<p>"Conference USA
1. (Tie) Rice + Tulsa
2. Tulane
3. UAB
4. SMU
5. Central Florida"</p>
<p>That is a horrible, horrible ranking for Conference USA. It should look like this:</p>
<ol>
<li>Rice</li>
<li>Tulane</li>
<li>SMU</li>
<li>Tulsa
Then the rest are all basically interchangeable</li>
</ol>
<p>MAC
1) Buffalo (only AAU member in the conference: debate over)
2) Miami of Ohio
3) Everybody else</p>
<p>Big Ten
1-Michigan (better overall graduate and research programs and faculty bumps it above NW)
2-Northwestern
3-Wisconsin
4-Illinois
5-Ohio State/Penn State
7-Minnesota
8-Pudue
9-Iowa
10-Indiana
11-Michigan State</p>
<p>AAU dosen't mean anything, Miami of Ohio is considered a "public ivy", and has a higher graduation rate than Buffalo</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Indiana 3 places ahead of Michigan? LOL. Let's do a little side-by-side comparison.</p>
<p>Middle 50% SAT scores:
Michigan 1220-1420
Indiana 1030-1260</p>
<p>Freshmen in top 10% of HS class:
Michigan 92%
Indiana 31%</p>
<p>Fall 2007 acceptance rate:
Michigan 50.3%
Indiana 69.8%</p>
<p>Peer assessment rating:
Michigan 4.4%
Indiana 3.7%</p>
<p>Student/faculty ratio:
Michigan 15/1
Indiana 18/1</p>
<p>Classes with fewer than 20 students:
Michigan 45%
Indiana 39%</p>
<p>6-year graduation rate:
Michigan 88%
Indiana 72%</p>
<p>you're entitled to your opinion, of course, but in my book the school with better students, a better faculty, smaller classes, a better student/faculty ratio, and a higher graduation rate is the better school, and on these measures it's not even close. Michigan is the clear hands-down winner. As for teaching by grad students, any major research university---and that includes Indiana---is going to have some of it. I don't have the stats in front of me, but with a larger undergrad student body (30,394 at Indiana, v. 26,083 at Michigan) and a smaller faculty (1,934 full-time at Indiana, v. 2,367 at Michigan), it only stands to reason that classes will be larger and more of the teaching load will be picked up by grad students at Indiana than at Michigan.</p>
<p>"AAU dosen't mean anything, Miami of Ohio is considered a "public ivy", and has a higher graduation rate than Buffalo"</p>
<p>For once, I agree with pierre0913. Miami of Ohio is definitely better than Buffalo.</p>
<p>Disagree about AAU status. The original post asked to rank based on academics. Since they didn't specifically limit this to undergraduate rankings, graduation rates and certainly not a quarter century old "public ivy" book that no one pays attention to anymore, I took the definition to be more comprehensive including graduate and research programs as well as faculty quality--all of which AAU membership would argue strongly in Buffalo's favor over Miami of Ohio.</p>
<p>If the definition of academic was solely meant to be undergraduate reputation, then I agree that Miami of Ohio would be above Buffalo--but not Ohio U.</p>
<p>haha I'm glad to hear that :)</p>
<p>Since Division 1 sports are played at the undergraduate level, I think we should limit this discussion to undergraduates only!</p>
<p>Big 12
1. UT Austin
1. TAMU
2. who cares</p>
<p>(I live in Chicago.)</p>
<p>Big 10:</p>
<ol>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>Michigan
3T. Illinois
3T. Wisconsin Madison</li>
</ol>
<p>(significant gap)</p>
<p>5T. Penn State
5T. Ohio State
7T. Purdue
7T. Minnesota
7T. Michigan State</p>
<p>(significant gap)</p>
<ol>
<li>Indiana</li>
<li>Iowa</li>
</ol>
<p>Birmingham Southern is no longer DI.</p>
<p>Seriously u guys are dumb lol villanova second in big east and Marquette third and duke in third and Penn at in ninth. God</p>
<p>Dang, I never realized what an academic powerhouse the ACC was, when you have a school like Boston College at 5 you know you have a strong conference. </p>
<p>I've got the Pac 10:</p>
<ol>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Cal Berkely</li>
<li>USC (I personally think it's better than UCLA)</li>
<li>UCLA</li>
<li>University of Washington</li>
<li>University of Oregon</li>
<li>Arizona</li>
<li>Arizona State</li>
<li>Washington State</li>
<li>Oregon State</li>
</ol>
<p>ACC
1. Duke
2. Wake Forest
3. UVA
4. Boston College
5. Miami (FL)
6. UNC
7. Georgia Tech
8. Virginia Tech
9. Maryland
10. Clemson
11. NC State
12. Florida State.</p>
<p>Okay, I'm going to have to put in my two cents here. Like pretty much everyone else, I disagree with what pierre0913 said.</p>
<p>First off, I understand that you are entitled to your opinions, but the fact that you are still defending them makes for a worthwhile discussion. You claim that your rankings are based not on reputation, but on ""quality of undergraduate education, are teachers good and accessible? are there small classes? are there too many TA's?"</p>
<p>How are you measuring the "quality of undergraduate education"? From your later posts it appears that the main component in that evaluation were things you heard by word-of-mouth, often concerning only the class size. </p>
<p>Having smaller classes does not equal having better classes. I would certainly trade a 10 person class with Professor Billy Bob No-Name for a 40 person class with a professor that students and others all recognize as a skilled teacher any day. For further class size discussion, I'm sure you've seen the numbers some other users have posted.</p>
<p>As for hearing things word-of-mouth, some of what you hear might be true, and I accept that. However, I'm sure you haven't heard much about all of these schools, even if you have heard about some.</p>
<p>Finally, I have an issue with you saying these are your personal preferences ("the rankings are based on what I think is important to me") for two reasons. One, that contradicts what you said earlier about them actually just being better in that "different" way. Two, different schools are for different people. So, yes, these very well may be YOUR preference list, but the thread was about ranking the schools' overall academics. Once again, I must point out that these schools didn't get their reputation handed to them, and, even if they don't provide exactly what you want, they should still be recognized as academically superior. Again, this would not have been an issue had you not claimed that you based everything on the "quality of undergraduate education, are teachers good and accessible? are there small classes? are there too many TA's?"</p>
<p>Out of curiosity, how would you go about defending your ACC rankings? Just curious, as that is my region....</p>
<p>The ACC and the Big Ten are close, but I would call the Big Ten the best conference academically, because it's top end matches the ACC with Northwestern, Michigan, Wisconsin etc. and the lowest schools are all in the top 75 or so, whereas the ACC has a weaker bottom end in NC State and FSU (nothing against these schools of course, I'm sure they are good colleges)</p>
<p>ACC:</p>
<p>Duke
UNC
UVA
Wake Forest
Boston College
Georgia Tech
Clemson
Virginia Tech
NC State
Miami
Maryland
Florida State</p>
<p>*Disclaimer- These are my opinions and are also in no way based on class sizes, dorm sizes, or meal sizes.</p>
<p>Pac 10</p>
<ol>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>UC Berkeley</li>
<li>UCLA</li>
<li>USC</li>
<li>Washington</li>
<li>Oregon</li>
<li>Arizona</li>
<li>Arizona State</li>
<li>Washington State</li>
<li>Oregon State</li>
</ol>
<p>Pierre- how could you think that Georgia Tech is worse than FSU or NCSU, or most of the ACC schools? (not that either are bad, but Tech is ranked very highly, etc.)</p>
<p>SEC
It's all about Kentucky. Is there anyone else?</p>