<p>How about University of Michigan? great school, great sports.</p>
<p>I think that Music222 is having a bad day! Anyway - my dd who has stats higher than your DS counts how many school sweatshirts she sees on tours and absolutely wants a school with spirit and good sports to cheer for - fortunate for us - she likes big. After all college is 4 years that you should enjoy - if you are not happy you are not going to be successful in the classroom!</p>
<p>Anyway to answer OP’s question - If your son likes Basketball I would absolutely check out University of Dayton. THEY LOVE their basketball and their alumni are crazy about the school!!! They also have a GREAT engineering school. He would get nice merit aid with his stats. Someone else mention Miami of Ohio - the campus “feels” a lot like Vandy - and they are crazy about their hockey - not so much football. Engineering school is just OK - Business school is great.</p>
<p>Goodluck</p>
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<p>lol I am? Why do you say that. I’m actually having an amazing day.</p>
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<p>Here you go:</p>
<p>"He is in love with Vanderbilt and Notre Dame because of their prestige and size. He is looking for a similar school, but here is the kicker - sports are very important to him. He won’t be playing in college, but he wants a school he can “follow for the rest of his life.” </p>
<p>Like I stated before, if you are going to choose a school based primarily on the sports scene, then that is a VERY poor choice. Ask your doctor, pharmacist, lawyer, etc. why they went to the school they went to. I can guarantee they didn’t pick the school because of the sports teams.</p>
<p>You go to college PRIMARILY to study and obtain your degree. If some of you don’t see that, then I don’t know what else to say.</p>
<p>Ask your doctor, pharmacist, lawyer, etc. why they went to the school they went to. I can guarantee they didn’t pick the school because of the sports teams.</p>
<p>Well, I was trying to avoid this issue in this thread, but you had to go and say that, didn’t you?! 
I work with a lawyer who got accepted to several ivies (undergrad) but who chose Duke because of the basketball. </p>
<p>OP - what about Indiana University?</p>
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<p>Yes, I’m sure he turned down going to any Ivy League University to go to a school to watch basketball. Anybody can fool you. I know a number of people who said they got accepted to “so and so school”, but they turned down the offer. It was later revealed they never got into the school. My cousin’s parents bragged that their son supposedly got a full ride to Stanford, but he chose to attend the local state school instead because he didn’t want to leave home. I knew that was a fishy story from the beginning. It finally came out that he never got accepted to Stanford and never even applied.</p>
<p>OP said sports were" very important" but never said it was the “primary factor” upon which he would choose a college.</p>
<p>Both my S’s chose rah,rah schools. Both have graduated now and are gainfully employed despite having spent many Saturdays tailgating before the game w/ their best friends. I feel certain that they have more great memories of cheering on their college teams w/ their friends than all those awesome days in calculus class.</p>
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<p>So you don’t think it’s silly to have spots as a “very important” criteria to pick a school?</p>
<p>The kid doesn’t even know what he wants to major in. I think it would be more important to figure out what the kid’s passions are and to pick a major instead of worrying about going to a school because of the sports scene.</p>
<p>@suzy100 – I was also thinking Indiana University. My son’s guidance counselor says she just loves that school and recommended that my son consider it. I think she thinks very highly of the academics and the overall environment. Alas, it was not in a big enough city for him, so he did not apply.</p>
<p>(Sigh…I wish I had seen this thread last year!! It would have been perfect! But I wasn’t really on CC yet, except for when it came up in Google searches.)</p>
<p>I do not think it’s silly for a strong sports scene to be important to him. Not at all. It adds to the atmosphere he’s looking for in a school and probably a network later on.</p>
<p>He’s looking for a “feel”, and I don’t think that’s wrong anymore than any other criteria.</p>
<p>And I don’t think it’s particularly necessary that he has a major nailed down either. It might end up adding a semester or two to his college stay, but it’s not the end of the world.</p>
<p>A lot of people THINK they know what their major will be and then change it later.</p>
<p>He’s a math mind?</p>
<p>One thing to remind him of - perhaps he hasn’t thought about it:</p>
<p>Some REALLY big schools can feel kind of small within your own little world (Freshman Engineering Student).</p>
