Academic Prestige

[BrianBrockmeyer]

Quote: Originally Posted by Dauminator

one cannot use the Princeton Review as the ultimate ranking of America's colleges and universities. There are multiple variables when an individual selects an institution to attend beyond merely the quality and availability of certain programs or the supposed quality of the school overall, including distance, financing, and the student's own biases. The biases themselves are formed from innumerate forces in the form of personality and upbringing. The PR is quite handy for measuring the general quality of each school's programs, but is hardly a measurement of which school is better. So, while the Princeton Review may consider Miami, FL to be slightly better than Miami University, there is no way to say conclusively that their academic prestige should be higher. It all comes down to perception and since it would be fiscally irresponsible and largely unimportant to the game itself to conduct a census of the nation's perceptions of American Collegiate Academia, we're stuck with either a blind application of some magazine's rankings or else one individual's rankings. As I said, though, as far as the game goes I don't particularly care what it says (although Iowa could be a star higher).

First off, the Princeton Review is not the only one that recognizes that UM is superior to Miami, OH: US News also has UM ranked ahead, as does just about every major publication that ranks universities. It's conclusively accepted that UM is the better school.

Second, UM is more than "slightly" better. It's numbers across the board are superior: the US News ranking, PR's academic prestige rating, PR's selectivity ratings, SAT scores, GPA, peer assessment scores (a component of the US News rankings where a dean from each school rates the academic prestige of all of the other schools, the scores from all the deans are tallied and then divided to arrive at an average academic prestige score for each institution), etc.

This pretty much sums it up: "The University of Miami is a private university, with its main campus in the city of Coral Gables in metropolitan Miami, Florida.
The university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States and is particularly well known for its nationally-ranked programs in business, medicine, marine biology, and music. In 2004, the average weighted grade point average for students granted admission to the university was 4.0 and the mid-range SAT score was 1360. Sixty-three percent of University of Miami students ranked in the top 10 percent of their high school class." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Miami]

By every measure, UM comes out on top and is considered to be one of the top universities in the country, which just goes to show how ridiculous and stupid your initial statement ("by Miami I can only assume you mean Miami University in Oxford, OH. The one in Florida has no great academic reputation that I'm aware of") was.

Finally, we can say with some degree of certitude that private universities tend to be academically superior to public schools. Of the top 62 universities ranked by US News, 42 are private--over 2/3. Obviously, not all private universities are better and there are some excellent public schools (Virginia, Michigan, UNC, Berkley, etc.), but the vast majority of universities in the top 20% are private institutions.

[BrianBrockmeyer]

Quote: Originally Posted by Bamafan3723

Has anyone figured out if there is a way to know if you're recruiting players that will boost your academic prestige? I haven't seen a definite answer in this thread yet.

This was addressed already...

"EA SPORTS: What's different about recruiting?

Tom Vuong: For NCAA Football 06, we really focused on the most popular aspect of Dynasty Mode, which is recruiting...

For off-season recruiting, we've totally revamped the user experience as well. We've added your school's academic reputation as a factor in dynasty and during recruiting. Now prospects will look at your school based on your academic prestige in terms of program and in terms of graduating players. The flipside of that is that recruiting players on talent alone may affect your school's academic prestige."


It's pretty simple: if a ton of your guys leave for the NFL early, you're probably going to take a hit in the academic prestige department. To remedy this, either spend some points to talk departing players into staying for another year, or recruit guys who get hooked with the "academics" pitch, as they will be less likely to declare early.

Like Vuong says, if you just go out and recruit the most talented players, you're setting yourself up for a hit because a good number of those guys are going to want to head to the NFL as early as possible. You need to mix in a few who are concerned about academics.

[TomHolmoe]

Okay, first obvious question: did you go to University of Miami in Florida?

Second question: your wikipedia link says the average SAT is 1360 (pretty damn impressive) and your earlier miami.edu link says 75th percentile is 1360 (pretty good but not "elite"). Which is correct?

Also, I'm not sure that your assertion that most Ph.D.-level private universities are better than almost all large public research universities is quite right. The USN&WR rankings are heavily skewed towards private schools and they tend to measure the students, not the faculty. Surely the faculty and [especially graduate] students are not wholly independent, but if I had to pick one to measure the quality of a university, I would choose the component that could be there for 30 years over the one that will be around for 4-10 years. Find me 20 people in academia who aren't affiliated with either Michigan or Washington University (in St. Louis), and I'll show you at least 18 people who will tell you that Michigan is the better school.

I'm not too familiar with Miami's academic reputation as my only exposure to it growing up on the west coast were things like Michael Irvin preening after a touchdown or the whole team getting off the plane in camoflauge, but it looks like Miami is cherry-picking if it's known for business (I didn't go to business school but was thinking about it and I've never seen Miami on any lists; looking on the USN&WR graduate b-school rankings shows Miami isn't top-50 either), med school (once again, not top-50 in either research or primary care according to USN&WR), marine biology (didn't we all want to be marine biologists when we were 12 years old?) and music.

