I'm not telling you anything other than what a different analyses concluded, one which, by the way, also pegged the likes of Missouri at #85, which was identical to their USNWR ranking. And they were in very close agreement on a host of others, including such soccer giants as Stanford, UNC, Notre Dame, Virginia and Rutgers. So, on that basis, I suppose the WM rankings are equally authoritative and inept, if such a thing is possible, although Dr. Wankler captured the essence of the argument very succinctly. In any case, as it regards the earlier discussion of WVU, they still end up as being among the top 75 or so public universities, regardless which method you use.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! I'm so glad that I'm from S.C. State, Tell it to 'ya! Tell it to 'ya! Bulldogs are a team we know is great, For our school we'll yell and yell, Send the other team to . . . you know Who' s our Alma Mater, S.C.S.C. STATE! I'd have posted a link to the music, but I held off for fear of leaving y'all weepy-eyed.
Was in Morgantown once. Clapped for the other team. Got hit with a hot dog for doing so. Don't think they see people from outside of Morgantown too often.
Just be thankful they weren't so drunk that they mistook you for a sofa. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/2005-09-27-roundup_x.htm?csp=34 (They've cut back, but haven't cut it out completely, from what I can tell).
my bold. For me, these ratings seem incredibly goofy. The number of people in ROTC as a measure of quality of education? And while it's nice that they recognize universities that promote access, if access isn't your problem then it's not very important as a measure of quality. Leaving out reputation is probably a bad thing. There are lot of things that aren't measured in a simple measures such as this. Bringing reputation in is an imperfect way to capture some of those items. For a top student, there are probably two main factors that drive quality of education: (1) the average level of students at the university, and (2) the attention given to undergraduate education. After that, it's mostly whether the specific offerings of the school match the interests of the student. If a potential college student asked you which are the top schools to go to, would you really recommend South Carolina State?
I think you as well as others are not understanding the intent of the post of DSOC. Read Winklers analysis of the ranking to get the idea. He is not saying anything that these are the best academic schools. If you read the posts you should get the idea that people are saying that these are subjective rankings and are skewed in one way or another. And I believe what DSOCC is saying in terms of SC State is that it is not a top university, however, for those who can not afford or do not have the resources (connections) to find themselves in one of the "Elite" schools it is a school that could provide a quality and affordable education. All this aside....last time i checked this isn't a forum on the topic of the educational qualifications of individual universities and while before it was focused around determing WVU as a top college or soccer college now it has no relevance to the college game and personally I think unless we get back to the top of the original post that this topic should be discontinued. I urge you DSOCC, as a well established member with respected opinions to be the bigger man in this situation and just move on as it seems as if still neither side is willing to concede anything.
You might also want to consider some of the top Div2 schools. Scholarships are still available and the level of play is pretty high in the top 25 programs. Pro scouting, if that is important, probably isn't at the same level though.
Which is why the Washington Monthly ratings are nonsensical. If you have a ranking of colleges for top students looking nationally, Stanford will be much above SCSU. If you have a ranking for "average" students who want to live in South Carolina, SCSU will be ranked above Stanford. To have an index that mixes both ideas doesn't make any sense and is not useful. At least the USNWR index has an idea about what it is doing, even though it is not an appropriate tool for every student. The same problem applies to the soccer rankings. The "top" programs may not be the "best" programs for a particular player. UCLA is clearly a top program but the chances of getting a scholarship there are going to be pretty small unless you are a "top" player. In fact, if you are not looking for a pro career, the variation in academic quality across colleges is probably a lot more important than the variation across soccer quality.
Of course, Stanford costs more than 3 times what SCSU costs to attend. I assume then that it follows that Stanford students are 3 times more important, or perhaps that educating them is 3 times more difficult. Perhaps it's just that Stanford has a soccer team.
To truly decide this debate, why don't we pick a set of academic rankings, filter out all the non-D1, non-soccer schools and see what order we end up with. So remove all the non-D1 soccer schools and see how it plays out. If they are 1-50 its above average. If its 50-150 its roughly average. If its 150 or lower, then below average. Fair enough?
If you really want to do this, you'd take the full rankings from www.ordoludus.com and average them against the average of the last 5 years of respective rankings from soccerratings.com, then order them from lowest to highest. For schools that aren't listed among the top 126 in ordoludus, just fix the rank as 127 for any of them. This will weight an overall institutional ranking equally with a soccer specific ranking, which should answer the original question adequately enough.
For the record, this was false. I believe it was a goof by some Georgia Tech fans that spread out of control on the internet. They lost, btw, very bitter.
Using this method then, here are the ranked US Top 30 D1 universities combining both academic and soccer achievement. 1. University of Virginia 2. University of North Carolina 3. University of California - Berkley 4. University of California - Los Angeles 5. Duke University 6. University of Notre Dame 7. University of Maryland 8. Harvard University 9. Stanford University 10. Wake Forest University 11. Brown University 12. Northwestern University 13. Pennsylvania State University 14. Indiana University 15. University of Michigan 16. University of Pennsylvania 17. University of Wisconsin 18. Ohio State University 19. Yale University 20. Dartmouth College 21. Princeton University 22. Michigan State University 23. University of Kentucky 24. Rutgers University 25. Boston College 26. Southern Methodist University 27. University of California - Santa Barbara 28. Clemson University 29. Santa Clara University 30. University of New Mexico
After all the sturm and drang, A list that would serve our Lithuanian friend well. While there's always room for additional debate... Nicely done.
Indiana University is only at #14? Dsocc... this method sucks! Get to work on something else so that IU can at least be in the top ten!
What's interesting is that, while ACC schools dominate the Top 10 (5/10), the Big 10 schools dominate 11 through 20 (6/10), as well as the Top 20 overall (6/20). So, the Top 30 is basically a 3 horse race - ACC, Big 10, Ivies
Well, at least any questions about West Virginia have now been settled with just two words: Bob Huggins.
Hi all im a football (soccer) freak from Sydney, Australia. I have a young 17 year old boy who is a naturally gifted defender, and if he gave it a real go, could pursue a footballing/soccer career. I have not been involved in American soccer, and do not understand the programs or where to start to help this boy possibly trial or join an American college for both education and soccer. Could anyone message me or respond and let me know where I could start or any advice. Thanks in advance.
hi im a freshman and i love soccer with a passion i wanna know to look forward to what college i wanna have thoughts to go to, can anyone help me out? thank you
If he's really a 14 year old kid, then he likely hasn't taken the test yet. That said, he was about 8 years old the last time there was a post in this thread. There's quite a bit that goes into choosing a school, and I'll be happy to give my thoughts once I'm convinced this isn't a spammer making a few posts until he can start threads.