<p>As we all know, the Ivy League is an athletic conference. Nonetheless, the schools within are all top-of-the-line private research universities. If a student is looking at Columbia, for example, it might be worthwhile to look elsewhere within the “Ivy League” for comparable schools. The same can be said for many of the other athletic conferences in the country; if you are intrigued by Bowdoin, you might look at the NASCAC members for overlap schools. It might be interesting to compile a list of college athletic conferences and rank the schools within the conference academically. For example, the Centennial Conference:</p>
<p>Anybody “game” for “tackling” other college athletic conferences (or for challenging my – actually USN&WR’s – ranking of the Centennial Conference?</p>
<p>University Athletic Conference
School US News Ranking
U Chicago 9
WashU 12
Emory 17
Carnegie Mellon 22
Brandeis 31
NYU 34
U Rochester 35
Case Western 41</p>
<p>we party harder than you and have the only real college football in the country. i didn't choose vanderbilt so i could go to away games and make a stop in their university library.</p>
<p>The SEC is one of those conferences where the hypothesis breaks down. Somehow it is difficult to envision Arkansas and Mississippi State as overlap colleges with Vanderbilt, but I suppose for some students that is the case.</p>
<p>Out of the big-time conferences, the ACC is the best:
1. Duke
2. UVa
3. UNC-Chapel Hill
4. Wake
5. Ga. Tech
6. Boston College
7. Maryland
8. Va Tech
9. Miami
10. Clemson
11. Fla State
12. NC State</p>
<p>hudsonvalley,
I like your idea conceptually, but I think it breaks down when you consider the quality of the athletic competition at the Ivies or in the NESCAC or the other Division III leagues and compare it to what goes on in the major conferences. Occasionally, there will be minor sports in which a couple of the Ivies or Division III schools can compete on the national stage, but much more commonly the athletic caliber and the scenes that surround them are much more similar to high school than major college, national caliber, Division I athletics. </p>
<p>But if you are looking for colleges that can offer the rare combination of 1. Great Academics and 2. Great Athletics, then the universe of colleges might include some or all of the following: </p>
<p>Stanford of the PAC 10
UC Berkeley of the PAC 10
UCLA of the PAC 10
USC of the PAC 10
U Washington of the PAC 10</p>
<p>Duke of the ACC
U Virginia of the ACC
U North Carolina of the ACC
Wake Forest of the ACC
Boston College of the ACC
Georgia Tech of the ACC</p>
<p>Northwestern of the Big Ten
U Michigan of the Big Ten
U Wisconsin of the Big Ten
U Illinois of the Big Ten</p>
<p>Notre Dame of the Big East (except for football)
Georgetown of the Big East</p>
<p>I actually think the ACC is deeper than the Big Ten, Big East, SEC, etc.</p>
<p>The ACC's bottom consists of Miami, Fla. St., NCST, Clemson...while they are clearly lagging behind the other eight, they are just as good as the Big Ten's lower end of Purdue, Michigan State, and Ohio State (while their top end of Duke, UVa, UNC slightly beats out Mich, Nwestern, Wisconsin) and they are certainly better than:</p>
<p>SEC: Ole Miss, Arkansas, LSU
Big 12: Kansas State, Ok. St., Nebraska
PAC-10: Arizona State, Wash. St., Oregon St.
Big East: Cincinnati, St. Johns, West Virginia</p>
<p>Hmmmm. The intent of this thread appears to have been unclear. I like college football as much as anyone, but the idea was to see if by looking at college athletic conferences someone who is intrigued by one school might find others in the overlap group. And, as an additional exercise, I suggested raking the schools academically within their conference. This post was not meant to be about relative strengths of the athletic conferences. So, for the sake of argument, I'll tackle the NESCAC:</p>