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Student recruiting at MSU - not all roses
- Thread starter GriznMN
- Start date
HelenaHandBasket
Well-known member
Technically the prospective student reached out to UM
mousegriz1
Well-known member
This sounds like a pretty easy application to accept quickly. Would MSU put a "financial engineering specialist" on it to run algorithms for a couple weeks?
Sometimes it pays to have a math background for all kinds of things.This sounds like a pretty easy application to accept quickly. Would MSU put a "financial engineering specialist" on it to run algorithms for a couple weeks?
John 'Bluto' Blutarsky? SENATOR John "Bluto" Blutarsky? I always wondered from what state he bacame a Senator. Movie credits just show him driving off in the convertible with the babe, and the title. Now I know.
Here's the full read, for you youngsters out there:
John Bluto Blutarsky
John "Bluto" Blutarsky is one of the main protagonists of National Lampoon's Animal House. He was portrayed by the late John Belushi. A drunken degenerate with his own style, in his seventh year of college, with a GPA of 0.0. The film epilogue "Where Are They Now?: A Delta Alumni Update" reveals...
hero.fandom.com
And theme song:
This coming from a sociopathic boomer is hilarious
GriznMN
Well-known member
My daughter received mailings from both UM and MSU.
We had the exact opposite experience. Almost nothing from UM and a veritable onslaught from MSU. My daughter is now a freshman at MSU and doing quite well away from home. She is fully Gen-Z, but was raised to be independent. I will say that she comes home to Missoula every chance she gets bc she really dislikes Bozeman. Imagine being excited to drive in Missoula.
The school itself is in good shape and anyone paying close attention or knows / has a kid in attendance there can see that. And she wears her Griz gear around her dorm.
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wbtfg
Well-known member
It looks like the Fall '25 enrollment data is up on the Montana University System website (https://mus.edu/data/).
My middle daughter is a freshman @ the UM
MSU's recruitment when she was a sophomore & junior was far more detailed than UM's - IMO. She would get far more "stuff" from Bozeman and it showed they just naturally had a bigger / better budget where they could spend more to send to kids. It really did seem focused on "selling the state" so it felt a little off telling her about all the great mountains and rivers and forests... bc... yeah she knows that already.
UM's was very steady but was postcards and letters instead of pamphlets.
She's a great student and landed the state's Presidential Scholarship but UM and MSU informed her that in different ways:
- MSU sent a giant packet stating she has a scholarship each year for the following 4 years as long as she maintained her GPA and (as I recall) live on campus for 1 year.
- UM sent a letter saying she gets it for 1 year.
Me, being the negotiator, told her we should reach out to the UM and tell them MSU has offered this for 4 years, and to see if they would match it. She opted to email them and the response back was, "well yes, that's how it works, you get that every year here as well." I sent this feedback up the ladder bc clearly the UM's messaging to high school students needed some tweaking.
One thing that MSU did which UM didn't that also impressed me was at some point in her senior year they sent her her student ID# and a login where she can review and hold classes for the fall semester. Open invitation to do so, just so she can get ready for college - UM never did anything like that, it was an impressive move I thought.
For her, in the end, she's pre-med and she researched the two biology departments and the UM department has far better connections and secondary school placement - so she opted to be a Griz (thank goodness haha). She was accepted right away into the pre-med here and is currently taking a chemistry test as I'm typing this.
I will also say, her senior year UM really turned up the recruitment, the mailers and information became more detailed, the communications really ramped up too, being a Missoula kid she was obviously able to get some great on-campus access from her health-science track she was on in high school.
Also funny, she was also accepted into Tech and they would send her a typed letter every 60 days, that's it. They did that for 2 years straight but had no other follow up.
MSU's recruitment when she was a sophomore & junior was far more detailed than UM's - IMO. She would get far more "stuff" from Bozeman and it showed they just naturally had a bigger / better budget where they could spend more to send to kids. It really did seem focused on "selling the state" so it felt a little off telling her about all the great mountains and rivers and forests... bc... yeah she knows that already.
UM's was very steady but was postcards and letters instead of pamphlets.
