC Nightly News crew featured UD in a Monday story.

The timing of March Madness helps with raising awareness about schools, said Craig Cornell, vice provost for enrollment management at Ohio University in Athens. OU made it to the Sweet 16 in 2012.

“I think there’s been lots of debate back and forth about what it means for an institution,” Cornell said.. “It definitely never hurts.”

The exposure, Cornell said, comes at a critical time during the college selection process — when many students are making their final decisions about where to attend school. It’s also when juniors are starting to consider where they will go to school, he said. “It gets the school on their radar,” he said.

“It helps to both reinforce the school to students who may be thinking about you and you may pick up a few students who may still be making their decisions,” he said. “It’s very good advertising and a little bit of extra focus on the school.”

But, Cornell said, there are many facets to a strong enrollment plan. A tournament seat helps but to focus enrollment on athletics gets very expensive.

“Does it really bring in more students or not? It can’t be your enrollment plan but again, it doesn’t hurt. It helps. It creates a whole lot of fun energy.”

Jen Kasanicky, a senior at Anderson High School in Cincinnati, will be attending UD in the fall. She said the Sweet 16 run has reinforced that she made the right decision about where to go to school.

Kasanicky was accepted at UD in January. She looked at several other schools but decided on UD because of the strength of the engineering school. “I loved how friendly the environment was,” she said.

“I basically started telling people that I was going to Dayton even before I got accepted,” she said.

The team’s Sweet 16 trip to Memphis is an added bonus.

“It’s really exciting to see all the school spirit and how excited everyone got,” Kasanicky said.