Its time to make STJ more academically competive

STJ is starting to get an increase in applicatants and even though STJ has a great athletic program, that is all we are known for. We put to much effort in our athletic program and little into academics. I felt that my high school, St. Joseph's Preparatory School in Philadelphia, was harder than STJ. Fordham has a rule with professors that they must maintain a C+ average for all students otherwise they will be investigated. I know students at STJ who took easy professors. When I worked on the baseball team, there was a sheet that somebody created who told you which professors to take and which ones not to take. The ones that not to take were the hard ones and the ones who to take were the easy ones. Friends of mine, even ones not in Sports Managment wanted to take Alex Evans class because it met once a week for 15 minutes and everyone got an A. I even saw a Dominic Scianna test that was 125 questions and I knew all of them and I was a Legal Studies major, not a SPM major (BTW, it was all St. John's sports trivia questions). I think Harrington needs to create a cap on Admissions, raise it to Fordham standards like having a 3.7 GPA in high school, reward the students taking AP/Honors classes, and telling teachers to challenge students more. I saw on Wikipedia, most of our famous Alumni are sports related with the only exception being Mario Cuomo and Cardinal Belivoquca who is only known if you live in Philadelphia. Fordham has Marry Higgins Clark, Alan Alda, Gerraldine Ferraro, G. Gordon Liddy, and Denzel Washington plus we created Stat Boy Tony Reali who still has a credible job at ESPN compared to Howie Schawb, and we have Vin Scully and Michael Kay who does not get ripped constantly by Phil Mushick in the Post.  I sorry if it sounds like I am ripping STJ but we need to start focusing on academics more, more buildings is not helping us. So what we build a new building, are the students going to become more intelligent. We are seen as a last option safety school right now instead of a first choice. Fordham is starting to become a first choice school instead of Georgetown rejects. I am sorry if I constantly use Fordham as an example but from working in the athletic department and going to games, I sense this hatred towards the school and I am using this space to serve as a motivator. Commuters that I knew at STJ (By the way, going to SJU's high school, I do believe St Joe's owns the right to SJU because they came first in 1851 to our 1863) chose this school because its a glorified CUNY and Queens College red-tape is heavy, if they could get into Fordham, they would choose that. Overall, we are only seen as a basketball school (and soccer, sorry baseball, only south and west schools are respected for that sport). We need to make the top 100, no more unranked tier 3. For the 2012 election, we need to get MSNBC or CNN to hold a Republican primary debate at Carnesca just like FAU held a Republican (they also had Democrat but they backed out after the partial delegate controversy and they illegally pushed up their primary). We need the "investigation" rule I mentioned earlier and make classes harder. Otherwise, FAU will pass us on the rankings and none of us want a Jarvis school to be better than us. Basketball is a good marketing tool because it was my love for college basketball that drew me to the information booth my sophomore year of high school at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. I just don't want to go to my grave thinking that STJ is a basketball school only, not a place where the top people from their high school's go. We need to become more well balanced like University of Florida for example with being academically great and having a kick butt atletic program. Sorry if I offended anybody or if I focused more on bashing STJ but I think its time we stopped focus on athletics and buildings, and more on admission standards because then, even though our basketball team is not good right now, at least we can take joy that we are an academic powerhouse like Fordham, BC, Georgetown, and ND if we raise our standards.

The biggest drag on the university's rep is (as a generalization) The College of Professional Studies and to an extent the campus on S.I. (whose student academic profile is below that of the typical Queens campus student)

Put a bullet in both of these academically toxic agents and you would improve the reputation of the university overnight. Of course, that is not going to happen, any time in the near (or distant, for that matter) future.

The top half (at the very least) of St. John's students could compete at Fordham, Providence or Nova. That said, it's the bottom third that acts as a drag on the outside world's perception of St. John's.

Futhermore, St. John's is not likely to move up from third tier status in the U.S. News rankings because of it's retention rate (which continues to sink due to cost of tuition and the relative lack of financial resources from a substantial portion of the student body) and average median SAT scores among other factors.

The school is also weak in so-called 21 century majors. I would bet there are more students majoring in criminal justice, communications and athletic admin. than there are in biology, chemistry and math.

St. John's also does not offer engineering, another tough course of study which attracts academically gifted students. It would also be a plus if the university established a School of Nursing, which (IMO) would dovetail with The College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Professions (one of the jewels of the university). A School of Physical Theraphy would  be another niche that would attract students with a strong academic skill set.

I am an alumnus of St. John's (St. John's College) and I feel that I received a solid education when I was a student more than 3 decades ago. That said, I don't think the degree is worth the money that is required in 2009.

St. John's is never going to challenge Georgetown, ND, or BC for academic superiority but it can move up the ranks of academic prestige if they made some difficult decisions. However, from a financial perspective, they are not going to eliminate CPS, 2 yr. degrees or S.I.

We are a third tier school and will be for years to come. Yes, the number of apps are flowing over the transom, but most of those are either because they are free online and/or because St. John's is the applicants safety school and not their school of choice.

Regarding so called famous grads, we may not have Mary Higgins Clark but we do have Victoria Gotti, and while we don't have Vince Scully as an alumnus, we do have Mike "The Sports Pope" Francesa (although he has not exactly been loyal to his alma mater).

