<p>Yeah, but how many people actually care about the NCAA water polo title? UNC is great in a whole slew of sports as well-basketball just won the title, football went to a bowl game, baseball is ranked #1 right now, women’s soccer won a national title this year, men’s soccer went to the national title game this year, and lacrosse is currently ranked. UNC is pretty much as balanced of a sports school as you can get if you remove Florida from the discussion.</p>
<p>Alright Ill give you that, but its undeniable that UCLA is sport powerhouse as well.</p>
<p>If you consider the group of “common” people that do not care about sports, I think more people would have heard of UCLA than the other schools.</p>
<p>Yeah, UCLA is a great sports school, and I agree with your assessment. </p>
<p>I think that UNC has more name-brand recognition than UVA or UCB though, mainly because of its athletics that most “average Joes” care about more than academic rankings.</p>
<p>When it comes to name recognition, except for UVA (mostly because their athletics are horrible), these other schools have great academic name recognition, but much huger regional name recognition due to athletics. So in a sense you could even add OU or Wisconsin in there when asking which of these public schools have best name recognition…since it’s not like it stems from their reputation as the best of the Public Ivies. Let’s be real.</p>
<p>Def agree with OSU, schools like Ohio State, Texas and Florida also enjoy a huge amount of name recognition largely due to their athletic programs.</p>
<p>Yeah, that applies to tons of schools that are elite in athletics.</p>
<p>I believe the top 5 schools for national championships are UCLA, USC, Stanford, OK State, and Texas. Out of those, only Stanford’s academic reputation exceeds its athletic reputation. Other public schools with stellar athletic reputations…TAMU, OU, KU, Nebraska, Iowa, Ohio State, Michigan, MSU, Indiana, Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, Auburn, Alabama, Ole Miss, Florida, UGA, Georgia Tech, LSU, the list goes on and on and on.</p>
<p>UNC is def in the top 5 for athletic reputation, with 18 final four appearances in its history, tied for first with UCLA. Along with UCLA and UNC, I would list Florida, Georgia, and Michigan as publics with the most name recognition for their athletic programs.</p>
<p>I’d put Alabama and OU ahead of Florida and Georgia, but I’ll agree with Michigan, UCLA, and UNC. Anyone’s top 5 could be interchangeable though…</p>
<p>I’d agree with that. The top 5 def vary year to year though, depending on the strength of a given university’s teams each season. I’m sure everyone heard about Florida and UNC this year after they won the football and basketball titles, and whoever wins next year will enjoy enhanced name recognition as well. Just depends on how well the schools do.</p>
<p>Florida and Georgia don’t have the championships to back up their swagger, but I don’t want to start one of those debates…</p>
<p>Haha Florida just won this year. Don’t get me wrong, I hate UF with a passion, but I will give credit where it is due.</p>
<p>For overall fame, nationwide recognition due to greatness not tied mainly to athletics, it’s Berkeley and Michigan at the top imo. </p>
<p>The rest can line up beneath them in various order based on regional preference and which sports teams are giving their universities a publicity boost.</p>
<p>Whenever I think of UF for some reason I imagine some guy with a mullet wearing jorts and no shirt jumping into an '88 Camaro.</p>
<p>Best academics + athletic traditions:</p>
<p>Michigan
Berkeley (Cal)
UNC / UCLA - a tie
UVA</p>
<p>Best international prestige:</p>
<p>Berkeley (Cal)
Michigan
UCLA
UVA
UNC</p>
<p>Strictly speaking of name recognition, I would say that UCLA is the winner. I’m sure that most Americans, regardless of where they live, have heard of UCLA even if they don’t believe its a great school academically.</p>
<p>My problem is that I just think Berkeley’s reputation is too damaged by the image of the most unbelievable hippies anyone has ever seen on the planet.</p>
<p>Haha UCLA too, just look at their taser incident with that Iranian moron.</p>
<p>And then take Michigan, UVA, and UNC … do you think those schools have hippie haven reputations? Hell no. lol</p>
<p>To me that gives me a much more prestigious impression. I’d bet a lot of Americans feel the same way I do, too.</p>
<p>
[quote=]
Best international prestige:</p>
<p>Berkeley (Cal)
Michigan
UCLA
UVA
UNC
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Schools like UVA and UNC don’t exceeed schools like Wisconsin, Illinois, and Texas in terms of international prestige. UVA and UNC are excellent, selective undergrad schools with some strong graduate/professional programs, but they have more of a national reputation than international. Wisconsin, Illinois, Texas, UCSD, and probably some others like Washington, Georgia Tech, associated medical schools like UT-Southwestern, etc. are research powerhouses and therefore have MUCH stronger international reputations than UVA and UNC. You can’t confuse undergraduate selectivity and national prestige with international stature.</p>
<p>I think he was referring only to the OP list of schools</p>