Can you be an Elite Academic Institution and be an Elite Football Program?

no1g8r

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... but there only 300 or so real universities in this country. 312 on the US News list worth rating. The rest are not real and are much more honest about being diploma mills.

Ummm. No. Sorry.

The list of 312 is what US News and World Reports make available for free, but they sell their full list of over 1800 schools here: Get the whole picture for more than 1,800 schools in the U.S. News Best Colleges rankings.

I don't think the US News and World Reports lists "diploma mills" in their rankings. (You'll have to go to FSU's "list of acceptable schools for inbound credit transfer" to find those ;) )

UF being ranked #35 out of over 1800, or within the top 2%, is pretty close to elite in my book.
 

biggator6

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Is Michigan Academically Elite? That's not what comes to mind when I think of Academics.

Have you been paying attention for the last.. oh.. 40 years? Michigan is generally considered a VERY good school academically.. just outside the top-25 overall and a few spots above UF.
 

g8r.tom

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I didn't realize the first 17 were all private. I guess it shows how tough it is for a public college to reach the top 25. My opinion is obviously quite subjective. One thing I do know is that the "University of This State" and the "This State University"'s are not elite.

Yes Rocket, that means UF is not elite. I'm not sure how you can argue otherwise.

because being in the top 10 is elite. even if it is public.
 

gatorev12

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Well the problem here is it is harder to determine "elite" or even rank academic institutions. Famously one year the crappy US News rankings had Wake at something like 7 and UNC-Chapel Hill one below them. Personally, I can not imagine someone getting into both going to Wake.

Other problems are is Chicago "elite?" They have some of the finest graduate programs in the world. They maybe have produced more Nobel winners than any other university. But as an undergrad school they are a bit more Vandy like, ie top regional private school rather than national.

As for your particular opinions, I would not call UND elite academically, but of course it is very good. I would call Stanford elite academically. I would consider UMich elite if that is what your UM stands for (hence the abbreviation controversy that some small minds can not let go of here.) There is not one ranking for colleges and universities and VP's offices try to game the system in those rankings. In football there are fewer rankings that matter and it is probably easier to determine who is elite in football than academically.

ND is ranked higher academically than Michigan.
 

gatorev12

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Very good is very good. Not elite.

In terms of attracting top students and industry leaders: being top 10 among public universities is nothing to scoff at.

The top two academic schools are traditionally Harvard and Yale...who have a combined population of about 10K total undergraduates. That's the size of UF's freshman class.
 

g8r.tom

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Seriously. Think about it in a different


My kids attend the "elite" private, college-prep school here in my town. The best public school in town is not "elite" just because it's the best of the bunch.


ahhhh, now I see


your kids go to an elite private school :bwahaha:

Your opinion is not shared by many.
 

NOLAGATOR

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Have you been paying attention for the last.. oh.. 40 years? Michigan is generally considered a VERY good school academically.. just outside the top-25 overall and a few spots above UF.


Understood but is it Elite?

Is it a Duke, GT, Cornell, Vandy, UCLA, CAL...?
 

PastyStoole

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I don't think the question is "can you be," the question is really, "Why would you *want* to be a football powerhouse when you are already an elite academic school?"

In our case, we have a very difficult reality: The UAA contributes a laughably small amount of money to the University itself. About $6 Million, which is a drop in the bucket compared to what gets added to the UF endowment every year through private donations. UF has a $2.0 BILLION endowment, (more than three times that of FSU) and the UF administration and board of trustees have a unified ambition to double or triple that very soon. The donors they are seeking are not necessarily people you'll find sitting in the football bleachers. Al Warrington has donated over $100 million to the UF endowment alone, mostly to the business school. Herbert Wertheim has donated $50 million to the endowment and it's been directed mostly to the engineering school. Believe it or not those guys aren't even big fish when compared to donors at other prestigious schools like Harvard and Stanford. Donors like these are industry titans and inventors. They want their names on buildings and schools, not sports facilities.

So our last two presidents have been focused primarily on building the endowment through private donations. The football program is a distant afterthought. Their biggest concern when it comes to football is some potential scandal that could bring disrepute to the University. An academic scandal like the ones at FSU, North Carolina and Auburn would be a setback to them and a hindrance to their fund raising efforts. We are adding $400 Million + to the endowment every year now and that number is expected to grow substantially. As long as the football coach isn't disgracing the University through scandal and keeps winning 8-9 games a year, everything is hunky-dory to them.

In other words, we have more in common with Vanderbilt than we do Alabama or Clemson. Not to be a Debbie Downer, but that probably won't change any time soon.
 
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InstiGATOR1

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ND is ranked higher academically than Michigan.

That is a bit of an odd response to a post claiming it is much harder to rank universities than football programs. In your particular example, Michigan is to my mind a much better graduate institution than UND but some view UND as a better place to be an undergrad. This interesting site I found looking around the internet say what percent goes where when accepted by two different schools:

Compare Colleges: Side-by-side college comparisons | Parchment - College admissions predictions.

supports your contention about UND, but again that is for undergraduate programs.

BTW, that site also supports my conjecture about Wake and UNC:

Compare Colleges: Side-by-side college comparisons | Parchment - College admissions predictions.

Finally for the amusement of all here there is:

Compare Colleges: Side-by-side college comparisons | Parchment - College admissions predictions.
 

Okeechobee Joe

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Ocalaman defined "elite" universities as being members of the Association of American Universities (AAU). This is a good place to start. Their membership is comprised of 60 public and private universities that according to their website award nearly 1/2 of all U.S. doctoral degrees and 55% of those is science and engineering. These schools are primarily large research type institutions. Of course, there are other universities who could be considered "elite" but they would be smaller liberal arts type school that would not have big football programs. I am thinking of schools like Williams College in Massachusetts for example. Yes, the Williams College Ephs play football. I am using this list is a start.

