which college athletic conference is most academically presitgious?

[Хahar 🤔]

College Park is of course a dump, but it's also home.

As for the question at hand, of course the answer is the Big Ten. Everyone on campus (myself included) makes fun of the university for its obsession with making everything about the Big Ten, but it does matter.

The Pac-12 and ACC are both very top-heavy, although if the ACC today had the same composition as in the '80s (Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Duke, Wake Forest, Clemson, Georgia Tech), it would come the closest to giving the Big Ten a run for its money. The Big 12 is Texas + others, and the SEC has Vanderbilt but is notable in that it has no particularly outstanding public schools. If it still had Georgia Tech and Tulane it would be closer to the second tier.