Rao reflects on Rams’ Final Four foray

Adam Stern
Executive Editor
Commonwealth Times Sports’ Twitter

VCU’s freshman GPA this year spiked to the lofty heights of 3.5. And when posed with the question of, was it because of the basketball team’s Final Four run or some other confluence of reasons, VCU President Michael Rao let off a immediate chuckle.

“I’m so tempted,” Rao said smiling, “to say Final Four.”

The comment was partially, if not totally, in jest because the timing of the tournament made a dramatic increase in this year’s applications impossible. By the time VCU foraged into the Final Four in late March, many high school seniors had already decided where they were going, let alone decided where they were going to apply. School officials note the real effect will be felt next year, when those exposed to VCU for the first time will be applying.

Nonetheless, the wisecrack shows a trend that all associated with VCU expect to see out of the school in the coming years: up, up, up.

“The rise in the GPA is because of the awareness of VCU is definitely rising,” Rao said. “We’re definitely getting applicants who we weren’t going to be able to get years ago, meaning we probably couldn’t even get their application before.”

Rao also shared the few but meaningful potential pitfalls VCU has to avoid as a result of gaining so much exposure from the run.

“One caution is, you don’t go to the Final Four every year,” Rao said. “So as excited as everyone got last year– I’m absolutely hopeful it’ll happen again this year, it did for a lot of other institutions that have been there  before–but it might not and we should keep our expectations reasonable.”

“You never want athletics to take the institution over either,” Rao said. “And I can pretty much assure you that’s not going to happen here.”