<p>The brutal reality is those schools that have invested heavily in a sports program(s) are necessarily going to present a similar case. After all, you have to justify your investments. But you have to step back and ask “who really cares about the basketball team, at the end of the day?” Does it really matter? </p>
<p>Of course football matters to Notre Dame, USC and Alabama – they have invested considerable school resources into those programs – I mean a coach at a big time program is looking at multi-million dollar contracts for multiple years (granted they get considerable resources back, but the priority is all FUBAR IMO – is it a school or a football factory?). Similarly, of course basketball matters to Duke, Georgetown and UConn – they are invested.</p>
<p>For my money, give me a school that invests in its faculty or its academic facilities or academic scholarships – because as “fun” as sports are, I’d much rather go to a school that has a richer academic experience rather than one that is pumping $$$ into sports programs in pursuit of national championships. </p>
<p>What about the student that doesn’t care about sports? What about other extracurriculars? What about the arts? What about a great student newspaper or radio station? And if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand time, in the end, I’d rather go to a school that commands immediate respect for its academics first and foremost – that is why most people go to college in the first place (save the aspiring NBA / NFL draftee).</p>
<p>Most top publics (which happen to be big-time sports schools) have all of this. UNC-Chapel Hill, for example, has a great academic reputation, an award-winning student paper, a strong investment in the performing arts, and literally hundreds of student clubs. This in addition to top notch sports programs. It is possible for all of these things to exist side-by-side and to please nearly everyone, which is what happens at schools like Michigan, Stanford, UNC-Chapel Hill, USC, etc. You don’t have to choose one or the other.</p>
<p>But when does your sports program become so good it starts overshadowing its academic programs? This is a line that many schools have crossed a long time ago.</p>
<p>the_prestige, most athletic programs are self-funded. They generate their own revenues and pay their coaches and build/maintain their athletic facilities through revenues generated/funds raised by the athletic departments. Athletic scholarships are also generated by the athletic department. Not a single dime is taken out of the university’s general budget to support athletics.</p>
<p>And when it comes to top universities, like Duke, Michigan, UNC, Stanford etc… the university’s athletic reputation will never outstrip its academic reputation.Those universities were among the elite academically before college athletics became a factor. Michigan and UNC were academic powerhouses since the mid 19th century and their athletic programs did not emerge until the early 20th century. Duke and Stanford became major academic institutions in the early 20th century, also before the emergence of their college athletics. Notre Dame may be the exception to that rule, not that it matters at this stage, as the University itself is now among the academic elites.</p>
<p>I never said otherwise. My points weren’t about the $$$ and cents of sports – obviously its lucrative. My point is the unintended consequence from putting a high degree of importance on sports.</p>
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<p>Perhaps not Stanford. I’d argue that there is at least a decent %-age of people who think sports when they hear the names Michigan, UNC and Duke. And to deny that reality is to deny reality.</p>
<p>I completely agree the_prestige, but those people aren’t exactly the types of people who would be impressed by education in general. Most of those people wouldn’t know the University of Chicago, Columbia, Dartmouth or Brown from Adam. But they would be very familiar with FSU, Alabama, Nebraska, Kansas, Kentucky etc… </p>
<p>This said, anybody who is worth his salt where education is concerned will hold schools like Duke, Michigan and UNC is high esteem. The intellectual and athletic world do not often mix. Most intellectuals and academics would not know that Duke, Michigan and UNC have top rated Basketball or Football program. All they would know is that they are major universities.</p>
<p>My take on it is that prestige is arguing from a false (IMO) premise, specifically that schools that have strong athletic programs are emphasizing them to the detriment of their academics. I would, however, remind him that in the early 1900’s the Ivies were the top athletic programs and took winning very seriously. I don’t think the next tier schools were in any danger of passing them academically because of it.</p>
<p>But to bring to more modern times, those that have said (in essence) that these things are compartmentalized are correct. A school runs like a corporation to a large extent, and as long as an athletic program is not a drain financially, it does not detract from the academic life of a school. In fact, to the extent that it contributes positive $$ to a school, as well as attention (UConn being a good example), academic norms can go up. Not every school can or even should aspire to have the stats of a HYPS, because the vast majority of students going to college are not at that level. But to say these schools are pumping $$ into their athletic program at the expense of academics is usually not the case. Many of these schools make money directly due to TV contracts and attendance at the games, while these same schools and others get far more donations from alums due to athetic success. Unfortunate that they wouldn’t donate as much without the athletics, in my opinion, but that is a reality.</p>
