which college athletic conference is most academically presitgious?

[ilikeverin]

For language science:

Big Ten (Maryland, Northwestern, Iowa, Purdue, pretty much every school but Nebraska is at least "good")
Pac-12 (Arizona, UC-Berkeley, UCLA, Stanford, Washington, some of the others are a'ight)
Big 12 (UT-Austin, Kansas)
AAC (UConn, USF)
SEC (South Carolina, Mizzou?)
MAC (Buffalo??)
ACC (Pitt?  sorta?)
Mountain West (UNM???)
Conference USA ()
Sun Belt ()

[ilikeverin]

As far as academic prowess in general... I mean, sure, Georgia Tech, UNC, Duke, Virginia, and Pittsburgh are all good schools, but I'm not sure how they're better (or "obvious[ly] better") than a group that includes UC-Berkeley, Stanford, UCLA, Washington, and UC-Boulder.

[ilikeverin]

As far as academic prowess in general... I mean, sure, Georgia Tech, UNC, Duke, Virginia, and Pittsburgh are all good schools, but I'm not sure how they're better (or "obvious[ly] better") than a group that includes UC-Berkeley, Stanford, UCLA, Washington, and UC-Boulder.

Well I'm just talking averages rather than the best of each. Washington State, Oregon State, the Arizona schools -- not awful or anything, but Louisville is the only ACC down that low.

A few years ago I had a huge spreadsheet of every conference and their USNWR rankings. I ought to refresh that.

Hmm, I had no idea that Miami and Wake Forest were ranked as high as they are (insofar as USNWR rankings should be trusted... but, of course, we're talking "prestigious", and pointless peer rankings are probably not a terrible stand-in for "prestige").  Interesting.

[ilikeverin]

Even with Maryland dragging it down, the Big 10

Your information's out of date, Grumps; you must have lived in the Mid-Atlantic sometime before about 10 years ago.  (Insert caveats here), Maryland (#62) is between The Ohio State (#54) and Iowa (#71) in USNWR rankings, just to pick a couple of random Big Ten schools.  Nebraska (#99) is the lowest I could find in the Big Ten... the other Big Ten schools were so skeptical of its prospects that it almost wasn't invited to aforementioned CIC:

Big 10 and ACC (sans Louisville) are the obvious answers.

The other 3 are all fine, but have members that drag them down.


Of course it's important to remember that these conferences are primarily athletic conferences, so the proper way to compare them is athletically.

True, but academics and big time research are critical to the Big Ten.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Institutional_Cooperation

[ilikeverin]

Even with Maryland dragging it down, the Big 10

Your information's out of date, Grumps; you must have lived in the Mid-Atlantic sometime before about 10 years ago.  (Insert caveats here), Maryland (#62) is between The Ohio State (#54) and Iowa (#71) in USNWR rankings, just to pick a couple of random Big Ten schools.  Nebraska (#99) is the lowest I could find in the Big Ten... the other Big Ten schools were so skeptical of its prospects that it almost wasn't invited to aforementioned CIC:

Probably not out of date, my friend, but like most things you relate to someting personal in your life when you can.  I don't have much nice to say about those in College Park, except you and Xahar are probably the two smartest there, so that's something good.   

If you insist *hughughug*  To be fair, I also have very little nice to say about the City of College Park.