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<p>In fact, Midwestern high school students have the highest average SAT by far. All of the top-5 and 7 of the top-10 states are in the Midwest. None of the NE states make the top-20.
[Commonwealth</a> Foundation - 2010 SAT Scores by State](<a href=“http://www.commonwealthfoundation.org/policyblog/detail/2010-sat-scores-by-state]Commonwealth”>2010 SAT Scores by State - Commonwealth Foundation)</p>
<p>“I’ll bet you’d have a hard time finding a single person in the state of Michigan who would say Michigan State is a better school than the University of Michigan BECAUSE IT’S BIGGER (which it is)”</p>
<p>Nobody’s saying it goes like that. What I’m saying is that the “I didn’t do well in high school so I had to go to a small school” syndrome is not a rare malady afflicting a few buffoons. And I think you’re naive to say that teenagers (and others) in every state in the Midwest (except for a few pockets of wealth) see that the most interesting, fun, famous, sports-minded, and academically prominent colleges around them are the biggest ones, and are sophisticated enough to blow off the temptation to make the connection between “big” and “preferable.” Several states in the Northeast have bothered to designate a smaller state school as the state’s elite smaller school. I’m not aware of that sort of thing happening in the Midwest.</p>
<p>“Midwesterners aren’t as dumb as you depict them.”</p>
<p>I’m a native Midwesterner, and don’t recall saying Midwesterners were dumb. Where did I say that?</p>
<p>“In fact, Midwestern high school students have the best average SAT by far.
Commonwealth Foundation - 2010 SAT Scores by State”</p>
<p>If you look beneath the surface, you’ll see how very very very few Midwesterners take the SAT. The ones who bother to take it tend to be a subset of the elite who aspire to go to premier colleges.</p>
<p>^I did notice the participation rate makes the data dubious. But here’s one with the combined SAT/ACT, though the data are 10-yo. Still the Midwest did very well.
[SAT</a> and ACT Average Scores by States](<a href=“http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/states/USCHARTsat.html]SAT”>SAT and ACT Average Scores by States)</p>
<p>I am trying to find one with only ACT but I got to go. I am pretty sure even in that, the Midwest states would do very well.</p>
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<p>Hmmmmm, I forgot about that one.</p>
<p>I still don’t think the SEC is going to kick anyone out but, you never know.
You’d have to think that Bama, Florida, LSU, Tennessee, UGA are safe due to tradition/what they bring to the conference. People have thrown around Vandy and UK to be kicked out, but I doubt that. SEC isn’t going to kick out their best academic school by a wide margin and Vandy has a solid bball program and baseball as well. UK has the best bball program in the SEC, top 5 in country so they are probably safe. I would say Auburn is safe due to the National Championship and they have some tradition so they are probably fine. Ole Miss is probably safe to to tradition as well.</p>
<p>So that leaves Arky, South Carolina and Miss. State on the chopping block. USC and Ark are the newest members of the SEC, so maybe they would be tossed aside? </p>
<p>Next couple weeks will interesting though.</p>
<p>
Ok, I’ll bite. They beat an SEC team on the road… 
Have fun with the Bruins again.</p>
<p>There’s been some talk of Vanderbilt leaving the SEC for either the Big Ten or the ACC, either of which in some ways is a better fit for them. That would keep the SEC at 12. I’m not sure the Nashville market brings enough to the table for the Big Ten, though. On the other hand if adding Vandy is the price to pay for cracking the Atlanta market with Georgia Tech, creating a southern wing to the conference, the Big Ten might go for it. Or they could just do a 3-way trade, TAMU to the SEC, Vandy to the ACC, Georgia Tech to the Big Ten. </p>
<p>That’s a lot of traveling for Ga Tech, though. Closest Big Ten school would be Indiana, 500 miles away. Farthest would be Minnesota, 1100 miles away. They already travel that far to play Boston College, but they’ve also got closer ACC opponents like Florida State, Clemson, Duke, and North Carolina. </p>
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<p>LOL. I think Georgia was ranked #19 only because the people being polled anticipated that as an SEC team they’d whip an overrated Boise State team handily, and then they’d be highly regarded for having knocked off a team that’s flirted with a BCS game—and even the BCS championsip game—for several years now. But Georgia finished 6-7 last year, 3-5 in their conference. Now the hypesters are trying to turn the tables and say that beating a mediocre SEC team proves Boise State is for real. Foolishness.</p>
