Fabulous Academics…and Fun! Excitement! Drama!

College Search & Selection
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<p>Fabulous Academics…and Fun! Excitement! Drama!</p>

<p>With family, friends and business associates who are college sports fans, I have heard about this for years and I love the passion of the fans for the competitions that occur in college sports. But let me assure you that the “feel” is not the same all around and different schools provide very different experiences. </p>

<p>Have you ever been to a real college football game? Or a real college basketball game? I don’t mean Cornell vs Brown or Princeton vs Yale-I mean something like Notre Dame vs Michigan or USC vs UCLA in football or Duke vs North Carolina in basketball. </p>

<p>If you have, then you know what I am talking about when I mention the excitement and the buzz that such an event causes on a college campus. Even if you don’t play or even like sports, these type events are true happenings on a college campus and provide lifelong memories and ties to a college that can stretch across many generations. So, when you do your college search, I encourage you to think about where you are going to have a great academic experience AS WELL AS a life outside of the classroom that will be fun, exciting, varied, and something that can be savored for decades to come. </p>

<p>Following are the eighteen colleges that are ranked in the USNWR Top 50 and also in the Top 50 for Division I athletics. Note that there isn’t an Ivy anywhere to be found. </p>

<p>THE HONOR ROLE*<strong><em>THE HONOR ROLE</em></strong>*THE HONOR ROLE</p>

<p>STANFORD (#4 USNWR and #1 Directors Cup)-This is one of the premier academic institutions in the country and they combine this with an athletic program that has won the Directors Cup for 13 straight years. Good times to be had at Stanford Stadium, Maples Pavilion, Sunken Diamond, and multiple other world-class athletic venues. National champs in Women’s Cross Country and Mens Golf. </p>

<p>DUKE (#8 USNWR and #11 Directors Cup)-This is Stanford’s closest peer with equally outstanding academics and students and a (mens and womens) basketball program to die for. Top rivalry in college basketball might be Duke-North Carolina, particularly games at Cameron Indoor Stadium which is considered the premier venue in all of college hoops.</p>

<p>NORTHWESTERN (#14 USNWR and #30 Directors Cup)-The premier academic school in the Big 10, the womens sports at Northwestern are terrific (back-to-back national championships in lacrosse!) and the football team, with games at Ryan Field, won the Big 10 in 2000 and has been to 3 bowl games since 2000. </p>

<p>VANDERBILT (#18 USNWR and #33 Directors Cup)-The premier academic school in the SEC, the baseball team was ranked #1 in the country for much of this past season and the basketball team reached the Sweet 16 and also had a 20-point victory at home in Memorial Gym over national champion U Florida. I bet that was a LOT of fun. </p>

<p>NOTRE DAME (#20 USNWR and #22 Directors Cup)-Superb academics and proudest football tradition in the country. The football team is a consistent contender for the national title and seeing a game in South Bend is exciting with frequently spectacular finishes. I mean, does it get more fun than beating UCLA in the last 30 seconds?!Attending a college football game at ND will have you loving the team (and the school) for the rest of your life (and maybe beyond). </p>

<p>UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY (#21 USNWR and #9 Directors Cup)-Watching a football game from the top of Memorial Stadium with the views all around is a magical experience and fun, fun, fun! With a nationally competitive football team (#14 last year) and national champs in water polo and rugby (23rd championship), this school’s combination of top academics and top athletics truly is impressive and fun. </p>

<p>U MICHIGAN (#24 USNWR and #4 Directors Cup)-Always ranked as one of the top public universities, U Michigan combines this academic strength with a fantastic athletic department and sports excitement that very, very few schools can match. U Michigan’s Big House seats over 110,000 for Wolverine football and the team consistently competes for the Big Ten and national titles. Great athletic breadth with Top 10 finishes in 11 sports. </p>

<p>U VIRGINIA (#24 USNWR and #13 Directors Cup)-Since 1991, USNWR has ranked U Virginia 1st or 2nd every year among public universities and the school’s athletic programs (especially lacrosse and soccer) are equally competitive at the national level. New basketball arena is thought by many to be the best in the country and ACC games (both boys and girlz) are electric. </p>

<pre><code> **HONORABLE MENTION**
</code></pre>

<p>UCLA (#26 USNWR and #2 Directors Cup) </p>

<p>USC (#27 USNWR and #5 Directors Cup)</p>

<p>U NORTH CAROLINA (#27 USNWR and #3 Directors Cup)</p>

<p>WAKE FOREST (#30 USNWR and #23 Directors Cup)</p>

<p>U WISCONSIN (#34 USNWR and #16 Directors Cup)</p>

<p>GEORGIA TECH (#38 USNWR and #46 Directors Cup)</p>

<p>U WASHINGTON (#42 USNWR and #29 Directors Cup)</p>

<p>U FLORIDA (#47 USNWR and #6 Directors Cup)</p>

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<p>I hate sports. I've attended many college football games, including USC games, and pray I won't go to a sports-minded college.</p>

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<p>^ Me Too! I despise (American) sports (partly because I was bred British for 12 years).</p>

