<p>LOL @ the idea of Notre Dame, USC, and UCLA not being big sports schools. Notre Dame has the 2nd most national championships in football, UCLA the most in basketball, usc the most in baseball and is a huge power in football… </p>
<p>Meanwhile, someone “LOL”'s at the idea of those school being big sports schools. :)</p>
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<p>Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey</p>
<p>Top of list for Joe Schmo: School of Hard Knocks</p>
<p>Care to explain the criteria for Duke being a sports school and not Notre Dame, USC, and UCLA? </p>
<p>All trivia, of course. Having name recognition has nothing to do with quality of the school. Sorry, Duke, you seem to be fishing for your favorite school to be a biggy with this thread. You win- Duke has been a chronic basketball newsmaker. Do most who have heard of it think about its academics? I doubt it. They also know of UConn- are the two similar academically? They are in the eyes of the average Joe Schmoe. I’m picking on you because you started this thread with your favorite school logo.</p>
<p>Splash a name on the sports pages enough years and people will know of it. So much is so regional. I have heard of supposedly top schools on the east coast here on CC that I never would otherwise have heard of. Totally off the radar for most out of their area. Wisconsin has drawn from the east coast (NY,NJ) for many decades and has alumni all over the country. But in day to day living people generally don’t mention their college- it would only come up in a good place to go to college conversation.</p>
<p>So, you check with the average guy who doesn’t have a bachelors degree- 75% of the population. They will likely have followed sports and have heard of those schools. These days with TV ads the U of Phoenix and such schools may make the list.</p>
<p>Actually- the School of Hard Knocks is the best one yet. None of us are average (even without Lake Wobegone sensibilities) so our opinions can’t count.</p>
<p>That was a list of school that were instantly recognizable to me. Is that good enough criteria?</p>
<p>No- you are on CC. Most have never heard of this website, much less the forum.</p>
<p>@wis75 My previous post was not in response to yours. </p>
<p>And even if I am on CC now, before I joined those were the colleges I recognized then. </p>
<p>local universities or community colleges
the state flagship, if it plays in NCAA Division I FBS
if the state flagship is in NCAA Divsion I FBS, the rival school of the state flagship
Harvard</p>
<p>MIT has been mentioned here a few times, but I honestly doubt that most people would recognize that name. Other than that, I’d say Harvard, Yale, and big sports schools (Penn State, Texas, Notre Dame, UMich, etc.) make the cut.</p>
<p>I think the big sports schools is the right answer - and I think Notre Dame is pretty national known among the common man. Harvard and Yale probably, but probably NOT Princeton. Duke maybe, from basketball, but then is Gonzaga and Seton Hall have had their “moment” in the spotlight like Duke. I’m not so sure about the southern states, the sports announcers also say Friday and whatever animal or such is the mascot and they don’t say the work University or State, so I’d have to say “no” to Florida…same thing for Alabama, one is something Tide and I have no idea what the other one is or if there even is another one. So the common person might know Florida and Alabama contextually as a university but I bet they couldn’t tell you whether it is Florida State or University of Florida or Florida Tech. </p>
<p>@ErinsDad I agree that recognizable = “I name colleges and Joe tells me whether or not he’s heard of them” is very different from recognizable = “I give Joe a blank page, and ask him to name some famous colleges.”<br>
For years there were schools I could name - because they’re famous (Harvard, Yale), or because I grew up watching sports with my grandfather (USC, Notre Dame, Florida, Texas, Ohio State), or because of the latest scandal/news headline, or because my favorite pro team drafted one of their players. But I had NO clue where the schools were. In a lot of cases, I couldn’t name the state the school was in, much less the town - Yale, Rutgers, and Princeton, for example. I’d think to myself, “someplace in the NE, close to NYC or Boston maybe.” And yes, even Duke. Had heard of it, but wasn’t sure where it was when I was a kid.
I had to look up SUNYs and CUNYs the first time I saw them referenced on CC, and I didn’t know NYU wasn’t public.
So I’m assuming the OP meant school names people instantly recognize when we hear them … Not necessarily schools Joe Schmoe (and I) can tell you all about. </p>
<p>@lizard Please, please don’t tell me people confuse Florida with FSU. Ugh. J/k. I get it. Happens with several state publics: Mississippi State and Ole Miss (which is actually UofMS), Penn State and UPenn, etc. I usually add Gators to the name; most people know about the Florida Gators. :)</p>
<p>Other than Harvard, Yale, Princeton, I’d say it would be schools with big time programs in the major sports, especially football (ex. Notre Dame, Alabama, UFlorida …).</p>
<p>In my family, I’m a Univ. of South Florida Bull, my dad is a Univ. of Florida Gator, my sister is a Florida State Univ. Seminole…we’re sorta confused, but we still recognize each other.</p>
<p>@cptofthehouse I loved your FedEx guy experiment also. Very clever. I wonder whether you’d have gotten a different result if you’d asked him to name some “famous colleges”? Maybe not…</p>
<p>@momofthreeboys I get your point. I think we all assume that because we know the schools in our part of the country, everyone else does too. I’m from the South, so Florida, Alabama, Auburn, and LSU are household names around here. FYI: Those are:
- University of Florida (Gators)
- University of Alabama (Crimson Tide, except their mascot is an elephant, which doesn’t make a lot of sense)
- Auburn (Tigers, but their “battle cry” is “War Eagle” which again, doesn’t make much sense if you’re not a fan). It’s the other big university in Alabama & Alabama’s arch rival.
- LSU = Louisiana State University (Tigers). There’s not really a rival school for LSU (there’s no University of Louisiana in the SEC), which is odd. </p>
<p>I’d say Harvard, potentially Yale. Besides that, perhaps a few sports schools - Notre Dame, and… I’m not sure what else. I have never followed college sports in the slightest. Schools with a state name sort of feel like cheating. Of course “University of [insert state here]” is recognizable!</p>
<p>If you’re black, Howard and Morehouse, maybe Spelman.</p>
<p>I went to MIT, but Ohio State was my flagship. OSU is much more widely recognized than MIT.</p>
<p>@momofthreeboys said:
I think you can assume that if a school is referred to as simply the name of the state, they’re the University of [state’s name]. e.g. Alabama, Florida, Michigan, Tennessee, Texas. I can’t think of any exceptions to that off the top of my head, though there might be some. </p>
<p>^ Ohio State, at the very least.</p>
<p>^^^^^I’ve been very strongly corrected that it is “THE Ohio State University”.</p>