<p>xiggi is right about BS’s schedule. It’s a joke. Their toughest remaining opponent is TCU, which lost its opener to a Baylor team that finished last season by reeling off 4 straight losses, including a 38-14 Texas Bowl thrashing by a mediocre Illinois team, one of the Big Ten’s few bowl victories last year. So Boise State could well run the table, and we’ll have to suffer through all the same inane chatter about whether they should be in the national championship game. Ughh!!</p>
<p>UPDATE, 3:55 PM: Baylor was among six Big 12 schools that will not sign a waiver to allow Texas A&M to go to the Southeastern Conference following a meeting of the Big 12 presidents Wednesday afternoon, a source close to Baylor told the Tribune-Herald.</p>
<p>The other schools were Kansas, Kansas State, Texas Tech, Iowa State and Missouri.</p>
<p>If Oklahoma reaffirms its commitment to the Big 12, the schools are expected to sign the waiver that would allow the Aggies to go to the SEC without any legal action. The Sooners, who are reportedly considering a move to the Pac-12, are expected to make their decision within the next two weeks.</p>
<p> Tribune-Herald staff</p>
<p>Source: <a href=“http://www.wacotrib.com/news/breakingne[/url]”>http://www.wacotrib.com/news/breakingne</a> c=I0XA4pU5</p>
<p>^^ Well maybe Mack Brown can lobby his coaching buddies to push BSU down in the all important “peer assessment” of the Coach’s Poll. He’s very good at that. :D</p>
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<p>Well, not in so many words, but you said that Midwesterners equate a school’s size with its quality. To my mind, that’s tantamount to calling them dumb. </p>
<p>But whatever you call it, I think you’re just wildly off base in making that claim. Neither my daughters nor any of their Midwestern friends or classmates think that. My D2 does know someone in her HS who aspires to attend UC Berkeley in part because “it’s big and I like big schools,” but even she doesn’t equate size with quality; the University of Minnesota right in her own back yard is far bigger, but she thinks UC Berkeley is a better school and she’s right. Most of the better students in her class will attend the University of Minnesota because it’s cheap and it’s a pretty good school, making it overall a good bargain—not because it’s big, and certainly not because they equate its size with excellence. Many view the University of Wisconsin as a better school, but not because it’s big and certainly not because it’s bigger (which it’s not); some will go there because they can get tuition reciprocity, and they deem it a better educational bargain. A few are shooting for top Midwestern LACs like Macalester, Carleton, Grinnell, or St. Olaf; many of the top students would say Carleton and Mac, not the U, are the best schools in the state, and you might get a vigorous argument about which is better, mostly revolving around particular programs and features of the respective schools that they prefer, but no one—I guarantee it—would make the bone-headed argument that the U is better because it’s bigger. A few will head off for Chicago or Northwestern, and a smaller number to Stanford or highly selective schools in the Northeast, all smaller than the U, because they believe those are better schools notwithstanding their smaller size. Those who don’t have the academic credentials to get into the U (or better) will go to University of Minnesota branch campuses with easier admission standards, or various MNSCU (second-tier Minnesota public) schools, or various satellite campuses of the University of Wisconsin, or public universities in North or South Dakota where Minnesotans also enjoy tuition reciprocity, or community colleges, or any number of smaller local private colleges with lower admission standards–or they’ll forego college altogether. None will make the mistake of equating size with quality; none will say, “Well, I didn’t get into the U, so I’ll go to St. Cloud State because as the second-biggest college in Minnesota, it must be the second-best.” Some will decide to attend the University of Minnesota-Morris, a well regarded public LAC that is part of University of Minnesota system; some will choose it over the much larger U (UMN Twin Cities) because they prefer a small LAC environment. </p>
<p>No one I knew as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan thought that “big = good”; most thought Michigan was a very good school, some (including myself) thought it was a great one, but not because of its size. No one I knew as a HS student in Michigan thought that, either. As I said before, you’re just making it up. And as a Midwesterner, and the father of Midwesterners, and the brother and cousin and uncle of Midwesterners, I find it derogatory and insulting.</p>
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Ahh, a game of chicken. Who blinks first?
