@urbanslaughter, agree that movement from year to year amongst the top-50 is likely - the key for me is seeing that the same schools are in the top-50 year to year.
Clemson is one.
Here is a list put by Princeton Review of colleges that are loved by their students.
https://www.princetonreview.com/college-rankings?rankings=their-students-love-these-colleges
The University of Michigan and Penn State come to mind immediately
Davidson and Washington & Lee. Although I agree big state schools have rabid fans as well. Depends are where you want to be also. Wofford is small school with extremely tight alumni and great reputation for networking but may appeal more to southeast
Brandeis, Columbia and Tulane. Also U of Rochester
There are many reasons why alumni gravitate toward their alma matter.
-Tight knit and cohesive campus community
-Intense academics and pride of accomplishment
-Strong brand name and pride of association
-Strong athletic tradition
Amherst College
Bates College
Boston College
Bowdoin College
Brown University
Bryn Mawr College
California Institute of Technology
Carleton College
Carnegie Mellon University
Centre College
Claremont McKenna College
Clemson University
Colby College
Colgate University
College of the Holy Cross
College of William and Mary
Columbia University
Cornell University
Dartmouth College
Davidson College
Duke University
Emory University
Georgetown University
Georgia Institute of Technology
Hamilton College
Harvard University
Haverford College
Indiana University-Bloomington
Johns Hopkins University
Kenyon College
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Michigan State University
Middlebury College
Northwestern University
Oberlin College
Ohio State University
Pennsylvania State University-University Park
Pomona College
Princeton University
Rice University
Smith College
Stanford University
Swarthmore College
Texas A&M University-College Station
United States Air Force Academy
United States Military Academy
United States Naval Academy
University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa
University of California-Berkeley
University of California-Los Angeles
University of Chicago
University of Florida
University of Georgia
University of Kansas
University of Kentucky
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
University of Notre Dame
University of Oklahoma
University of Pennsylvania
University of Rochester
University of Southern California
University of Tennessee
University of Texas-Austin
University of Virginia
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Vanderbilt University
Wake Forest University
Washington University-St Louis
Wellesley College
Wesleyan University
Williams College
Yale University
Here in socal USC alumni are rabid.
I guess I think of “rabid” as taking it to a different level. UT-Austin alumni are loyal and never forget their school, but Texas A&M alumni go beyond that. Even as a UT graduate, I wouldn’t put Texas and A&M in the same category.
As an Aggie, I can say without a doubt that this is absolutely true. Also, I’ve never met anybody from Michigan who didn’t want you to know, within five minutes of meeting you, that they went to Michigan.
I would say Michigan and Duke. Grads tend to be huge sports fans seem to be perplexed by any ranking that does not show that they are #1 at everything. Alumni tend to be strident in the view that their school has been under-rated, even if it is at #2.
It is great for these schools that they somehow develop this mindset in the student body. It has to help with the alumni network.
MaineLonghorn, my list was exhaustive. There are naturally going to be variations. For example, Haverford alums are not going to be as rabid as Notre Dame alums.
Agree that in SoCal USC alums are rabid – mainly when they meet UCLA alums.
As a former A&M student, I agree on that one too. Though we have donated more to DH’s grad school UCSB, which is where we still live. Donating to the local college gives us more community pay-back.
Wow, Caltech is really an outlier in the Forbes 10-year median donation column! At $53K it’s still significantly higher than #2 MIT at $45K. I’ve read that a number of Caltech’s donors, including big donors, are not alumni and do not have kids attending. Some of those donors may have been counted.
re: “grateful alums”:
I had the experience of sharing an office with a Harvard class representative during a fund raising period.
He was calling all his classmates and doing anything he could to get them to cough up.
His primary, last ditch appeal was this:
Beating Yale (he also trotted out a few other schools, eg Princeton, MIT, but most consistently Yale) in the US News rankings, Since alumni giving counted in the rankings, and their high rating in US News continued to enhance the value and prestige of their degree.
His appeal had nothing whatsoever to do with whether they liked their school. It was all about their innate competitive drives, and continued self-interest.
I get calls occasionally from my alma maters, but nothing like the vehemence and intensity with which this guy went at it.
This experience makes me very suspect of using these stats.
eg Do Williams grads really love their school that much? Or rather do they mostly want to try their darnedest come out on top of Amherst, to pump up the prestige of their own degree, for their own individual aggrandizement?..
and what resources do the various schools use to get contributions? My officemate’s approach was nothing like what I get. Evidently the effort expended to drum up these contributions varies by school.
Ohio State
Among larger schools, an irrational exuberance for ye olde alma mater characterizes graduates of Florida, Alabama, UNC, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Texas, Texas A&M, and USC.
Among smaller schools, Bard, Bennington, Smith, Sarah Lawrence, Vassar, Swarthmore, Haverford, Oberlin, Macalester, Grinnell, Pitzer, Lewis & Clark, Reed, and Evergreen State are noted for the particularly rabid alumni.
Does the level of boosterism of posters on these forums matter?
If you are really looking for satisfaction and support, alumni giving and graduation rates are perhaps a pretty good proxy.
There are different kinds of support. Rabid sports boosters of big time programs (and their affinity may be more to the sports program than the academic mission), people who had a blast (but didn’t necessarily get a great education), and ones who think the school benefitted them and would recommend it to others for that reason (these people may not have had the best time, but appreciate it later).
Graduation rates are more of a proxy of admission selectivity than anything else.
Wow, that’s really interesting, and surprisingly immature, LOL. @monydad
I kind of want to clarify. I’m not looking for a huge sports school or a school with big time “school spirit.” I guess I’m looking for schools that impacted people greatly, socially and intellectually— schools that people benefited from beyond just job prospects and quantifiable measures. Does that make sense?