US News and World Report 2010 rankings (Tier 3 means not even in the top 125). Big 12 Texas 47 A&M 61 CU 77 Baylor 80 ISU 88 KU 96 NU 96 Mizzou 102 OU 102 KState Tier 3 Okie St. Tier 3 Tech Tier 3 Ok, that's the Big 12. In the Big 10, we'd be 5th, tied with Penn St. In the SEC, we'd be 2nd, tied with Florida. In the PAC 10, we'd be 6th, behind Washington at 42. If for the PAC 10, this really is an academic issue, the interesting thing is that A&M, Colorado, and OU are all tied with or ranked better than Arizona, the school that is currently behind Washington. In fact, Okie St. and Texas Tech (at Tier 3) simply fall into place with Oregon State. And it's not like Arizona State's 121 is too far removed from that woeful third tier. The bottom line is that the PAC 10 simply CANNOT use the academic standing of major state universities to determine who will/won't get in. It's not like we need the PAC 10, but they need to get real. Especially in California which is facing serious education problems at all levels. If I'm Oregon State, I'm salivating at the chance to become a houshold name in the Lonestar Nation because, as well know, plenty of kids from Texas who don't get into the mothership go to other schools they are familiar with (MU, KU, various Okies). Being on tv in Dallas, Houston, and the other big markets would be HUGE for the Oregon States of the world.
Your point is taken, but it for the purposes of what PAC 10 folks are complaining about, it's worthless. If this academic standing this really matters to them, it has zero to do with graduating players. It's about perception.
Did you actually just throw out the US News rankings as a standard measure of academic institutions? Are you kidding?
Sure, why not? It's the standard that universities use to highlight their academic prowess. Certainly, anyone could create their own standard, but when the Bay Area schools decry poor acadmic ratings in the Big 12, they aren't citing a Playboy Top 10 list -- they are using US News and World Report or another "reputable" source. So, in fact, I am not kidding.
I use to teach at Texas in the philosophy department and the Humanities department as adjunct faculty member. The US News Report has become well known, but it is just a public ranking of UNDER-GRADUATE institutions. Since it ranks size of classes and a number of other issues that give a decided advantage to universities not having 50,000 students. Moreover, a lot of universities game the system to try to move up the rank based on things not related to high level academics. The real important ranking is in graduate levels, research, and the like. Now if you look at the US New and World ranking of graduate Universities, you will find that UT is ranked in the top twenty of almost all areas of study in the sciences, business, mathematics, philosophy, languages, and so on. So how is Texas ranked in the top twenty graduate schools of almost all areas and is only 47th in the University list? Because of the non-academic areas. Texas is actually a world class university routinely ranked in the top 50 in the WORLD. I have seen us ranked as high as #15 in the world by international reputable sources. Also, private schools have a lot of inherent advantages over public schools since they can do whatever they want with their funds and Texas and other state institutions have follow a lot of the dictates of the state legislature.
Wanted to highlight one other issue to show that these rankings are flawed. A&M is ranked 61 after Texas at 47 by US News and World. And in many areas, A&M is a fine institution, especially in the sciences and engineering. However, their humanities, philosophy, linguistics, and so on (all areas no in science and engineering) are way below Texas. (They are currently in the process of trying to raise their departments in those areas in the next 20 years). So, again the US News rankings are very flawed in terms of what they measure. No question, for a lot of kids having classes which have 300 students in it is a negative and in fact causes Texas to be marked down by US News. However, if you have a graduate degree from Texas it is valued much higher in almost all areas than 47th in the nation.
US News and World reports has a ton of problems with their rankings that specifically are going to harm Texas. The Link The Link Please, stop using US News and World reports. For one thing, they change their formula weighting every single year, this is how they ensure changes in the results so that people will buy their magazine every year. Another, is their formula is based almost entirely on the quality of students walking in the door on day 1 and how many of those students subsequently graduate. It does next to nothing to measure the quality of an education that is actually received while you are at the school. In Texas' case, the top 10% rule is going to force students into the school that otherwise would not have qualified *and* it is going to punish Texas again when those same students drop out or are kicked out of the school.
