Kevin Oklobzija

@kevinoDandC

The education business is booming at Rochester Institute of Technology.

Enrollment has eclipsed 18,600, the largest student body in school history. Applications from hopeful incoming freshmen have topped 27,000, up 10 percent from 2015. This, after a 10 percent rise in 2014.

Among private universities, RIT ranks third nationally in undergraduate science, technology, engineering and mathematics degrees.

The school has the luxury of being selective when it comes to admissions.

"I'm proud to say," RIT president Bill Destler said, "I wouldn't get in."

Hockey is also booming on RIT's Henrietta campus. For the second year in a row — and third time in six years — the men's hockey team has reached the NCAA Tournament.

For RIT, underdog is really two words: upset alert

The Tigers earned an automatic bid by winning Atlantic Hockey's postseason tournament last weekend at Blue Cross Arena at the Community War Memorial. They will play the No. 1 overall seed, Quinnipiac University, at 4 p.m. Saturday in the East Regional semifinals in Albany.

With the trip to the NCAA tournament comes national exposure. The game will be televised live on ESPNU. Highlights will air on ESPN's "SportsCenter." The RIT name will be heard and seen over and over.

"When we went to the Frozen Four in 2010, it was 'Who is RIT?' " Tigers athletic director Lou Spiotti said. "Barry Melrose (ESPN's hockey analyst) was just enamored with RIT and our fans. It was great national exposure."

RIT will again be in the national spotlight this weekend, which delights school officials. But have the Tigers outgrown their current slot in Division I hockey? Would bigger be better?

When assistant coaches Brian Hills and Dave Insalaco, along with head coach Wayne Wilson, are on the road recruiting in the U.S. and Canada, they lack two things that a great many Division I schools offer:

Name recognition of their school;

The ability to offer scholarships.

Tigers sophomore center Myles Powell is from Courtenay, British Columbia, about 2,900 miles from Rochester.

"I didn't know much about anything with RIT," he said. "You only year about the big schools."

NCAA hockey provides reunion for Wayne, Stu Wilson

Moving from Atlantic Hockey to a more prominent conference might add to RIT's appeal from an athletic standpoint.

"This university, with powerhouse academic programs, is internationally known," Spiotti said. "Where we are now with our hockey program, I feel very good. Where we go in the future, I think we can write our own ticket."

At the moment, the Tigers are the little guy on the NCAA playground. In 2010, they entered the East Regional as the No. 15-seed in the 16-team tournament. Last year they were No. 16, just like they are this year.

If they stay in Atlantic Hockey, odds are very much in their favor that they'll end up in the conference final four each spring, and thus have a chance to win their way into the NCAA Tournament.

But they'll quite likely never be regarded as a big player on the national rink because the league just doesn't have the overall quality of Hockey East, the Big Ten, the Eastern College Athletic Conference or the National Collegiate Hockey Conference.

"It's about the company you keep," Spiotti said. "It impacts your brand, your recruiting, your fan base, your RPI (ratings percentage index, which creates a score based on strength of schedule/quality victories).

"Recruits want to know who you're playing, where you're playing, the types of buildings you're playing in. We have to maximize our selling points."

How a team-bonding scavenger hunt mimicked RIT's season

For now, Destler is content with where RIT sits within NCAA hockey's landscape.

"I'm very happy with the status quo," he said. "Last year we beat the No. 1 seed. I think we can play with anyone, it's all about how you match up. It's entirely within the realm of possibility that we could win a national championship some day."

Those chances seemingly would improve if the Tigers moved up the conference ladder, however. Starting with the 2017-18 season, Notre Dame will jump from Hockey East to the Big Ten. That, in turn, could prompt Quinnipiac to move from the ECAC to Hockey East. Which would leave an opening in ECAC.

"I think you can make a pretty good argument for RIT to look at what it can gain by going to a conference that is perceived to be better top to bottom," said Todd Milewski, executive editor at U.S. College Hockey Online, a website that has been devoted to the college game for 20 years.

"You can see why it would be advantageous to RIT."

The Tigers don't need to look far to find precedent. Quinnipiac was a member of Atlantic Hockey until leaving for the ECAC in 2005-06. How far has the QU program come? Being seeded No. 1 seed in this NCAA Tournament says it all.

"We had some tough growing pains," Bobcats coach Rand Pecknold said after practice Friday in Albany, "but it's doable.

"We wouldn't be at the level we're at without the ECAC as a launching pad."

The Tigers would have one obstacle that Quinnipiac didn't encounter. RIT is an NCAA Division III school athletically in all sports except hockey. The Tigers upgraded the men's hockey program to Division I in 2005 (the women's program made the move in 2012). But because their other sports compete in Division III, the NCAA says RIT cannot offer athletic scholarships.

"Our players are all genuine student-athletes, they're not all NHL draft picks," Destler said. "Having the student part of student-athlete be meaningful is something to be proud of."

In reality, the ECAC would fit RIT's profile quite well. The six Ivy League schools playing ECAC hockey (Cornell, Yale, Harvard, Brown, Princeton and Dartmouth) don't give athletic scholarships, nor does another ECAC team, Union College.

The conference has still managed to do well on the big stage in recent years. Union won the NCAA championship in 2014. Yale won the previous season. Three ECAC teams — Quinnipiac, Harvard and Yale — are in this year's tournament field.

"We like to think the ECAC is one of the strongest, if not the strongest, conference in the country, Quinnipiac senior forward Soren Jonzzon said. "There are no easy games."

Powell leads RIT back into the NCAA tourney

Wilson admits he would have an easier time on the recruiting trail if he could defer the cost of education for a player based on hockey ability, instead of telling players they'd need to qualify for financial aid or an academic scholarship.

"We get way more no's than yeses," Wilson said. "Our rink is great (the 4,300-seat Gene Polisseni Center, which opened in 2014), but the players don't want to pay for the rink. We've been Division I since 2005, but we're still a new name when you talk to someone from Michigan or Minnesota."

Even without scholarships, being able to sell a schedule that includes Cornell, Clarkson, Yale and Harvard would be easier than extolling the benefits to 18-year-old recruits of playing Bentley University, American International College and Sacred Heart.

From the time this season ends until the 2017-18 musical chairs within college hockey begin, RIT officials will at least have something to ponder.

KEVINO@gannett.com