<p>
</p>
<p>… do Crimson and Harlem count as mascots?</p>
<p>
The weather where I live:
January-March: Freaking cold
~2 weeks in the middle of march: About 70 degrees, balmy
April-September: Freaking hot and humid
~2 weeks at the end of September: About 70 degrees, crisp
October-December: Freaking cold</p>
<p>Yes, Berkeley would be an improvement.</p>
<p>
I thought they were some sort of Wild West police force.</p>
<p>I think SuperPippo is my new favorite ■■■■■ on CC.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Too bad me and most of my friends don’t give a **** about college sports.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It’s pretty funny how, when given proof that one’s knowledge of a school’s mascot does not correlate with one’s total knowledge of said school, you merely ignore the logic. Is this what they teach you in Texas? No wonder your schools are so lowly ranked.</p>
<p>Besides, if you’re saying that UT is known because of its sports, then you’re implying that UT is more known for its longhorns than for its academics, then it would explain very well its low ACADEMIC rankings. Heh heh heh.</p>
<p>
I agree. :)</p>
<p>UCLA and UT actually have quite a bit in common, as the NRC rankings showed. A more recent comparison of selected graduate programs as ranked by USNWR yielded similar results. UCLA does have one huge advantage over UT - an on-campus medical school. Medical schools bring huge amounts of federal research $$ and prestige. For whatever reason, the Texas legislature decided over a century ago to keep the medical schools separate from the other UT institutions. UT Southwestern in Dallas is a very prestgious medical school, currently with more Nobel Laureates on faculty than any other school. It is also worth noting that UT-Austin has one of the highest #s of NAS faculty for a university not directly tied to a med school (Berkeley and MIT being two <em>huge</em> other examples).</p>
<p>I’m not so sure I would trust the Times rankings… it is interesting how UT has slipped from as high as #13 in the world just a few years ago to its current #70 position</p>
<p>average PhD score for grad programs (based on peer reputation rankings) </p>
<ol>
<li>Berkeley - 4.8</li>
<li>Stanford - 4.8</li>
<li>MIT - 4.8 </li>
<li>Princeton - 4.6</li>
<li>Harvard - 4.6 </li>
<li>Yale - 4.4</li>
<li>Michigan - 4.4</li>
<li>Wisconsin - 4.3</li>
<li>Chicago - 4.3 </li>
<li>Cornell - 4.3</li>
<li>Columbia - 4.3 </li>
<li>UCLA - 4.2 </li>
<li>Texas - 4.0</li>
</ol>
<p>professional schools by mean rank:
<p><a href=“http://www.grad.berkeley.edu/publications/pdf/usnews_rankings_2008.pdf[/url]”>http://www.grad.berkeley.edu/publications/pdf/usnews_rankings_2008.pdf</a></p>
<p>"Those random UC secondary campuses are not known beyond the Arizona and Oregon borders. </p>
<p>Statistics plz."</p>
<p>No skin in this game (my MIL attended U T - Austin so I can’t really be unbiased),
but I totally have to agree that the UC schools (beyond UCLA and Berkeley) aren’t really known outside of California. There tends to be this California-centric mentality out there and Californians actually think that people know of / are aware of / have some kind of mental ranking of Davis, Merced, Santa Barbara, Irvine, whatever the heck else is out there. I don’t expect Californians to know the difference between, say, Northern Illinois University and Western Illinois University, so I’m not sure why they think we should know the difference between UC’s that are in random locations that don’t mean anything outside of the state.</p>
<p>
I’m shocked you don’t know that UCSC has the Banana Slug as a mascot. That’s totally the most awesome mascot ever. Seriously.</p>
<p>SuperPippo: If your status is indicating that you support AC Milan, I applaud you. Despite this pleasant surprise, you seem to have no logic in your posted arguments. Since when does the success of a college’s sports programs determine its academic prestige? Sure schools like Duke, USC, and Michigan are strong academically/athletically, but this doesn’t mean there’s a real correlation here. The Ivy League and UAA sports conferences (among others) aren’t strong athletically, but are still some of the top universities in the world.</p>
<p>and how about weather?</p>
<p>and where did anyone compare the “secondary” UC schools with Harvard or Columbia? The only reference to Harvard/Columbia I see is used as an example of lesser known mascots.</p>
<p>Surely a Milanista can do better than this.</p>
<p>If you can say UT = UCLA, you can surely say UCB = UCLA, for difference btwn UCB and UCLA is minimal, almost negligible. Then, UT = UCB? You may not agree to this, UCBChemEGrad. </p>
<p>No one likes his school bashed by others. You may find bashing UCLA is fun, but others may not. Would you please stop bashing UCLA just because UCLA rejected your transfer application?</p>
<p>“Since when does the success of a college’s sports programs determine its academic prestige?”</p>