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<p>I die for sports.........</p>

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<p>College sports (major Div. I programs) both ruin the academics at a college, and provide the college with a serious amount of cash. It's a tough decision.</p>

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<p>Sports have virtually nothing to do with the academics at a college. They operate in different spheres of college life. Some athletes are also good students and some are not but it has no direct impact on academics except that winning in major sports helps attract regular students.</p>

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<p>How does the Directors Cup come up with its ranking?</p>

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<p>I don't understand how one can associate college sports with the intellectual/academic atmosphere of a university. Schools like Cal, Duke, Michigan, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Stanford, UCLA, UNC, UVA and Wisconsin have healthy (if not intense) academic/intellectual atompsheres but at the same time offer athletic entertainment for those interested. Students who don't care for sports can easily avoid them.</p>

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<p>Good grief. What is up with all these bizarre threads and rankings??</p>

<p>Oh, and thanks, Alexandre. ^ Well put.</p>

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<p>"College sports (major Div. I programs) both ruin the academics at a college"</p>

<p>Yikes, someone hasn't heard of Stanford, Duke, Mich, UCB, Northwestern...etc.</p>

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<p>I think the Directors Cup ranking is a useless gauge here, if what you are trying to get at is a student body uniting experience. This is likely to come only with success in football or basketball. The only schools that qualify on your short list are Michigan, for football, and Duke, for basketball.
Notre Dame has been an embarrassment in football for a decade or two, and most of these schools get regularly beaten up in the conferences they live in.
I live in Chicago and watching Northwestern play is almost always routing for moral victories only. Vanderbilt beat Florida in basketball as part of 3 losses in quick succession by Florida after Florida had already won the conference title. Florida has beaten Vanderbilt something like 20 years or more in football. I'm a Florida alum, and even I hate seeing us beat Vandy all the time.
Regarding minor sports, like Northwestern women's lacrosse. Nice, but no mass experience. Florida women won the NCAA title in soccer several years ago. For the people on campus who knew about it, the reaction was "that's nice".</p>

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<p>hawkette...
This may sound more hard-edged than I mean it. Picture me sitting in the stands, beer in hand, arguing the merits of a sports point!</p>

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<p>Amen to Alexandre and jack.</p>

<p>And really, Division I athletics are the only ones with excitement? And only athletics can provide that type of exciting atmosphere?</p>

<p>I'm so glad I'm looking at mostly Division III colleges. I'd rather my fellow students unite over the excitement of learning rather than the excitement of a ball getting thrown.</p>

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<p>Most excitement at a D-III school comes from finding the room with the bong in it.</p>

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<p>^^ Haha...</p>

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<p>I’m a little surprised by some of the vitriol that this thread inspired. Hey, I’m not knocking the “academic-only” colleges or even an academic-only experience at one of these multi-faceted universities. If that is what a student wants, then great. Go and good luck. </p>

<p>Some students are looking for an undergraduate experience that extends beyond the classroom and might include sports and the fun that goes along with some college sports. (If you’ve ever been to the “largest outdoor cocktail party in the country” or something similar, then you know what I mean.) And some, who might never have experienced it, could find it very, very appealing and very, very fun. </p>

<p>High level collegiate athletics can be enormously exciting, dramatic, and fun…even if your school loses. My point is that the great college sports scene is NOT available at the academic-only schools. Northwestern may not have won many games of late, but contrast their football scene with that of any of the other Top 20 USNWR schools that did not make my Honor Roll. It’s not even close. For many students, that is a big deal and a big difference and it is very noticeable in the nature of the undergraduate experience that a student will enjoy. </p>

<p>As another example, the Big Game (Stanford-Cal) is an event and a happening on both campuses and in the Bay Area and is a great time for the scores of thousands who attend the games and the hundreds of thousands locally and around the country who follow the sport and are interested in the result. Similar scenes happen at many, many schools across the country, but only a handful of those schools have the high level academics as well. The schools that do it best (as defined by a combination of the USNWR rankings and the Directors Cup rankings) are:</p>

<p>Stanford
Duke
Northwestern
Vanderbilt
Notre Dame
U California (Berkeley)
U Michigan
U Virginia
UCLA
USC
U North Carolina
Wake Forest
U Wisconsin
Georgia Tech
U Washington
U Florida
U Texas (sorry I left it out by accident initially as it definitely deserves a place with a #47 USNWR ranking and a #8 Directors Cup ranking)</p>

<p>All of these are terrific universities and this athletic excellence differentiates them from the academic-only schools. It is rare that a school can give you excellence in both areas. If you are a top student and that intrigues you at all, then I urge you to give all of them a very close look.</p>

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<p>Go hawkette, i'm all for major sports and great academics!</p>

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<p>
[quote]
I'm so glad I'm looking at mostly Division III colleges. I'd rather my fellow students unite over the excitement of learning rather than the excitement of a ball getting thrown.

[/quote]
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<p>What a square...</p>

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<p>I hate sports, and was very glad that my college wasn't sports crazy. To each his/her own....</p>

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<p>
[quote]
What a square...

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</p>

<p>I try. :)</p>