<p>Did he go on a tour of the Engineering department at the big state school? He should! If it’s a good engineering school, sometimes they are VERY selective and have a relatively small number of freshman in each discipline who basically take all of their classes together from beginning to end. Not all big schools FEEL big. Most that are going to have the strong sports will be big schools - they kind of go hand in hand usually.</p>
<p>music222,</p>
<p>We just disagree. He didn’t like the big state school (at least at this time, he doesn’t think so). My daughter didn’t want to go to a “big” school either, until she toured her final choice and found the close-knit engineering department a workable thing for her.</p>
<p>Like this young man, sports was really important to her.</p>
<p>In the south for sure, and in engineering, in particular - you see a lot of “team spirit”. There are networks, depending on what school you went to. Sports are a part of it - they just are. I can tell by the things you’ve typed that you probably think that’s silly - but silly or not, it is true.</p>
<p>music222-</p>
<p>Who said he’s turning down merit money?</p>
<p>For a student to narrow his choices based on the strength of a school’s sports is no less silly than doing so based on a school’s location, extracurricular offerings, frat/sorority status, or many of the myriad criteria students use to shorten their lists. As cromette points out, a strong sports culture can have significance not only for a school’s campus atmosphere, but also for alumni giving and professional networking.</p>
<p>Sue22,</p>
<p>The opening post says that he’s been accepted at a big state school with a lot of merit money, but he doesn’t like it because of its size. It didn’t say he was necessarily for SURE turning it down, or that he prefers sports to merit money - just that he didn’t like the big school. </p>
<p>I can actually relate to that. We are from a small community. Some of these big schools are much larger in population than our whole city!</p>
<p>Leaving home can be daunting enough for some kids without feeling like they’re being thrown from the fishbowl into the ocean. Sometimes a smaller campus feels WAY “safer” to some kids.</p>
<p>Oops!
…</p>
<p>
music222, careful reading is a valuable life skill, wouldn’t you agree? Nowhere in my post, which you challenged in the above quote, did I state or imply that the OP’s son, or that the intelligent, successful people I know who included following a sports scene AMONG their criteria for choosing a school, made their decision based SOLELY on that factor. </p>
<p>You seem to want to discuss people who lie about which schools accept them or turn down significant money to choose another school because of its sports scene. No one else here has proposed doing either. The OP’s son has not yet turned down the merit offer - and we don’t know that he won’t receive merit money from a school more to his liking.</p>
<p>:rolleyes:</p>
<p>music222,</p>
<p>I want to make sure I understand: You just don’t see any real tangible value in sports on a college campus, unless maybe you’re an athlete. They don’t add in any meaningful way to what you’re there for - which is solely a quality education? </p>
<p>You doubt that anyone who is successful or intelligent would choose this as an important criteria?</p>
<p>If anyone HAS chosen this as important or even VERY important criteria and has even turned down schools of greater prestige they are either unintelligent or lying?</p>
<p>Wasn’t sure if this is what you really meant - but this is what is coming across to me.</p>
<p>Who’s to say he isn’t in the running for merit $$ at Vanderbilt or Notre Dame? Moreover, Vanderbilt is need blind and meets full need as far as financial aid goes. (Don’t know how generous Notre Dame is in comparison.)</p>
<p>Our kids have turned down a LOT of significant merit awards to attend other schools, happens all the time. Our DD picked her college based on sports, at least the final deciding factor…but then again, she is a recruited athlete so that was kind of important for her.</p>
<p>As for “very intelligent, successful person” that picked a school for sports: I can name probably 100 kids I went to college with that are very successful now that picked their school because of sports–which they played, starting with my DH, all of the people in our wedding, most of our friends from college, most of the people we know that graduated from our college that we have met in our “adult” life, etc., etc., etc. The list is full of doctors, lawyers, business CEO’s, etc, etc. etc.</p>
<p>I don’t see his turning down the merit money as equivalent to picking a school with a strong sports scene.</p>
<p>It is HIGHLY possible that the big state school with the merit money HAS a good sports scene.</p>
<p>He doesn’t like the merit money school because it’s BIG.</p>
<p>Most big sports schools (that are safeties) are state schools - therefore are cheaper than private schools. Perhaps some of them have merit money to offer him. I don’t see it as either/or.</p>