<p>
I have no problem with ranking Wisconsin above Michigan. Personally I would give Wisconsin a “6”.</p>
<p>My beef is with ranking schools like Virginia, N.Carolina, Illinois, Berkeley and UCLA above Michigan for partying. It’s even more insulting to ranking Michigan with schools like Brown, Cornell (the toughest Ivy?) and Notre Dame (where do you party in South Bend?) … even Harvard gets a “3”. Have you ever been to Ann Arbor?</p>
<p>Yea I’d Michigan should have a 4.5 or 5 for social</p>
<p>My problem with the ranking is that I feel like giving Vandy a 5 for sports is pretty ridiculous. Clearly, hawkette, like the USNWR, wanted her favorites to fare well in her rankings. I mean most people would say that football is the most important and widely follow college sport and the thing is, Vandy football is just plain awful…1 bowl appearance/winning season in the past 25 years. Vandy basketball and baseball are decent to good each year, but they’re not held in the same regard as football. Vandy deserves a 4, especially if a school like Northwestern gets a 4 because while Northwestern might not be as good as Vandy in some sports, their football team is consistently decent to good.</p>
<p>For those taking shots at me, may I refer you to this comment in the opening post,</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Hey, I guessed at a lot of this stuff. People will have different opinions and I welcome them. Chill. This is for entertainment purposes and also to encourage prospective students to think about their entire undergraduate experience. </p>
<p>Having said that, I can understand the frustration of those from high-ranking, high-prestige schools that don’t compare as well on the social and athletic ratings. Oh well, I guess not every place can give you everything. Anyway, the vibrancy of undergraduate life will differ by campus and this type of “ranking” can illuminate some of this. </p>
<p>As for U Penn’s academic score of 4.5 despite its # 4 USNWR rank, I made an executive decision. I don’t know of anyone who places U Penn above any of HYPSMC. Sorry….</p>
<p>Re caltanner’s suggestion about PA scores, Edvard Munch would say it best:</p>
<p>:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: </p>
<p>crs,
You may be right about Vanderbilt and its sports accomplishments. I guess I’m assigning them a higher grade because they offer a pretty darn good basketball scene and their baseball is also very strong. But their football team stinks and this is the most visible college sport and so you may have a point. Still, I’m a bigger fan of what happens off the field (tailgates, parties, campus energy, etc.) than I am of what happens on the field, so I’d be inclined to keep their high grade. But I would agree that no one would confuse their football scene with some place like Penn State or U Florida or U Texas.</p>
<p>Another ranking where Berkeley trounces schools like Emory, Vanderbilt, Rice and Notre Dame. :D</p>
<p>Excellent job, hawkette, although I don’t think I agree with UCLA’s ranking. Just my own opinion.</p>
<p>“Still, I’m a bigger fan of what happens off the field (tailgates, parties, campus energy, etc.) than I am of what happens on the field, so I’d be inclined to keep their high grade.”</p>
<p>Parties should only be included in the social life portion, not the athletic life portion.</p>
<p>Just out of curiosity, how much campus energy do you think there is for a football team that goes 2-10 overall and 0-8 in conference play? And, while the basketball team does provide some campus energy here and there, it is not consistent and does not permeate and unite the entire campus the way it should for a school deserving of a 5 in the athletic life portion. </p>
<p>To give Vandy the same grade as UT for athletic life is just plain ridiculous. The two are not even close to comparable.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I agree that your social life and athletic life categories need to be more well-defined in order to have a more meaningful discussion about their accuracy.</p>
<p>please help me… I am really confused… <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/973153-early-action-vs-regular-decision.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/973153-early-action-vs-regular-decision.html</a></p>
<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>
<p>I’ll bite. Let’s compare your well-roundedness rankings on 2 elite universities which I did not attend but know a little about.</p>
<p>You ranked UC Berkeley as tied for 2nd place, with scores of 4.5, 5 and 5.</p>
<p>You ranked Yale way down at 39th place, with scores of 5, 3 and 2.</p>
<p>Athletic life: </p>
<p>Yale offers 33 different D1/Varsity sports for 5,200 students.
Cal offers 19 D1/Varsity sports for 25,500 students.
Obviously, a much higher percentage of students actually compete athletically at Yale.
For most sports (not football), athletes have the potential to compete at the same national level for both schools.
