<p>crs,
I think one could easily make an argument for the U Floridas and the U Texases of the college athletic world as being the HYPSM equivalents for football and related scene. For the other major sports, however, I suspect that the differences in campus impact with a Vanderbilt are far smaller. Taking a quick peek at basketball and baseball records/attendance from the last few years support this. </p>
<p>Maybe we’ll disagree on this, but I see the Vanderbilts and the Dukes and the Stanfords, despite having generally weak football teams, as offering an athletic package/scene for major sports much more akin to what goes on at U Florida or U Texas than what goes on at an Ivy or D3 college like Wash U. Probably the best solution to separate U Florida/U Texas would be to assign 0.5 increments (might also have been useful for social life comparison, eg, U Wisconsin vs U Michigan), but that was more work and thought than I wanted to put in. Feel free to do your own weightings and rankings. I’d be interested to read them. </p>
<p>For this exercise, I’m less interested in precision than in stimulating thought and discussion about things to consider in the college search process. And a major driver for creating this thread is my firm belief that all work and no play makes Jack and Jill very dull people. Employers don’t want drones with no experiences. Most want students who are active, interested, engaging, can interact with others, etc. </p>
<p>There is a lot more to college than the classroom and a large part of that is the social life of a school and, at some places, the athletic life of a school. </p>
<p>RML,
I knew you’d like these rankings. 
Did you ever make it to the Big Game? </p>
<p>Bay,
Pretty hard to be definitive about social life as different things appeal to different people. </p>
<p>Easier with athletic life as I’m talking about the overall scene (not just win/loss) at the major sports and how students do (or don’t) get involved, not to mention how this involvement extends to families, alumni, employees, locals, and even faculty. I’ve used attendance as one proxy for this. Rough metric, I know, but best way I can think of.</p>