Now to pick out elite football programs. I am going to define an "elite" football program as a member of a Power 5 Conference. Now I am not equating "elite" with a championship caliber teams or even teams with a chance to win a national championship or even a conference championship. I am just saying that of all the schools that play football then if you can be one of the 64 teams that play in a Power 5 Conference then you have at least a pretty good program considering alumni base, facilities etc. to be in a Power 5 Conference. I realize that there are many teams not in Power 5 Conferences that are better programs than are a lot to the teams in a Power 5 Conference. But this will just give us a start.

You will notice that there are 60 members of the AAU and 66 members of Power 5 Conferences. That is roughly equal. I realize that I am being very liberal in how I define "elite" but I wanted to have some objective criteria and wanted to look at the overlap between the two lists just as an interesting exercise. Again, I am not defining academically elite as Harvard or Yale or an elite football program as Alabama. That would be too restrictive. I remember one Nashville sports writer when talking about Vanderbilt saying it was hard to try to be Harvard six days of the week and Alabama on Saturday. Thus the dilemma of a private school with academic ambitions trying to play football in the Southeastern Conference.

Here is the list of the 32 schools by Power 5 Conference who are also members of the AAU. (* denotes private universities)

Southeastern Conference
University of Florida
University of Missouri
Texas A&M University
Vanderbilt University *

Atlantic Coast Conference
Duke University *
Georgia Institute of Technology
University of North Carolina
University of Pittsburgh
University of Virginia

Big Ten Conference
Michigan State University
Northwestern University *
Ohio State University
Penn State University
Purdue University
Rutgers University
University of Illinois
University of Indiana
University of Iowa
University of Maryland
University of Michigan
University of Minnesota
University of Wisconsin

Big 12 Conference
Iowa State University
University of Kansas
University of Texas

Pac-12 Conference
Stanford University *
University of California
UCLA
University of Colorado
University of Oregon
University of Southern California *
University of Washington

A total of 31 schools made both lists (AAU and Power 5 Conference memberships). The Big Ten Conference led the way in having all thirteen of its fourteen members on both lists.
 
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gator1946

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If i were to go outside the South and flash my diploma, the impression would be that I graduated from a very good school.

In the field of engineering, Is UF in the same league as MIT, or Stanford, or even Georgia Tech? No. It is certainly not perceived that way. When I graduated in my discipline, Florida was considered.one of the top two programs in the country. Shortly after my graduation 80% of the faculty exited the building.They went to either one of the three schools mentioned, or in the case of one professor started a company and went on to make millions in the process. It's difficult to compete with the truly elite. They pay more and their reputation means more to a fist class professor.

Can really good football and really good academics coexist? Yes, but it is a difficult marriage. If football lightning strikes in a bottle, you may find yourselves in the top 5 or even at the top of the heap occasionally. Academically there is no such thing as lightning in a bottle. With effort and funding, It's a slow grind from very good to very very good.

It seems to me that the administration's goal is to continue marching up the list of really good schools. Label "really good" however you wish. I'd bet, but cannot prove, that football is not the first part of an early morning discussion in the President's office. And that's OK with me. I'll hope for lightning and reasonable support.

I have three sheepskins from the joint. My son graduated from UF as well. The absolute last thing I want is the perception that UF is a school where football is first and academics is second or worse.
 
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InstiGATOR1

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Ocalaman defined "elite" universities as being members of the Association of American Universities (AAU). This is a good place to start. Their membership is comprised of 60 public and private universities that according to their website award nearly 1/2 of all U.S. doctoral degrees and 55% of those is science and engineering. These schools are primarily large research type institutions. Of course, there are other universities who could be considered "elite" but they would be smaller liberal arts type school that would not have big football programs. I am thinking of schools like Williams College in Massachusetts for example. Yes, the Williams College Ephs play football. I am using this list is a start.

Here is the list of the 31 schools by Power 5 Conference who are also members of the AAU. (* denotes private universities)

Big Ten Conference
Michigan State University
Northwestern University *
Ohio State University
Penn State University
Purdue University
University of Illinois
University of Indiana
University of Iowa
University of Maryland
University of Michigan
University of Minnesota
University of Wisconsin

A total of 31 schools made both lists (AAU and Power 5 Conference memberships). The Big Ten Conference led the way in having all twelve of its members on both lists.

I did not check everything in your post, but:

1. I agree the biggest problem with using AAU membership as the metric for elite is that you are focusing in on graduate program almost exclusively.

2. In the Big Ten you missed Rutgers and UNL. Rutgers is a AAU member and UNL famously with 'Cuse left the AAU in 2011. In your defense why should the Big 10 have 14 members unless they are in 10 big states but all NJ, PA, OH, IN, IL, MI, IA, MN, NE, MD, WI is 11 states.
 

Okeechobee Joe

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I did not check everything in your post, but:

1. I agree the biggest problem with using AAU membership as the metric for elite is that you are focusing in on graduate program almost exclusively.

2. In the Big Ten you missed Rutgers and UNL. Rutgers is a AAU member and UNL famously with 'Cuse left the AAU in 2011. In your defense why should the Big 10 have 14 members unless they are in 10 big states but all NJ, PA, OH, IN, IL, MI, IA, MN, NE, MD, WI is 11 states.

Thanks for the close reading and the fact checking on this. I totally forgot about Rutgers being in the Big Ten. And the Big Ten, as you point out, has 14 members and not 12 with both Rutgers and Nebraska being members. I will edit my post to make those corrections.
 

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