Cal has the Pac-10, great football and the Stanford-Cal rivalry. Yale has the Ivy-League, the Harvard-Yale football game and rivalry and hockey games.</p>
<p>I’d say Yale students are more well-rounded than Cal students in athletic life.</p>
<p>Social life:
Yale has its renowned residential college system where all students live together on a compact campus for all 4 years. Aside from vibrant housing social life, other available social organizations include 12 a cappella groups, 9 Greek houses, Secret Societies and 33 varsity athletic teams. Yale students have a reputation for being very happy.</p>
<p>Cal’s housing is an uncohesive mix of options on and off its more sprawling campus. I have heard that Greek life is vibrant at Cal. Other than that, I don’t know and haven’t heard anything else impressive about Cal’s social life other than its well-attended football games. Cal students are reputed to be competitive serious studiers.</p>
<p>I’d say Yale wins for the well-rounded social life.</p>
<p>I would re-score the 2 schools as:</p>
<p>UCBerkeley: 4.5, 3.5, 4</p>
<p>Yale: 5, 4.5, 3.5</p>
<p>This bumps Yale above Cal.</p>
<p>Just my two-cents. ;)</p>
<p>Nice one, Bay :)</p>
<p>I would agree with these rankings if the top 15 universities also received academic scores of 5.</p>
<p>Wow, nice to see that Duke and UVa are so high on the list. Those are my two favorite schools. :)</p>
<p>For LAC’s-Davidson, Holy Cross, Bucknell, Williams, Bowdoin. Holy Cross fields Division 1 teams in basketball, hockey, baseball, football(1AA). Williams is a dominant athletic player in Div3.</p>
<p>I would put Vandy almost midway between UT/FL and Ivy with a bump towards the big sports side. It is still nothing like the UT et al scene despite SEC and good basketball.</p>
<p>
First off, lets define what social life and athletic life is in the eyes of MOST college students and adults in societies.</p>
<p>In order for a school to have a good social life, it must have students who are very interested in partying first and foremost. That means going out on an average of 2-4 nights a week to apartment parties/house parties/frat parties/bars/clubs, etc. In addition, it must have a good tailgate culture where football Saturdays are filled with beer and debauchery. The wine and cheese tailgate that happens before the Harvard-Yale rivalry game doesn’t count. Sorry.</p>
<p>As far as athletic life goes, in order to get full marks, a school should be nationally renowned as a powerhouse in one sport and also be competitive in many others. For instance, Duke is a basketball powerhouse but also has competitive tennis, lacrosse, golf and soccer teams. Michigan is a football powerhouse but also has competitive hockey and swimming teams. Texas is a football powerhouse but is extremely competitive in sports like basketball and baseball as well.</p>
<p>By the way, Rice and Vandy aren’t “powerhouse” baseball teams in the same way that Duke is a powerhouse basketball team, Michigan is a powerhouse football team and USC is a powerhouse baseball team. Anyone who tells you otherwise is fooling you.</p>
<p>I don’t have time to change all of Hawkette’s ratings but here would be my take:</p>
<p>SCHOOL ACADEMIC, SOCIAL, ATHLETIC
Michigan 4.5, 4.5, 5.0
Duke 5, 4.5, 5.0
Stanford 5, 3.5, 4.5
Cal 4.5, 4.0, 4.0
Yale 5, 4.0, 2.0
UNC 4.5, 5.0, 5.0</p>
<p>Stanford is totally overrated on the athletic and social front by Hawkette and other CC posters. Its football/basketball games aren’t well attended, it has fairly weak Greek Life, its campus is often quiet and the opposite of vibrant and it lacks the tight-knit residential experience that schools like Yale, Rice, Duke, Princeton, etc. provide.</p>
<p>IMHO, UNC is the most well-rounded university in the country and this is coming from a Dukie. It’s hard to beat Chapel Thrill: top-notch public school, strong students, amazing college town, pretty campus, world-class basketball program, excellent in almost every sport, etc. It might lack in geographical and racial diversity but that’s about it.</p>
<p>I think ya’ll are really harsh on the academic ratings IMO. Considering the thousands and thousands of universities located in the USA, top 20 schools like Vandy and Rice should get the perfect 5.0 rating.</p>
<p>Michigan WAS a powerhouse football team. It probably will be one again. The current status is power-outage until proven otherwise. Hockey is still good, basketball has gone the way of football. So sad. ;-}</p>
<p>My main problem with the ranking is that too many schools are clumped together in the athletic life section. Over 30 schools getting 5s in the athletic life section, but only 4 getting 4s? Some semblance of distribution/distinction would be nice.</p>
<p>bay,
Nice analysis although I wouldn’t necessarily agree with much of it. A few comments:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I don’t know how familiar you are with club sports and intramural sports at the universities to which I gave Athletic Life 5s, but these often are very active programs and large numbers of students participate. Furthermore, the number of sports and leagues is often mind-blowing and dwarfs the number of varsity athletic opportunities available at any college. I think you may be underrating what goes on athletically on these campuses. </p></li>
<li><p>As for your comparison of the entertainment value the athletic life of a place like UC Berkeley and the Ivies,</p></li>
</ol>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’m sorry, but I laughed out loud when I read it. There is no comparison. Outside of the Harvard-Yale match, Ivy League football games have a hard time attracting more than 10k. Beyond friends and family, almost nobody cares and there is zero national consequences to these games. By contrast, weaker major conference programs like Stanford, Northwestern, and Vanderbilt attract 3-4x that and even Duke attracts 2-3x. And, of course, ND attracts 8x the Ivy League and could sell many more tickets if the stadium allowed. And all regularly play games that have ramifications on the national scene (even if they don’t win many of those games 
).</p>
<p>Similar comparisons can be made for basketball (men and women) and baseball. Outside the Northeast and upper Midwest, few colleges play hockey. </p>
<ol>
<li>Re social life, have you spent time at UC Berkeley or on the campuses at many of the schools that I ranked as 5s? There is a ton going on—far more than at a place like Yale. Often, what would be considered a “big weekend” at an Ivy wouldn’t even be as socially active as an “off weekend” at one of the 5s. You might not care about a lot of the stuff going on at these colleges and I’m not claiming that Yale isn’t lacking for things for its students, but my sense is an impartial observer would reach the same conclusions that I did.<br></li>
</ol>
<p>ldb,
If U Michigan is a powerhouse (2008/2009 record of 8-16, 3-13 in the Big Ten), what does that make Duke (2008/2009 record of 9-15, 4-8 in the ACC)? A powerhouse, too?? :)</p>
<p>If Duke played U Michigan in football in the last two years or this years, which would be favored and which would win?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p><em>cough</em> You rated UChicago as a 1 <em>cough</em></p>
<p>rny,
What kind of grade would you give to U Chicago and the schools rated “1” which typically draw about 1000 (or fewer) fans to a home football game? Heck, at many of the schools rated “5,” you’ll find that many in the ladies bathroom…</p>