<p>bdl, I agree with you. I lived in Berlin, London and Paris for three years. I have spent a minimum of 6 weeks in Europe each year since forever, and certainly since I started attending college back in 1992. I never even knew Michigan had a football team. It wasn’t until my second month at Michigan that I realized that we had a good football team, and even that happened rather serendipitously ;a fellow student, just as clueless of Michigan’s football tradition, asked me to join him at a football game. We didn’t even realize we were going to a football game. We though we were going to see a soccer game. I have often been stopped in the streets of Berlin or Paris when wearing a Michigan shirt or sweater, but only once was it for an athletic reason, and that was by a Northwestern alum who bragged about his team beating my Wolverines!</p>
<p>Europeans couldn’t care less about American sports. They really look down on/or are complete oblivious to American Football and Baseball and aren’t that into Basketball. Hockey is the only sport that is equally big in Europe and the US. Europe’s biggest sporting activity is soccer, closely followed by Hockey and Rugby.</p>
<p>Please name one top academic public institution which is also not big time sports (or trying to be :-)</p>
<p>The private schools reality is obviously different.</p>
<p>“Please name one top academic public institution which is also not big time sports (or trying to be :-)”</p>
<p>College of William and Mary
Purdue University-West Lafayette
University of California-San Diego
University of Illinois-Urbana Champpaign</p>
<p>SuperPippo, you should look back 60 or 70 years. The Ivy League and the University of Chicago had winning athletic traditions. Their reality back then was not much unlike the publics. </p>
<p>At any rate, even today, many of the top non-Ivy private univerities have respectable athletic traditions. Schools like Boston College, Duke, Georgetown, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Stanford and USC to name a few.</p>
<p>My point indeed 
</p>
<p>Purdue and Illinois have decent athletics and they are certainly trying to be big time in football and basketball since they are Big 10 schools. You don’t become part of the big 10 if you are upathetic about athletics.</p>
<p>I will only agree with the other two which are very “special” publics. William and Mary is a really small school (one of a kind) and UCSD has a lot in common with private schools (like residential colleges) and suffers from the commuter school stigma.</p>
<p>As a resukt, I will add that neither one of the two schools is very well known outside of their state.</p>
<p>None of the UC’s are well known outside of the state besides UCLA and Berkeley. I’d pick William & Mary over any of those minor UC’s any day of the week, personally. The people who matter know W&M’s reputation.</p>
<p>SuperPippo, you should learn to accept other people’s points when they are valid. Illinois and Purdue are not athletic powerhouses. How many conference championships have they won in recent years? How many National Championships? They occasionally do well in Football and Basketball, but only occasionally. And William and Mary and UCSD are both were regarded outside of their respective states. </p>
<p>And what of the private universities? The members of the Ivy League and the University of Chicago were dominant athletic powers between 1880-1940. Today, Duke, Notre Dame, Stanford and USC all boast top-rated athletic programs.</p>
<p>Ahah 100 years ago. Now that’s very relevant.</p>
<p>Anyhow, we are speaking about public schools. Elite private schools are actually able to be recognized solely because of academics. Publics simply are not.</p>
<p>I have lived in Florida, Texas and California. No mention of College of William and Mary at any time by any person I had conversation with. Same for UCSD outside of California.</p>
<p>I reiterate, Illinois and Purdue are bad at recruting in football. Actually in basketball they are more than decent. They certainly are TRYING to be the best they can in athletics too which is a way to raise their national profile.</p>
<p>Notice the link academics and athletics:</p>
<p><a href=“University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign - Wikipedia”>University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign - Wikipedia;
<p>“Illinois is also a member of the Big Ten Conference. The Big Ten is the only Division I conference to have all of its member institutions affiliated with the prestigious Association of American Universities, a consortium of 62 major research institutions, and leads all conferences in the total amount of research expenditures.”</p>
<p>“I have lived in Florida, Texas and California. No mention of College of William and Mary at any time by any person I had conversation with. Same for UCSD outside of California.”</p>
<p>So what? All recognition is pretty much local once you’re past the HYP level.</p>
<p>Not so true. Everybody nationwide knows the University of Texas, the University of Michigan, etc…</p>
<p>Can’t say the same about the UC commuter schools.</p>