<p>So unless prestige can show that these schools are truly neglecting academics because of athletics, rather than just thinking so, I think the argument doesn’t hold water. Life is more than just the classroom, even at prestigious universities. For many, sports is a big part of that, and many enjoy being at a place where it is performed at the highest levels of accomplishment.</p>
<p>I don’t have to “prove” anything beyond my own observations and anecdotal experiences (which is, frankly when you boil it down, the only thing anyone has). And that is to say, when I hear “USC” I immediately think of the Trojans football team. When I hear “UNC” I immediately think of the Tar Heels basketball team. Now, these are solid academic institutions – no doubt about that – but let’s face it – they aren’t given the immediate respect for their academics as a HYPSM / Ivy does.</p>
<p>Now you have to ask yourself, would a UNC or USC’s academic reputation be higher if they had not placed such a strong emphasis (and consequently a strong public perception with) big time sports? Well, the truth of the matter is, we will never know will we? That doesn’t change the fact that a decent chunk of people will always associate many of these large state universities with their athletic programs (and yes, I know that USC is private, but that isn’t the public perception beyond the world of CC, again a reputation that is directly linked with the extensive national coverage of its football program).</p>
<p>Further, in my chosen profession (bulge bracket investment banking to private equity and hedge funds) – I would say a majority – a vast majority – of the colleagues and ex-colleagues I’ve met and worked with over the years have hailed from Ivy / Stanford / MIT / Chicago (both grad and undergrad). Conversely, I can literally count on my right hand the graduates of UNC, Michigan and Duke I’ve met (and as a final point, the conversation with these fellows generally gravitated towards sports ultimately… which is not a “bad” thing per se, but again it reinforces the stereotype… which is not always a positive one – and this is the point).</p>
<p>prestige,
The Ivies have long held themselves out as wonderful academic exemplars of the American college system. They still can. And nothing I’m saying is meant to disparage that at all. </p>
<p>My point is that there are many other excellent colleges around the USA which offer a similar level of academic excellence and student selectivity AND they also provide, to varying degrees, nationally competitive and relevant major sport athletic teams. </p>
<p>Think of the combination this way….</p>
<p>Ivy League Academics + State U Athletic Life = Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame </p>
<p>The fact that these schools compete at the highest levels athletically takes nothing away from their academic excellence. For those who care, the great athletic life is an added benefit that students and alumni can enjoy for many, many years. And for those who don’t care, they can still have the same experience as at an Ivy college.</p>
<p>Actually that is not true. There are numerous documented examples where schools have gained funds from their participation in high-level athletics, and used those funds for academic purposes. Many of those same schools have shown significant increases in their academic profiles as well, and there are many quotes from university presidents who are not shy about admitting that their athletic fame assists them in getting better students.</p>
<p>You either don’t like sports or at the very least, in your mind schools that have big time sports are less academically prestigious. We get it. Let’s move on.</p>
We will never know, unless of course those schools make a deliberate decision to de-emphasize athletics in the future.</p>
<p>However, we could look at other schools that enjoyed big-time athletic success in the past, and then made a deliberate decision to reject that path. Examples would include the Ivies and the University of Chicago. Since all these schools are now considered academically top-tier (in fact, they currently hold nine of the top 16 slots for “National Universities”, according to USN&WR), it doesn’t appear that the de-emphasis of athletics hurt them in terms of their academic reputations. </p>
<p>Of the Top 20 USN&WR “National Universities”, the 9 schools listed above deliberately rejected big-time athletics, and 5 others never embraced them to begin with (those would be Caltech, MIT, WUSTL, and Emory; I would also include Johns Hopkins, despite its national relevance in lacrosse, because lacrosse isn’t “big-time”). So major college sports are not a factor at 14 of the Top 20 USN&WR universities.</p>
<p>Thus, the circumstantial evidence indicates that (1) dropping major college athletics does not hurt the academic reputation of a top school, and that (2) most of the highest ranked national universities have either abandoned major college athletics, or never offered them at all. </p>
<p>These findings don’t necessarily mean that schools like USC or UNC would be ranked higher if they had dropped major college sports. But they do suggest that a commitment to major college sports is not a particularly effective investment, if an institution wants to reach the highest levels of academic reputation.</p>
