NYT on College Rebrandings

The NY Times runs an interesting article about colleges rebranding themselves–which, in some cases, has dramatically improved their applicant metrics or other success metrics. For example, Arcadia University (formerly Beaver College–good choice to change the name!) doubled its applications. And Trenton State College renamed itself the College of New Jersey; that, plus some other organizational changes, boosted average SATs from 1150 to 1310!

Although the article focuses on college names and not nicknames, I would be remiss not acknowledging Marquette’s recent foray into rebranding. I wonder what our SATs would be like if we had stuck with the nickname “Gold”?