On the other hand, a school like Michigan, not my alma mater by the way but I did go to a large public school, is known for its excellence across the board. Nearly all of its programs are nationally ranked and darn good. The same cannot be said of some of the schools that are ranked far too highly on these lists that are put out every year, like a WUSTL, Rice, Vanderbilt, or Emory. Even some of the lower profile "good publics" like Wisconsin or Illinois have a lot of very good programs and are very strong in what I would consider important fields like the physical sciences and engineering in addition to having strong humanities departments. How many private schools can you say that about?

Anyway, back to the matter at hand: how to turn my school in NCAA 2006 into an overall 12* program. Does anyone see any problems with my plan centered around not allowing anyone to redshirt?

[BrianBrockmeyer]

Quote: Originally Posted by TomHolmoe

Also, I'm not sure that your assertion that most Ph.D.-level private universities are better than almost all large public research universities is quite right. The USN&WR rankings are heavily skewed towards private schools and they tend to measure the students, not the faculty. Surely the faculty and [especially graduate] students are not wholly independent, but if I had to pick one to measure the quality of a university, I would choose the component that could be there for 30 years over the one that will be around for 4-10 years. Find me 20 people in academia who aren't affiliated with either Michigan or Washington University (in St. Louis), and I'll show you at least 18 people who will tell you that Michigan is the better school.

Re: WUSTL vs. Michigan, you wouldn't necessarily be wrong, but your pointing to the exception rather than the rule. Again, only 20 of the top 62 universities are public schools, less than a 1/3, and not one public school cracks the top 20 (Berkley comes in at 21). While certainly some select publics might be better than some select private schools, the conclusion that, on-the-whole, private schools do tend to be superior to public schools remains intact. Just look at the graduation rates, acceptance rates, SAT scores, GPAs, etc.

[Husker_OS]

I cant believe people are debating Miami's academics. Their med school is among the best in the nation. Miami is definitely a good school. I'd prolly rank them right behind Duke, UNC, and UVA in the ACC.

[TomHolmoe]

Quote: Originally Posted by husker9

I cant believe people are debating Miami's academics. Their med school is among the best in the nation. Miami is definitely a good school. I'd prolly rank them right behind Duke, UNC, and UVA in the ACC.

Among the best medical schools in the nation and it's not in the top 50 in USN&WR for either research or primary care? Are you sure about that? It's not like there are 5000 medical schools in the US or anything, either. Last I saw, there were around 100.

Within the ACC, Duke, Virginia, UNC, Georgia Tech, Boston College, Wake Forest, and Maryland are all more prestigious than Miami. I didn't go to any of these schools, but that's just the way it is especially when you're talking about perception.

Quote: Originally Posted by BrianBrockmeyer

Re: WUSTL vs. Michigan, you wouldn't necessarily be wrong, but your pointing to the exception rather than the rule.

My point is that this isn't the exception but the rule. Do you think in a similar comparision between Emory and UCLA, Emory comes out ahead? It doesn't. The list of private schools with strong humanities departments, professional schools, and physical science/engineering departments pretty much begins and ends with Stanford. You could put some of the Ivies on that list too if you're willing to overlook that so many prole Big 10 schools are as good or better in the physical sciences and engineering than those Ivies that everyone thinks are beyond reproach. Pretty much every other private schools starts looking really bad in similar comparisons.

[BrianBrockmeyer]

Quote: Originally Posted by TomHolmoe

My point is that this isn't the exception but the rule. Do you think in a similar comparision between Emory and UCLA, Emory comes out ahead? It doesn't. The list of private schools with strong humanities departments, professional schools, and physical science/engineering departments pretty much begins and ends with Stanford. You could put some of the Ivies on that list too if you're willing to overlook that so many prole Big 10 schools are as good or better in the physical sciences and engineering than those Ivies that everyone thinks are beyond reproach. Pretty much every other private schools starts looking really bad in similar comparisons.

Here, you're just wrong. The Michigan vs. WUSTL is the exception. Emory is a better school than UCLA. Emory's academic rating is 18 points higher. It's debatable whether UCLA is even better than USC, which is private. Compare UCLA to Chicago, Northwestern, Columbia, Penn, Duke, Notre Dame, Vandy, Johns Hopkins, etc., etc., etc. and UCLA is not getting the better of it.

[BrianBrockmeyer]

Quote: Originally Posted by husker9

I cant believe people are debating Miami's academics. Their med school is among the best in the nation.

Right, you are...

http://www.med.miami.edu/news/view.asp?id=432