Where did I say the quality of the students around you should be completely disregarded? However, someones SAT score has little to do with how good the school is. It might tell you how exclusive the schools admission standards are... but little else. I would care more about the access to education and how much the student has learned since they stepped off of campus and their ability to earn a good salary based on that degree. The student at the end of their stay should be the measure of a good school... not necessarily where they were to start. Granted, there is a high correlation with higher admissions standards and better schools.. but being exclusive doesn't make you a good school per se. US News and World reports is designed for prospective students. i.e. how hard is it to get in, how likely am I to graduate.
USN&WR is the Rivals of the academic world. It's a rigged beauty contest and nothing more. That's why the real elite academic schools look down their noses at the whole process. It's mostly schools with something to prove that get into this. Why do you think Baylor paid its admits to retake the SAT?
Here is a view of the "academic question" from a Big Ten perspective you've probably not seen before. It was in the comments section of Frank The Tank's latest blog entry. I tend to agree with him. (He did later correct his entry of Rice in the non-AAU category): Big Ten Jeff says: June 5, 2010 at 10:10 pm This is my effort at a paradigm shift, a recalibration or just a long time blog stalker’s point of view (disclosure: degrees from Northwestern, Illinois, Purdue & Harvard – and I live in Texas), as it seems not enough consideration is being given to a purely or primarily academic/research argument, which may in fact be closer to where the Univ. Presidents are. The Big Ten is first, foremost & forever more going to be a collection of universities with the goal of maintaining the preeminent position among American universities via research, academia & financial strength which enables the prior two considerations. Sports is only an important means to that end, primarily so because so many in the population don’t think like a Univ. President and use/need the rah-rah as a means of Homecoming and fellowship among peers/alumni. As long as the Big Ten has unquestioned dominance in making its Universities unequalled as a collection of research and academic institutions, it will be quite content with the occasional College Football championship to add to its members’ CIC billions. How short sighted it is for so many here to believe the tail is in fact wagging the dog! No other conference is even playing the same game as the Big Ten – there is no CIC equivalent, even in the Ivy League, and no other conference has all AAU members. SEC dominance? Please. If this paradigm is correct, this is why we are academic snobs. Have you ever heard the old NU joke that “It’s ok if you beat us on the field, you’ll be working for us one day?” And that was before we started winning Conference football championships and National Championships in other sports. If correct, such considerations as maintaining a relationship with U of Chi and inviting Johns Hopkins to the CIC are very much appropriate. If correct, we would never allow Tx to dictate anything, and would much rather pass Tx off to the Pac-10 (and away from the SEC) than accept Tech, Rice, Houston, OSU, OU or pretty much any non-AAU university – we simply don’t have to or need to do that. The notion of diluting the Big Ten philosophy and brand mandate such. We are dealing from the ultimate position of strength and don’t need Tx or ND on their terms. Can you imagine the results of allowing Tx or ND to introduce disharmony at the beginning of a relationship, when PSU, MI or OSU haven’t asked for any special considerations? All for all – that’s the Big Ten way. To this point, Tx’s shopping itself between 3 conferences is either political reality or a bad way to begin a relationship among a group of peer institutions (if indeed that’s what’s happening). ND has made it clear they value self/independence more than what the Big Ten represents. ND is a private, Catholic, undergraduate focused, non-AAU University that is not an ideal fit (e.g. ND doesn’t like some of the autonomy in the Big Ten’s research philosophy) but brings unquestioned value, but only if they change their culture to embrace the Big Ten’s shared goals. I can’t predict which teams will join the Big Ten, but it holds true to its brand, I’d expect a series of the largest AAU-member universities dominating their states, while being reasonably proximal to the Big Ten footprint – or dynamic enough to stand out as part of a ‘National Conference’. After all, it’s the original ‘Big’ conference, meaning an affiliation with us means no apologies or explanations are necessary. Thus a Stanford, Florida, Maryland, North Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Nebraska, Missouri and/or Kansas all should (not would) think about what that means and at least consider invitations if offered and why no Big Ten team would leave for any other conference. We don’t need to accept three other University we wouldn’t otherwise have just to get one that we want (thus the ‘Tech problem’). Why are we constantly quibbling about tens of millions between sports conferences when there are Billions to be divided between academic/research institutions? Athletic Directors are not making these decisions. Univ. Presidents are. There’s been a lot of talk on this blog about thinking outside the box, but when I hear “where will we be in 25 or 50 years”, I’m not thinking about football championships primarily. The BTN network isn’t about champtionship; it’s about households and subscriptions. If the Big Ten footprint encompasses enough households and the BTN grows appropriately, recruitment and sports dominance will follow. However, if the Big Ten Brand is ever diluted or compromised (read Tech, Oklahoma or ASU), we’re no better than…the SEC, and that’s how conferences of 16 members become unwieldly (a loss of common purpose). The lessons of the SWC, WAC and Big East actually are quite clear. Good luck with that Pac-16. I’m not that impressed. But I do trust the Big Ten to stay true to itself. Thanks Frank and everyone else for keeping me glued to the computer.
