Best Athletic Conference.... in Academics

<p>^ Otoh, the Pac10 has some pretty weak schools at the bottom.</p>

<p>It’s ok. We can replace the bottom ranked Pac-10 Schools with the more prominent UC Campuses as follow:</p>

<p>Arizona (96) –> UCSD (35)
Oregon (108) –> UCD (44)
Arizona State (121) –> UCI (44)
Washington State (116) –> UCSB (44)
Oregon State (Tier 3) –> UCR (89)</p>

<p>*UCSC (96) tie with Arizona (96) & UCM is too new to be ranked.</p>

<p>“Next up would probably be Pac-10. I mean it has Stanford, Berkeley, and a host of other impressive UCs.” ??? The list is extensive after Berkeley. Let me see there is; UCLA and then,…followed by,…and then… Yeah, I’m impressed.</p>

<p>ilovebagels is obviously someone who doesn’t know the entire Pac 10 conference.</p>

<p>AT9, I think NESCAC beats D3 UAA in overall cohesion (I mean, does the avg NYU student even realize they share an athletic league with WUSTL?), plus, I wouldn’t bet against any small New England college in terms of actual head-to-head competition.</p>

<p>Such a shame there’s not an academic face-off between conferences. Such as taking 20 senior names randomly from each student body and competing head-to-head.</p>

<p>I would LOVE to see the outcome of UCSD (35) versus UWisconsin-Madison (35) competing head-to-head.</p>

<p>johnwesley,</p>

<p>Maybe so… I’m not necessarily arguing that the UAA is better than NESCAC, just that it could certainly hold it’s own.</p>

<p>UWisconsin-Madison (35) >>> UCSD (35). Period!! </p>

<p>So far as i am concerned, there is really not much of a comparison between the two!! I reckon the fact that UCSD is known for engineering and some basic science programs; however, University of Wisconsin-Madison is a “comprehensive flagship” university with rich traditions both in academics and in sports, combined with 3X the endowments, top-notched library system, greater annual research expenditures in most disciplines than UCSD. And above all, more renown and higher ranked globally!</p>

<p>I believe UCSD should be ranked at ~45 (definitely below Illinois!!), whereas UWM should be ranked ~10 spots higher at ~25 and that Umich should be ranked at ~23. With the exception of UCB and UCLA, rest of the UC commuter campuses (not including UCR & UCM) should be ranked somewhere between 45 to 75 on USnews.</p>

<p>The UAA definitely does lack a certain quality of cohesion, but this is because it is really a forced sort of conference. Some actually attest that the lack of intense rivalries within the UAA allows for a higher quality of athlete in terms of academics. With or without cohesion, it is still a conference, and one that performs well at the national level athletically (DIII, of course) and academically.</p>

<p>AT9 – UAA has great schools, no doubt. The league has been around for 20 years or so and the member schools play each other in some but not all sports. The distances between many of the schools are daunting, which no doubt makes it difficult for them to play each other in every sport every year.</p>

<p>Like so many CC debates, it’s really impossible to make meaningful comparisons of schools like Williams and Amherst, on the one hand, to schools like WUSTL and U of Chicago on the other. All excellent but really apples and oranges.</p>

<p>Like johnwesley, I think of the NESCAC as a “real” – i.e., traditional – league and the UAA as a bit of a new age contrivance. But, the UAA certainly is a league and the schools in it are undoubtedly first rate.</p>