<p>Which of the eleven conferences/subdivisions in D1-A do you think is the strongest academically?</p>
<p>Note: Only full members count.</p>
<p>PAC-10 has Cal, UCLA, and Stanford, enough said.</p>
<p>Pac-10
Big-10
Acc</p>
<p>
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PAC-10 has Cal, UCLA, and Stanford, enough said.
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</p>
<p>PAC-10, probably until tonight, also included USC, which is ranked academically like ONE below UCLA by US News and World Report-- it's within the top thirty. </p>
<p>USC is always underrated academically.</p>
<p>ACC</p>
<p>Duke
Uva
Unc
Wake Forest
Georgia Tech
BC
Miami
Maryland</p>
<p>The PAC-10 also has the Universities and State Universities of Oregon, Washington and Arizona, however. Except for University of Washington-Seattle, the others are not exactly academic superstar schools.</p>
<p>Highest Ranked US News Schools:</p>
<p>ACC: Duke - 8
Big East: Notre Dame* - 20
Big Ten: Northwestern - 14
Big XII: UT-Austin - 47
Pac-10: Stanford - 4
SEC: Vanderbilt - 18</p>
<p>*highest football-playing full member in Big East: Pittsburgh - 52</p>
<p>Number of Tier I schools:
ACC: 11 of 12 (poor Miami)
Big East: 4 of 16 (ND, Pitt, Syracuse, UConn)
Big Ten: 11 of 11
Big XII: 10 of 12 (sans Oklahoma State and Texas Tech)
Pac-10: 8 of 10 (Arizona state, Oregon state don't make the cut)
SEC: 8 of 12 (Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vanderbilt)</p>
<p>The Big East is certainly the most complicated of the Big 6 as half it's 16 full members (and Notre Dame IS a full member) don't play 1A football (if they play at all). My compilation methodology (not a very good one at all; I used the free-access lists on USNews.com) the ACC and Big Ten are tops.</p>
<p>The Ivy League (or are they D1AA)</p>
<p>Pac 10, ACC, and Big10 are pretty equal, depending on what you are looking for. Big 10 may be best top to bottom, and Pac 10 may be more top heavy with the best 3 schools.</p>
<p>
[quote]
PAC-10, probably until tonight, also included USC,
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Wait...so we're not in the PAC-10 anymore? :)</p>
<p>jbusc: Didn't you see the Facebook petition to kick USC out of the Pac-10 after today's loss?? :)</p>
<p>lol today's loss was hilarious. Also, i agree that usc is strong academically, but don't even start about US New's criteria on ranking colleges. If we were looking at JUST academics, UCLA would be much higher. so would Cal and UCSD. their methodology is not SOLEY based on academics, but includes stupid things like alumni contributions.</p>
<p>As said before the Big 10 and the ACC are the best top to bottom while the PAC 10 has some very good schools at the top but there is a significant dropoff after those schools.</p>
<p>the patriot league is not too shabby:
American
Bucknell
Colgate
Holy Cross
Lafayette
Lehigh
USMA
USNA</p>
<p>I'd probably say the ACC:
Duke, Wake, UNC, BC, UVA...</p>
<p>Both the Patriot League and the Ivy League are D-I AA</p>
<p>ACC all the way</p>
<p>Average US News ranking:
ACC (12 schools): 46
Big 10 (11 schools) 50
ACC (top 11 schools, so it compares evenly with Big 10's eleven schools): 40</p>
<p>Posting to say I compete in a sport in one of the only two good academic schools in Conference-USA.</p>
<p>Awesome.</p>
<p>TourGuide,</p>
<p>You have average PA scores? I am a little surprised Big10 actually came up a little short since quite a few schools in ACC don't have many well-known programs. For example, pretty much every Big10 schools have great engineering programs. Quite a few also have pretty good biz schools. But then I know US News college ranking isn't like graduate rankings.</p>
<p>West Coast Conference is solid... 3 very good schools among others...</p>
<p>Pepperdine
USD
Santa Clara</p>