SAT scores and GPAs will at least signal the quality of students attending an institution. Yes, there are always exceptions and it is not always true, I'm speaking on the whole. In classes that hold active discussions based off of readings, I'd expect to learn more from a classroom of 1400/3.8s than 1000/3.0s.
People seem to think that the Pac10's deciding factor is just "well, they are as good as our worst school" - that's simply stupid logic. Just because the Pac10 has a few scrub schools academically doesn't mean they want to add 3 more in order to get Texas & TAMU. They are stuck with the current scrub schools - they aren't stuck with more of them (yet).
I think what may be going on here is the Pac 10 and AD's want Texas. I think it's going to be the university presidents that make Tech, etc a problem. The conference itself and the ADs are probably all over the money that bringing in the 6 from the Big 12 would mean.. but if the presidents of even one of these schools says no then the whole deal is off. Joining the Big 10 with this pack of 5 or 6 would be much simpler because they don't have the Pac 10's unanimous consent bylaw. And yes, Oregon St and Arizona St are not "top tier" schools.. but one of those schools dates back to 1918 and the other to 1978. And letting in an Arizona St to get an Arizona is probably easier to swallow than letting in an Oklahoma, Okie St and Tech all at once.
Satchel, I agree, but my understanding is the Big 10 requires a simple majority to add new teams to the conference where the Pac 10 requires all schools to agree to the additions. Simple math alone says getting a sub par school into the Big 10 will be much easier.
Perhaps. The Pac 10 commish, being the mover and shaker he is said to be, would not act on a flimsly political calculation such as making an invite before he has counted his own votes.
One would think the academic question would have been thoroughly socialized before the Pac 10 publicized an an offer. It may be an issue but doesn't appear to be a deal breaker.
The Pac 10 never publicized anything. It was leaked by Texags/Chip Brown. and for all we know this is just BS being floated to try and scare Nebraska/Mizzou into staying put.
No, it's a leak. We don't know where it came from. If we did it would be called a press release. Though the fact that beat writers for Aggy and Texas are the ones who broke the story, logic would tell me the leak came from the Texas schools since that is where the two writers would have sources.
Could be. I'm just saying when dealing with rumors we have no idea where this is coming from, who is leaking it, why they are leaking it and how valid it is. For all we know the Pac 10/Big 12 is leaking this story to try and scare Nebraska into staying put and minimizing the impact that the Big 10 expansion has. It's very possible both the Big 12 and Pac 10 want to keep the status quo and this story is being leaked by someone for no other reason than force Nebraska into a decision before the Big 10 is ready to commit to them.
To the USN&WR haters: obviously, we all think Texas is FAR better than 47. Hell, for me personally, it was THE BEST school I could have chosen. Just as it was for many of you. Many of us probably also had alternatives in terms of schools, some "higher ranked" than Texas, but we made the right decision. That being said, people have cited factors that hurt Texas in the overall (undergraduate) rankings. The Top 10% Rule and fairly large (though standard at most big schools) general ed classes do not a Harvard make. However, did most of us enroll in Texas to get a Harvard/Yale/Princeton/Wash U experience? HELL NO!!! We went to Texas because we Major Applewhite led a monsterous comeback in the Holiday Bowl and and Illinois got obliterated in the Sugar Bowl (that's how I made my decision.....I swear). There are some unquantifiable factors (sorry math/science nerds) that make a school great. My upper-division classes had fifteen students tops and a full professor teaching. That's good stuff no matter what school you're at. Plus, Austin. Just say that when someone from New Haven says they went to Yale. Really? Austin.
