By Maddie Peloff ‘16

The year is 1984. The Boston College Eagles are down four points, losing to the University of Miami Hurricanes in one of the most crucial football games of the season. In order to win, quarterback Doug Flutie must throw the ball 48 yards into the end zone with 30 mile per hour winds raging against him. Miami’s defense, confident that Flutie won’t be able to throw far enough, completely ignore Boston’s wide receiver Gerald Phelan as he runs down the field. However, Miami’s decision proves to be a mistake that costs them the game. Flutie throws the football across the field to Phelan, who miraculously catches the long pass, winning the game for the Boston Eagles.

Considered one of the most exciting college football games ever, Flutie’s ‘Hail Mary’ throw had no small effect on the world of college sports. Not only did it allow Flutie to win several awards himself, including the highly coveted Heisman trophy, but he turned the spotlight of sports networks across the country onto Boston College.

Fast forward two years later and Boston College applicants increased by a whopping 30 percent. Flutie’s incredible pass and extensive press coverage served as unofficial advertising for the school as it gained more attention on the national level and encouraged more applicants.

Deemed the “Flutie Effect,” researchers named the correlation between a school’s athletic success and number of applicants after the famous Boston College quarterback. One of these researchers includes Doug J. Chung, Harvard Business School Assistant Professor of Marketing. Chung’s research paper, “The Dynamic Advertising Effect of Collegiate Athletics,” was one of the first to support the theory of the Flutie Effect with concrete statistical evidence.

Chung found that when an athletically average school’s sport’s team has breakout success, the number of applicants increased an average of 18.7 percent. He also found that students with lower SAT scores were more influenced by a school’s athletic success when deciding where to apply. However, as more applicants flood the school following its success, it become more selective and competitive, appealing to a wider range of students.

The Flutie Effect is not solely applicable to football. In fact, success in the NCAA March Madness tournament has proven to be extremely influential on the number of applicants to a school.

During the 2010 season, Kansas was seeded number one overall, with an impressive record of 35-3. In their second game of the tournament, Kansas played Northern Iowa, a team seed ninth overall and anticipated to lose. The game was close, but Northern Iowa managed to secure a win with a final score 69-67, becoming the first team to take down a number one seeded team in the second round since 2004.

Just like Boston College, Northern Iowa received recognition across the country, increasing awareness for the smaller Midwestern school. Though the team lost before they reached the championship, the school’s admissions shot up over seven percent the following year and the Monday after the game, calls to the school’s admissions office increased 30 percent.

Butler University is also a prime example of the Flutie effect. The small Indiana school’s unexpected, wild success in the 2010-2011 basketball seasons led to an immense increase in applicants. Due to its athletic success, the school received news coverage worth approximately $1.2 billion and over the next few years, the number of applicants increased 41 percent, demonstrating the immense effect a college’s athletics can have on its admissions and further supporting the Flutie Effect.