They suggest nothing of the sort. Look up correlation versus causality. Or maybe in this case look up apples and oranges. Schools like Harvard knew they could never compete and keep their admission standards up. Especially in football, which was the only big-time sport for a long time. Same with those other schools you mentioned. So they made the choice not to get involved when things started ramping up and the money got big. The next tier of schools were never at the level of HYP, and never had that as their goal. So if the Dukes, etc. want to have the admission standards of Harvard and vary it for no one, then they would have to drop big-time sports. But no one is saying they want to be that. Instead they choose to be extremely good schools, a (small) notch below HYP in selectivity, and have major athletics. But it isn’t holding back their academic progress or reputation. They are where they want to be. In fact Duke has made leaps and bounds forward WHILE having big time basketball. It has been a choice. Without the big time sports, most people wouldn’t have a clue about these schools.</p>
<p>In fact, WUSTL is a great example. If you went around the country and asked people, the majority wouldn’t have any idea what school you were talking about, thinking you meant University of Washington, George Washington, Washington & Lee, or one of the other Washingtons out there. Second, even for those who knew which one you were talking about, many would rank Michigan, UNC, Berkeley and others ahead of it academically, because they know little about Wash U that way. Same goes for Emory. Those are cases where big-time sports coupled with some knowledge that they are supposed to be “good” schools leads to the opposite impression being argued here. If UNC, for example, had never had big time sports, I can almost guarantee you that most people wouldn’t have a clue it was considered a highly selective academic school.</p>
<p>The real issue is would these schools be academically better if they dropped big-time sports. The answer, for reasons already clearly stated, is no. Perceptions might change, and in some cases not for the better, but the reality of their academics would not, all else being equal. And that is a key phrase, to further the point. Many of these schools would have less income for academics, both from contractual revenue and alumni donations, at least in the short term for the latter. That doesn’t help academics in any way I can imagine.</p>
<p>One other thing: Stanford blows your theory out of the water. Why don’t people think less of Stanford because they have good teams?</p>
<p>fallen,
You’re giving the Ivies way too much credit. They lower their standards…and sometime significantly…for athletic recruits. Granted, it’s not going to be on the level of someplace like Florida State, but the following scores would qualify one to play Ivy athletics:</p>
<p>570 SAT Critical Reading
570 SAT Math
570 SAT II # 1
570 SAT II # 2
570 SAT II # 3</p>
Exactly correct. And the flip side is that schools like Rice know that being competitive means that they have to keep their admissions standards down. </p>
According to my dictionary, causality means “the principle and relationship between cause and effect”. For example, recruiting athletes with low SAT scores could cause average SAT scores to drop, thereby having the effect of reducing an institution’s academic ranking. </p>
<p>
No one doubts that major college athletics are an effective means for increasing name recognition among the general public. Certainly U. Washington trumps WUSTL in that regard. </p>
<p>But that’s not the kind of academic reputation that USN&WR is measuring, or the kind that most college confidential readers are concerned about.</p>
<p>
Is it likely that Rice still be accepting students with 1080 SATs – and that’s an average, many were below 1000 – if they didn’t have a DI FBS football team? If not, isn’t it likely that they would have higher SATs, and would rise in academic rankings?</p>
<p>What about revenue? The report above puts it like this:
</p>
<p>Now, Rice can obviously spend its money however it sees fit. I am only suggesting that if Rice wants to enhance its academic reputation, it might be wiser to spend it on other things besides an unsuccessful football program (9 bowl games since 1919):
Come on, hawkette. The Ivies have the toughest standards for athletic recruits in NCAA Division I. Everyone knows it, and the NCAA’s Performance Recognition Awards prove it.</p>
<p>Yes, the Ivies can and do lower their usual standards for athletes – but they don’t drop as far as anyone else, and they do it for fewer students than anyone else. </p>
<p>Hawkette - my point wasn’t that they don’t “bend” for athletes, it was that they wouldn’t bend enough to field D1 competitive teams in the big time sports, football especially.</p>
Stanford has such a strong academic reputation that the performance of their teams – good or bad – doesn’t really matter. For example, the fact that Stanford has lost 7 of its last 8 football games with rival Berkeley does not affect their academic reputation. Stanford could drop major college sports entirely, and it wouldn’t affect their status.</p>
<p>Stanford, of course, can do whatever it likes. But it does seem possible that their academic reputation might actually be enhanced, rather than harmed, if their principal rival was USNWR #1 Princeton, instead of #21 Berkeley.</p>
<p>^ LOL…nice anti-jock mentality that Rice prof has. I’m sure the prof was very impartial… The kid probably didn’t care for his class and therefore didn’t put much effort. :rolleyes:</p>