<p>What do you guys think are the best sports conferences (FBS) for academics outside of the (ridiculously overvalued) Ivy League (although they're not FBS, I'm sure not many people here would know the difference between FCS and FBS)? </p>
<p>My list:
ACC
Big 10
PAC-10
Big 12
SEC
Big East
C-USA
Mid-American
Mountain West</p>
<p>Notes:
The ACC is far and away the best conference here. North Carolina, Wake Forest, Duke, Georgia Tech, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Boston College, Miami, Maryland, Clemson, Florida State, North Carolina State...the majority are excellent schools.</p>
<p>Put Big 10 above PAC-10 because of depth of Big 10; plus, the B10 has the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), an academic arm of the conference that includes UChicago. Has library loaning rights between students at the schools, offers students at Big 10 schools some classes from other B10 schools+Chicago, easy access to visiting student status at the other schools, etc.
If the CIC didn't exist, move the Big 10 down a slot.</p>
<p>Large gap between the Big 12 and Big East (Big East sans Notre Dame or Georgetown, as they're only members in certain sports--otherwise, Big East would be placed between the ACC and Big 10).</p>
<p>Tulane + Rice + Southern Methodist (C-USA) > Miami (Ohio), pretty much the only good school the MAC has.</p>
<p>Average US News Ranking For Each Conference:</p>
<p>ACC - 50.5
Big 10 - 52.90 (UChicago isn’t in the football conference so it doesn’t count)
Pac-10 - 74
SEC - 98.67
Big 12 - 100.25
Big East - 117.875 (including Notre Dame, 106.89)
Sun Belt - 120.78
Mountain West - 128.89
Conference USA - 132
WAC - 134.22
MAC - 149.15</p>
<p>All Tier 2 schools got a score of 198 (since there are 197 tier 1 schools)
I didn’t know how to deal with regional schools so I just gave them what they were ranked (which is why the Sun Belt is so high)</p>
<p>If I have time I’ll do the Princeton Review Academic ratings</p>
<p>This has already been covered thoroughly previously.</p>
<p>To sum up - the ACC gets a slight edge over the B10 and a larger one over the Pac10 w/ regard to USNRW rankings due to having more private schools and smaller public universities.</p>
<p>W/ regard to research and having top graduate depts. - the ACC trails the B10 and Pac10 by a bit.</p>