Some very successful folks who did their undergrad work at St. John's include: the former COO of Bear Stearns (Bill Montegoris. Spelling ??), the former CEO of Merrill Lynch (Dan Tulley, who has been more supportive of Penn State), Jim Reilly formerly of Goldman Sachs (who has donated serious coin to St. John's), and more than a few money mgrs./ investment professionals who sit on the university's Board of Trustees.

Lets not forget Jackie Hyland, a WPIX/CW 11 news anchor in NYC or
the fellow who founded Vitamin Water who made a boatload of $$ when he sold out to Coca Cola is a St. John's alumnus.

St. John's has had its fair share of grads that have done well professionally, but many of those same grads have not given back. This is yet another factor for our third tier ranking, a relatively low alumni contribution rate.

The only chance to have Tobin College of Business ranked is to have the administration invite Jim Cramer or former alum Joe Terranova on "Fast Money" to make routine guest appearances to Tobin.  Terranova is solid....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Terranova

It's interesting to think about this... I didn't attend St. John's, but it's great to have a school that provides opportunity - in those "academically toxic" areas.  NYU has a fairly cakewalk school of continuing studies and it works decently well for them (though they're also not as academically rigorous as some might have you think).  St. John's is never going to be Georgetown, but the school can definitely be a place that's a great jump off because of internships and the New York experience... making the tough schools a little tougher and/ or more experiential would help.

NYU's School of Continuing Education does not require SAT scores or a high high school GPA for admission. Write a check and you are admitted. Thus, one can take a course(s) at NYU's School of Continuing Education and not have a prayer of being accepted at NYU (undergrad).

No serious person is going to confuse NYU (undergrad, grad, and professional schools) with The School of Continuing Education.

I think if you ask many with knowledge, CPS (for the most part) acts as an anchor on the reputation of St. John's.

Since St. John's is feeling the pinch of the economic slowdown, the time may have come for it to rationalize its course offerings and look to consolidate several cupcake programs in CPS and merge them with arguably stronger programs at St. John's College and/or CBA.

Not every course of study offered at CPS is less than academically strenuous, but a fair amount have no place among the university's menu of academic majors.

That's funny, but pathetic about those classes with Scianna and Evans, backinny.

If they actually want to improve the academic reputation, they need to drop the idiot majors (which, although they are a great source of revenue for Harrington, are not taught at any of the nation's leading research universities), drive applications up by aggressively recruiting outside of the metro area, speak to their dissatisfied customers/students (they need to figure out why roughly 18% of the incoming freshmen class decides they don't want to spend one more year at St. John's) and seek to correct the potential complaints, allocate more of their financial aid pool to scholarship money in order to attract their smarter applicants, worry less about diversity and being one of America's biggest Catholic universities and more about attracting the best candidates regardless of sex, race, or religion, reduce the average class size by employing more teachers, accepting less students and/or increasing tuition to a level more comparable to the nation's better Catholic schools (since that seems to be the aspirational peer group).

Regarding retention, the biggest obstacle that faces St. John's is that a very healthy portion of St. John's students come from families with an AGI below $50K a year and many of these kids just don't have the money to return to school.

Regarding retention, the biggest obstacle that faces St. John's is that a very healthy portion of St. John's students come from families with an AGI below $50K a year and many of these kids just don't have the money to return to school.

Is the logic that the families of the 18% only will take out loans or set aside money for one year of study at STJ?

St. John's has a very high % of kids who are receiving Pell Grants which tells me that most of these kids shouldn't be going to St. John's in the first place. Given their family income (or lack there of), they should be going to CCNY.

While the Vincentian Mission is an admirable one, a cold splash of reality woul be welcomed. After all, does it do a kid justice to put him/her into a position of overwhelming debt, especially one whose family is financially challenged?

On a separate issue, perhaps St. John's should employ a half dozen "wholesalers" (for lack of a better phase. Maybe "trailblazer" is a better word.) that would actually live in an area where they would atttempt to recruit students for St. John's.


For example, why not employ 6 or so recent St. John's grads and have them domiciled in areas of the country where they would be responsible for visiting high schools and establishing relationships with guidance counselors and school administrators.

Someone could be "stationed" in Chicago (with responsibility for recruiting from the state of Illinois) as well as other metropolitan areas that may be fertile ground for recruiting academically and financially qualified students to St. John's.

As an aside, it would be time well served (IMO) if The Torch examined some of the aforementioned issues (raised by several posters here and on other St. John's related sites) with Jim Pellow. That said, I wouldn't expect it to happen.

Just read a great story on www.stjohns.edu about a new member of The President's Society at St. John's.

There are more than a few kids at St. John's who have excelled academically in tough majors and are actively involved in student activities.

University should do everything they can to highlight the success of these students.

I was CPS on the S.I. campus, and academically, I don't have a single good thing to say. I had a couple of solid professors while I was there, but for the most part, I paid money to do no work and learn absolutely nothing.

I made some friends at the school and I became a fan of the basketball and baseball teams. But I can't say I'm proud of what I experienced academically. It was absolutely easier than high school. I had to get out and change majors because I was wasting money.

I don't see the benefit to keeping the Staten Island campus open. It was basically like going to a glorified community college.

Also, I agree about the academic profile of the students in S.I. being lower than Queens. I got the feeling that the average student at the S.I. campus is the type of person that would get a 40 on an exam and laugh it off because they just don't care.

1) our pharmacy program in top 5 in the country no question, top 2 on the coast
2) how can you bash the baseball team sju is great