Aggy must be dying… Haha!</p>
<p>EDIT: Yep, this about confirms it: <a href=“http://texags.com/main/forum.reply.asp?topic_id=1910603&forum_id=5[/url]”>I am so angry about this. Scream your head off in here. | TexAgs;
<p>:)</p>
<p>Things are getting VERY UGLY down in the south now!! It’s NOT over until the fat laddies of BIG-12 sing!! </p>
<p>[TexAgs.com</a> - A&M Football](<a href=“http://texags.com/main/forum.reply.asp?topic_id=1910613&forum_id=5]TexAgs.com”>AP News Break... Beebes Tues. Night Email | TexAgs)</p>
<p>“It’s like a marriage; if it’s over, it’s over,” Loftin said. “We feel we’re being kept against our will which we feel is very inappropriate.”</p>
<p>Aggies fans are pulling their hair out as we speak!! lol</p>
<p>^ So this is like the conference holding a gun to Aggy’s head and saying to Oklahoma, “Sign here, or I shoot”? Gotta admit, it sounds very Texan somehow. But what I don’t get is, what’s in it for Oklahoma? Why should they care whether Aggy’s plans are thwarted? So what happens if Oklahoma calls their bluff and bolts for the Pac 12? Then Aggy’s stuck in a shotgun marriage to the Big 12, which has got to end badly for everyone, and meanwhile Oklahoma’s gone, run off with that pretty boy from the West Coast. So what have they accomplished except to make Aggy real sore? I just don’t see that holding Aggy hostage gives them any real leverage with Oklahoma. Or am I missing something?</p>
<p>^ Pac-12 doesn’t take OU without the Longhorns. We don’t need them.</p>
<p>It’s just funny reading every side’s take on this. For example Colorado hates the idea of the Pac-16 (We just ditched you guys). I’m starting to think the same too.</p>
<p>SAT Scores. Note Participation %</p>
<pre><code> 1 Iowa 603 613 582 1798 3%
2 Minnesota 594 607 580 1781 7%
3 Wisconsin 595 604 579 1778 4%
4 Missouri 593 595 580 1768 4%
5 Michigan 585 605 576 1766 5%
6 SouthDak 592 603 571 1766 3%
7 Illinois 585 600 577 1762 6%
8 Kansas 590 595 567 1752 6%
9 Nebraska 585 593 568 1746 4%
</code></pre>
<p>And the Understatement of the Millennium Award goes to…</p>
<p>…SAM LEE, who saw the participation percentages here and said, “I did notice the participation rate makes the data dubious…”</p>
<p>The younger folk here might not know that in days of yore, many colleges in the East didn’t accept the ACT, so it was almost unheard of in some parts of the country. The low participation rates are perhaps a hangover from those days?</p>
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<p>Clinton got that part well covered. </p>
<p>Do you really think the opening polls for Georgia and Auburn made that much sense? Anyhow, Boise State squeezed by Virginia Tech last year and that was also a heralded victory on the way to a championship. Thank God for that little school that returned the favor down the road how people might still talk about how the Boise Smurfs were robbed.</p>
<p>I know the computers are supposed to bring some order with the SOS, but the voters might be beating to a different drum. At the end of the Oregon-LSU game, one of the parrots started talking about how hard it would be to deny BS a shot if they were unbeaten. In a simplistic way, I think that there ought to be at least 3 quality opponents on a schedule to be talking BCS. Playing in a league with midgets should not have it rewards.</p>
<p>“the University of Minnesota right in her own back yard is far bigger, but she thinks UC Berkeley is a better school and she’s right”</p>
<p>I didn’t say “bigger is better” I said “big=good.”</p>
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<p>Nah, we just call this Wednesday. Tomorrow we will go about tackling better and bigger things. A little feud between the Aggies and the rest of the state is not news. It’s just that some Texans still have not forgiven that an Aggie owned the Boys for a while. </p>
<p>Most just love to mess with those poor guys from College Station, and then act surprised when the y retaliate. The problem is that most officials and bosses are Aggies! :)</p>
<p>“A few will head off for Chicago or Northwestern, and a smaller number to Stanford or highly selective schools in the Northeast, all smaller than the U, because they believe those are better schools notwithstanding their smaller size.” </p>
<p>I acknowledged that there are some pockets where this would be the case.</p>