<p>if we’re going by acceptance rates, the patriot league. average acceptance rate 29.5%
along with NESCAC which is probably around 20% but features really small schools</p>
<p>
The Big 10 has 11 members. The ACC has 12. I removed Florida State for comparison purposes; NC State was clearly included. </p>
<p>If College A is stronger than College B in 9 departments but has an additional couple departments (that B lacks) that are weaker than the others, does that make College B stronger? I think not.</p>
<p>
For academic purposes, yes. The fact remains that Chicago is not in the same athletic conference and hasn’t been since the 1940s.</p>
<p>Go A-10! Go MAC!</p>
<p>does UAA count?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>OK, but doesn’t it seem pretty arbitrary to delete by far the weakest of all these schools from the comparison? Why not delete the #1 ACC school instead of its #12 to get down to 11 schools to compare? Is not that an equally valid (or equally arbitrary) methodology? Then you get:</p>
<h1>12 Northwestern > #24 UVA</h1>
<h1>27 Michigan > #28 UNC</h1>
<h1>37 Wisconsin < #28 Wake Forest</h1>
<h1>39 Illinois < #34 Boston College</h1>
<h1>47 Penn State < #35 Georgia Tech</h1>
<h1>53 Ohio State < #50 Miami</h1>
<h1>61 Minnesota < #53 Maryland</h1>
<h1>61 Purdue = #61 Clemson</h1>
<h1>71 Indiana = #71 Virginia Tech</h1>
<h1>71 Iowa > #88 NC State</h1>
<h1>71 Michigan State > #102 Florida State (by a huge margin)</h1>
<p>No contest, “top to bottom,” the Big Ten is stronger.</p>
<p>“But you can’t ignore the top!”, you protest. OK, I’ll accept that. But the point is, it’s just as arbitrary to ignore the bottom. The bottom in these two conferences is clearly two ACC schools, and it’s not even close. The two worst (by US News’ reckoning) ACC schools rank 17 and 31 places respectively behind the bottom Big Ten schools. </p>
<p>So we have the two conferences essentially tied at the top, slight edge to ACC in the middle, huge edge to Big Ten at the bottom. And that’s not even counting the University of Chicago which I contend is not irrelevant to any discussion of the academics of the Big Ten as it’s a major player in their academic affairs. But even leaving Chicago aside, “top to bottom” I’d say the Big Ten is stronger academically. If the ACC were to kick NC State and FSU out of the conference, it would have a case. Barring that, the Big Ten wins.</p>
<p>Why don’t you take the ranks of the schools belonging to each conference, average them, THEN compare the conferences? (Use 150 for an unranked school.)</p>
<p>Because what you’re doing with the comparisons of the nth best college in each league is just mathematically unsound. ACC gets 48.7, Big Ten gets 50.2. They’re about the same. Don’t like outliers? Take them out.</p>
<p>
True. Note, however, that by my reckoning the ACC comes out slightly ahead that way too. </p>
<p>ACC: 5
Big 10: 4
Tie: 2</p>
<p>
ACC
Mean: 48.7
Median: 42.5</p>
<p>Big 10
Mean: 50
Median: 53</p>
<p>PAC 10
Mean: 71.1
Median: 72</p>
<p>SEC
Mean: 89.8
Median: 108</p>
<p>Big 12
Mean: 99.9
Median:96</p>
<p>Most of the others have MA/MS universities that skew the rankings (e.g. Providence College in the Big East).</p>
<p>^ Fair enough, and thanks for crunching the numbers, bot for overall strength I’d take conference A with a mean of 50, a median of 53, and a low of 71 over conference B with a mean of 48.7 (virtually indistinguishable from A), a median of 42.5 (better than A, but not clear it means much with such a small N in either group), and a low of 102 (clearly far, far worse) any day. Sort of a John Rawls maximin/veil of ignorance approach: if you have to choose between conference A and conference B not knowing where you’ll end up within either conference, would you choose: 1) conference A where you’re going to be roughly even with conference B at the top, slightly worse off in the middle, or far worse off at the low end; or 2) conference B, where you’ll be roughly even with conference A at the top end, slightly better off in the middle, or far worse off at the low end, which would you choose? Rawls says (or at any rate implies) you’d choose 1), because by far the worst outcome is to end up at the bottom of conference B. He may or may not be right; we might have different risk tolerances. But to me it’s an easy call: conference B is weaker because its bottom is so far below any of the rest of it that it drags down the whole conference.</p>
<p>Personally, I would say the more fair way to do it is to have the non-ranked schools count as 0. They’re explicitly NOT ranked in the top 150, making them an entire tier worse. That’s like being an FCS team in football competing in the FBS- sure, you could score points, and you’re still nominally playing the game. But really, you’re just out of your league.</p>
<p>That caclulation method does not change the ACC or Big Ten’s rankings. It does, however, make them DOMINATE the other conferences.</p>
<p>But I declare the Big Ten still the winner because 1. It’s all public schools except NU, compared to the ACC’s Miami, BC, Duke wake forest, and as we all know, publics have a bias. Also, the Big Ten’s schools are largely better known globally, AND well, can’t beat the tradition.</p>
<p>Also, the ACC’s number 2 team (BC) lost to the SEC’s number 7 team (Vandy) last year in a bowl. That clearly mean’s the ACC is godawful.</p>
<p>
<em>coughAppalachianStatecough</em></p>
<p>Hey, it happens. UNH would’ve worked better, but I doubt you know enough about football to have thought of an example for my school. But about 95% of the time, FCS teams get pounded by FBS teams. I’ll also point out that LAST year, Michigan wasn’t even in the post season. :P</p>
<p>How come you didn’t include Notre Dame?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s the single stupidest post I’ve ever read.</p>
<p>LOL, Big 10, ACC, Pac-10 can’t compare against UAA!!!</p>
<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_Athletic_Association[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_Athletic_Association</a></p>
<p>University Athletic Association (UAA aka “Cerebral League/Nerdy Nine”) - D3 conference</p>
<p>University of Chicago
WUSTL
URochester
NYU
Emory
Case Western
Carnegie Mellon
Brandeis</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins was a founding member, but no longer participates in the UAA.</p>
<p>This thread deals with major athletic conferences-those whose athletes sweat on national TV and in 70,000 seat stadiums. The UAA is not remotely part of this world.</p>
<p>^ UAA members consistently rank higher than Big 10, ACC, Pac 10 etc… you name it bud.</p>
<p>UAA member universities places a stronger emphasis on academics than athletics (just like the Ivy league) and place near the top of the USNews ranking.</p>
<p>UAA is not D1 like the Ivy league though. You are right… It’s not like Ivy league is a “major athletic conference whose athletes sweat on national TV either”. LOL</p>
<p>Yeah, the UAA? Lets talk about actual athletic conferences, not a bunch of nerds in short shorts…</p>
<p>^ You mean… Ivy league is not filled with nerds in short shorts? </p>
<p>Pick and choose whatever criteria you want. UAA is an athletic conference; albeit not D1 and not as nationally renown as Pac10, Ivies, Big10, ACC, etc…</p>
<p>Check these schools’ graduation rates and more specifically, their athletic graduation rate, and then you’ll have a better answer. Problem is, I am not sure that anyone really understands the question.</p>
<p>I personally would say ACC follows Ivy league (if we are talking about nationally renown D1 athletic conferences)</p>
<p>NESCAC followed by UAA after Ivy league if we are just talking about any athletic conference.</p>