She's a great student and landed the state's Presidential Scholarship but UM and MSU informed her that in different ways:
- MSU sent a giant packet stating she has a scholarship each year for the following 4 years as long as she maintained her GPA and (as I recall) live on campus for 1 year.
- UM sent a letter saying she gets it for 1 year.
Me, being the negotiator, told her we should reach out to the UM and tell them MSU has offered this for 4 years, and to see if they would match it. She opted to email them and the response back was, "well yes, that's how it works, you get that every year here as well." I sent this feedback up the ladder bc clearly the UM's messaging to high school students needed some tweaking.
One thing that MSU did which UM didn't that also impressed me was at some point in her senior year they sent her her student ID# and a login where she can review and hold classes for the fall semester. Open invitation to do so, just so she can get ready for college - UM never did anything like that, it was an impressive move I thought.
For her, in the end, she's pre-med and she researched the two biology departments and the UM department has far better connections and secondary school placement - so she opted to be a Griz (thank goodness haha). She was accepted right away into the pre-med here and is currently taking a chemistry test as I'm typing this.
I will also say, her senior year UM really turned up the recruitment, the mailers and information became more detailed, the communications really ramped up too, being a Missoula kid she was obviously able to get some great on-campus access from her health-science track she was on in high school.
Also funny, she was also accepted into Tech and they would send her a typed letter every 60 days, that's it. They did that for 2 years straight but had no other follow up.
She definitely chose the best school for pre-med! If she ever has questions regarding the med school application process, research/volunteer advice or MCAT study techniques, I might know a couple people that would be more than willing to talk with her.
I'm continuing to hear stories of kids not being recruited nearly as aggressively as msu. My children are not of age yet so I cant give first hand assessment, but I think it would behoove everyone interested in the succes of UM to acknowledge where we're losing, and encourage those in charge to fix it. Call a spade a spade, we are getting our asses kicked in freshman student recruitment. It is what it is.
I do think the student recruitment has gotten better, but they still have work to do. Hell, a decade ago when I was a senior in high school, unless you reached out to UM, you weren't gonna receive anything at all from them. That definitely has improved just based off the few stories I'm seeing here. Things are getting better, but there's still a lot of work to be done.
They enrolled 20% fewer freshman this fall, which is on the heals of a few minor incremental increases, but on the heals of a longer term trend of awful downward trajectory. Its still a problem.
wbtfg
Well-known member
I like the MUS Data because you can pull out the 2-year colleges of technology out and just look at the main campus data. Here's what the Fall 2025 freshmen enrollment at the main campuses looks like.
UM:
Non-resident: 470 (-176 from fall 2024)
Resident: 744 (-60)
Total: 1,214 (-236 from fall 2024)
MSU
Non-resident: 2,094 (+58)
Resident: 1,441 (+71)
Total: 3,535 (+129 from fall 2024)
Yep, these are the numbers. For those keeping track at home, 15-20 years ago these figures would be similar, but reversed schools. We literally haven't fixed it in 15 years. Missoula people, and Montana people at large should demand better. 6 years ago I was in bodnars office to address this and bring ideas to change the trajectory. I'd be happy to meet again with the administration. We're on a totally different trajectory than msu is currently and it needs to be addressed.
For the record. While I definitely think UM needs to continually address curriculum and degree offerings, I know we continue to be a tremendously viable option for students academically. Thats not the issue. Its a messaging a recruitment issue. If it IS an academic and curriculum issue, get THAT fixed yesterday, too.
This is great analysis. We have GAR batter health sciences, as the example Brint provides above. Its frustrating that all the nuanced stuff in the recruiting process is definitely done better at MSU than UM. ANnd brint is a great UM alum that is passionate about his school, so he was able to provide great clarity for his daughter. However, the average Montana resident most likely isnt going to think of doing that, and will simply go off the better offer in place, on paper.
Thanks for sharing BWs.
Ya I guess I'd like to know what happened there. All the rumors I had heard over the summer was they expected to see an increase in the freshmen class. Then when the numbers came out, I almost did a double take. I'm hoping that this was just a blip on the radar cause the previous two years, we had seen consistent increases in the freshmen class. That's why this year was so head scratching. Hopefully this was a warning sign to Bodnar.
