<p>As I see it, there is an interrelationship among:</p>
<p>love of D-I spectator sports
desire for quality (selectivity?) in your college
price sensitivity (which may not relate exactly to income) </p>
<p>Assume other things, like location, are irrelevant for now.</p>
<p>Rational students want to optimize the balance among the above factors.</p>
<p>Schools like Michigan, Berkeley, UCLA, UVA, and other top publics should be hard to pass up for in-state sports lovers because they are high in sports and academic quality and low in cost. </p>
<p>For less selective publics, there are trade-offs for in-state, highly qualified students. Your state public flagship would probably satisfy your interest in sports competely so schools like Duke, Northwestern, and so on have no advantage over public flagships in that regard. That leaves quality (selectivity?) and price. As price sensitivity increase, it makes more sense to forego some selectivity and take advantage of the lower-cost public.</p>
<p>In other words, if you really love sports, and you are not rich, and you are a highly qualified student, it probably makes sense to attend your in-state public flagship instead of a D-I private school (if your state has a good public flagship, and most states do).</p>
<p>And then there is the debate about whether there really is much difference in academic quality between, say, an Illinois and a Northwestern.</p>
<p>As I alluded to before, why the obsession regarding D-I spectator sports specifically? Why not include all spectator sports? I don’t know too many people who care only about D-1 sports, but don’t care about pro sports. Hence, it would seem to me that people should be optimizing by choosing schools near the “4-sport cities”. In other words, a school like Columbia - because of its access to all of the New York and New Jersey pro teams - would be a far better choice than, say, UTAustin, which obviously has college football and basketball, but has no pro teams nearby. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I said it before, and I’ll say it again. If you’re highly qualified and truly not rich (i.e. your family makes less than $60k a year), then your best financial bet is almost certainly going to be a school like Harvard or Yale because those schools will guarantee you a full ride. Even if your family makes up to $180k, which means that you’re quite rich relative to the average American, you will still pay no more than 10% of your family’s income per year for Harvard. That is a fantastic deal that few if any public schools can match. </p>
<p>I think what you mean to say is that a flagship state school is a good financial deal for those students * who just aren’t able to get admitted to schools like Harvard or Yale*. But that’s an entirely different issue. </p>
<p>This I would contest, although I suppose it depends on what we mean by ‘good’. But we can explore it. Exactly how many states out there have flagship schools that we consider to be good? Is it really ‘most’ of them?</p>
<p>Alexandre, I understand that. Umich is absolutely incredible. However, you must understand that at a place like ND, lost of personal attention from advisers and administration is given for the career search. Freshman year, you begin meeting w/ a specific career counselor frequently. Your hand is held and you are advised from the get-go.</p>
<p>Well, it seems to me that that should cut both ways. For example, if you come from a family that has a lot of alumni from a private school that has strong sports programs, I would imagine that you would have been cheering for that school your whole life and hence it would be equally hard for you to switch loyalties.</p>
<p>As an example, who not only was a huge fan of BYU football, but also played football at BYU (I believe as a walk-on). Not only that, but his father, his uncle, and his grandfather also played football at BYU, and so did some of his brothers and cousins. Given that kind of family environment, I think it’s fairly clear that that guy, when growing up, was probably going to end up going to BYU and not the University of Utah.</p>
Meh, I don’t really think so. Most students who go to the best private schools are also smart enough to know that there’s a lot of other factors to consider and that “the sports thirst” can be quenched in other ways, like sakke mentioned. </p>
<p>Just to give an example, you might think Duke’s all about basketball. But the truth is that it really isn’t because if you watch their commercials during games, no mention is made of their athletics, and their website also barely mentions their perennially strong team.</p>
<p>sakky-
“As I alluded to before, why the obsession regarding D-I spectator sports specifically? Why not include all spectator sports?”</p>
<p>Quite right. There are many ways to satisfy an interest in sports and the ways are not limited to your own college’s Division I teams. I had made the assumption that a large (hypothetical) number of students were selecting schools like Duke, Northwestern, Notre Dame, USC, Boston College for their D-I sports teams. The actual number may in fact be much smaller than I envisioned. But, there are still probably some students who have a specific loyalty to a D-I team at a particular school and are willing to pay through the nose to go there. How many, I am not sure. It is to those students that I ask “why?” </p>
<p>“I think what you mean to say is that a flagship state school is a good financial deal for those students who just aren’t able to get admitted to schools like Harvard or Yale. But that’s an entirely different issue”</p>
<p>I don’t disagree with the above but I am specifically saying that “many”, “some”, students probably pay way too much for a private school if D-I sports is a big reason for going there. You have made the point that students who love watching sports aren’t limited to a particular school’s D-I teams. I agree completely. But, there are probably some students who chose Duke, Northwestern, etc. substantially because they had D-I sports. You have made the point that cost difference and importance may not be that great at private D-I schools. I don’t know how important cost is to applicants. There are a lot of unknown factors. I think there is a substantial cost difference between publics and privates for many students. That difference should be important to many students.</p>
<p>“Exactly how many states out there have flagship schools that we consider to be good? Is it really ‘most’ of them?” </p>
<p>Well, I listed the states earlier in this thread. The list includes most of the population, if not most of the states.</p>
<p>sakky, do you or do you not think that it is a waste of money for at least some students (who meet certain conditions) to select a private school because of its D-I sports? If so, what are those conditions?</p>
<p>Igellar- Do you think sports is or should be a non-issue when selecting a private school?</p>
<p>Well, first off, I have to ask: are there really a lot of students who choose Northwestern because of its football and basketball teams? Really? Now, to be fair, I know that Northwestern football has reached some bowl games recently, so they’re not terrible. Still, I don’t know that there really is a large Northwestern football fan base out there. In fact, I know a guy who used to play football for Northwestern (and he even once tackled Tom Brady back when he was the QB for Michigan). He said it was actually quite typical for Northwestern’s Big 10 home games at Ryan Field to draw more fans of the opposing team. </p>
<p>As far as basketball is concerned, I believe Northwestern has never qualified for the NCAA tournament, not even once. So I wonder how much of a fanbase there could possibly be. </p>
<p>But, putting that issue aside, I would say that it’s probably a waste of money for students to select any school because of its sports or lack thereof. That includes those students who choose a private school for its D-I sports. That also includes students who choose a state school but that is not in the state in which they reside (which means they have to pay OOS tuition). That also includes those students who choose their state’s flagship school when they are being offered a merit scholarship to go somewhere else. For example, my brother could have gone to Cal or UCLA. But Caltech offered him a full merit ride, plus stipend. Hence, his choice was to either pay to go to Cal or UCLA, or go to Caltech and get paid. The money he was getting paid would have allowed him to buy not only the season ticket package for UCLA football and basketball, but also the season ticket packages for the LA Lakers, Clippers, Dodgers, Angels, and Kings, and still have some money left over. </p>
<p>Look, you’re supposed to choose a school for its academics and its potential in boosting your future career, whatever that may be. Sports are a minor factor.</p>