arnie1

I think that everyone will agree that the Ivy league has the best academics, but I say the acc has the second best arguement as far as a "conference".
What do you all think?
1 Duke
2 uva
3 wake
4 boston college
5 unc
6 georgia tech
7 miami
8 clemson
9 maryland
10 virginia tech
11 nc state
12 florida st.

huskem55

NESCAC is easily next best to ivy league (hence the name "little ivies")

Williams
Amherst
Tufts
Wesleyan
Middlebury
Bowdoin
Bates
Colby
Connecticut Coll
Trinity
Hamilton

Marsden

No doubt about it, but the academic-quality argument was even stronger before the ACC expanded

Marsden

Wow ... I never even heard of the NESCAC ... very small colleges, is that Div3?

But yes, several of them are very high quality. Just small.

sfgiants

Pac-10 should be in the discussion.

Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, USC

A bit of a drop-off from there though.

Clendenenator

Big ten is good too. Nescac is New England (or maybe Northeast) SMALL college athletic conference. Also the patriot league is in fact the closest to ivies, but it's not nearly as fun to rank.

arnie1

I'll take the acc over the big 10, or the pac 10.

sfgiants

Haha well let's go top to bottom.

1. Stanford vs. Duke: Stanford wins here
2. Cal vs. UVA: I would give Cal the slight edge
3. UCLA vs. Wake: UCLA wins out
4. USC vs. BC: Essentially a tie
5. UW vs. UNC: UNC wins here

The rest of the schools I do not know enough about to compare.

arnie1

I would take wake over ucla. UVA vs cal would be a good battle. Conservative vs liberal. I guess it would depend on what side of the fence you are on.

Venkat89

ACC is strongest top to bottom (NESCAC is DIII so no talking about them). Big 10 has the best public universities. Pac10 is way too top heavy though.

k&s

I'd put UNC higher than BC.

The PAC10 has the greatest strength at the top.

For overall quality - it's the B10 (the only conference to have all of its schools affiliated with the Association of American Universities).

parent2noles

That list is a reflection of what? US News ug rank or personal opinion?

It's not correct. FSU is not the least regard academic school. For one thing, it out ranks U Miami in ranked grad programs and at least NSCU in FTIC stats.

TourGuide446

The bottom 6 in the ACC are probably better than the top 6 in the Southeast Conference...and imagine if the ACC dumped FSU and replaced it with Georgetown. And then maybe traded Clemson to the Southeast Conference for Vanderbilt?

Current US News Peer Assessment Ranking of ACC:
Duke
Va
UNC
GTech
Maryland
Boston College
Wake
VATech
Miami
Clemson/FSU/NC State

Current ACC US News Selectivity:
Duke 11
UVa 26
BC 29
UNC 35
Wake 39
GTech 42
(The rest are not ranked)

dajada07

Using USNWR rankings, you get the following averages for each conference (counting only the top 10 schools for each conference):

ACC Average: 41.6
Individual School Ranks: Duke (8), Virginia (24), North Carolina (27), Wake Forest (30), Boston College (34), Georgia Tech (38), Miami (54), Maryland (54), Clemson (70), Virginia Tech (77)

Big 10 Average: 48.2
Individual School Ranks: Northwestern (14), Michigan (24), Wisconsin (34), Illinois (41), Penn State (47), Ohio State (57), Iowa (64), Purdue (64), Minnesota (67), Indiana (70)

Pac 10 Average: 70
Individual School Ranks: Stanford (4), UC-Berkeley (21), UCLA (26), USC (27), Washington (42), Arizona (98), Washington State (112), Oregon (120), Arizona State (3rd Tier-125+), Oregon State (3rd Tier-125+)

SEC Average: 86.3
Individual School Ranks: Vanderbilt (18), Florida (47), Georgia (60), Tennessee (88), Alabama (88), Auburn (88), Kentucky (112), South Carolina (112), Arkansas (3rd Tier-125+), LSU (3rd Tier-125+)

Granted, using the USNWR rankings is like using a very blunt instrument, but it is one of several ways to evaluate the relative academic strength and reputations of these schools and conferences.

An interesting twist would be to evaluate the same data as above and add in a ranking for athletic placement in the annual Directors Cup standings.

Iggi

Why no MIT?