It looks like Doug McDermott did a good job making the Bluejays a hot topic last year because Creighton attracted an astounding freshmen class of 1,030 students.   

This is the second largest class in university history, the first being 1,054 students in the year 2009. A herd of freshmen swarmed the campus during Welcome Week, overwhelming the dining halls and classrooms.

The Creighton name is becoming more renowned, so should we be more selective? Statistics show that Creighton has a 77 percent acceptance rate. As more students apply, that number will have to decrease. The most elite schools like Harvard have a much lower acceptance rate of 5.9 percent.     If Creighton had that rate, there would only be 60 students per class.

Though I’m not suggesting Creighton should be that selective, we should take into account how many freshmen we can house on campus. Swanson Hall is now predominately a freshmen dorm, while it was previously split between freshmen and sophomores.

What would happen if the next class admitted 1,050 students? Will Creighton be forced to house the leftover students elsewhere?

There’s no doubt that Creighton is an ambitious university, and it should be. Its goal is to attract as many students as possible, which is achieved primarily through excellence in academics and sports, which requires money, which is acquired through student tuition and sports tickets. And Creighton has been doing very well. After a great season of basketball and the recent selection as one of the best colleges by the Princeton Review, our school is on the fast track to success. I’m sure that on some level Creighton desires to be just as renowned as Harvard, or just as big as UNL. But is that realistic?

However large Creighton’s ambitions are, it cannot make numbers lie. We are a small private school with a small campus. There needs to be some realism in our situation. If Creighton keeps admitting more and more students each year, classes and dorms will overflow. A steady growth is preferable to a forced one, and though Creighton is impressive, it is still minuscule compared to state universities and the renowned Ivy League schools.

There’s no issue with being a small school in the Midwest that isn’t as well-known as these schools because Creighton offers something that these other huge schools don’t. There is a degree of care that Creighton can offer its students. Creighton can make each student’s time here special with its dedication to academics through a personal touch.

Therefore, if the number of students desiring to go to Creighton increases, then perhaps its acceptance rate should reach a reasonable cap. Instead of an acceptance rate of 77 percent, perhaps a new degree of selectivity is necessary, and we can allow our small, brilliant school to remain small

and brilliant.