Besides Ivy, do schools with big time sports have higher admissions standards?

[AStudent]

-Ohio State
-Penn State
-Pittsburgh
-MSU
-UMich
-Stanford

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[Medikit]

-Ohio State
-Penn State
-Pittsburgh
-MSU
-UMich
-Stanford

US News should give you a good idea what standards the schools use gradewise

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/med/brief/mdrrank_brief.php

The medical school admissions standards don't have any real direct correlation with the prestige of their respective athletics department.

 

[derf]

I wouldn't necessarily say higher admission standards associated with great athletics, but great athletics helps with the national reputation though.

By the way, here's a quick plug for my school...

SI April 14 Article

 

[automaton]

I wouldn't necessarily say higher admission standards associated with great athletics, but great athletics helps with the national reputation though.

By the way, here's a quick plug for my school...

SI April 14 Article

great article, great avatar.

best quote from article: "frigid northern california"

 

[UCLAstudent]

I wouldn't necessarily say higher admission standards associated with great athletics, but great athletics helps with the national reputation though.

By the way, here's a quick plug for my school...

SI April 14 Article

I like that article.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Does Penn State even have athletic teams?

Oh yeah...that's right. They're an hour and a half away in State College (the medical school is in Hershey).

 

[YzIa]

-Ohio State
-Penn State
-Pittsburgh
-MSU
-UMich
-Stanford

Come on, you've been around here long enough to know better than this.
Mich State, Penn State, SUNY-Upstate (syracuse), Kansas, Kentucky, Florida, Florida State, Illinois, Indiana, Temple, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Texas, Texas Tech, Arizona, among many others are all name sports teams, while the medical schools are not what are considered high admission standards.

Schools like Hopkins, Wash U, Northwestern, UCSF, Vanderbilt, UTSW, UCSD, Case, NYU, UChicago, Baylor, Emory, among others have what are considered high admission standards with sports teams that either are not very good, non existent, or are not division I.

Of course there are some that have both, UMich, Stanford, UCLA, Duke, and UWash to name a few.

As can be reasoned out from this, there is no correlation* between good sports teams and high standards of admissions into medical school.

*not statistically relevant, or is it?

 

[derf]

Schools like Hopkins, Wash U, Northwestern, UCSF, Vanderbilt, UTSW, UCSD, Case, NYU, UChicago, Baylor, Emory, among others have what are considered high admission standards with sports teams that either are not very good, non existant, or are not division I.

Well, actually, UCSD is the only school in Cali that can claim to have never ever lost a football game in their history.





-punch line-










that's because they don't have a football team... sorry, i couldn't resist that one.

 

[Tra La La]

Schools like Hopkins, Wash U, Northwestern, UCSF, Vanderbilt, UTSW, UCSD, Case, NYU, UChicago, Baylor, Emory, among others have what are considered high admission standards with sports teams that either are not very good, non existent, or are not division I.

I thought that UCSF was a D-I powerhouse.

 

[DrBowtie]

Don't forget Louisville in that list. I do believe we were 3rd in Basketball and 6th in Football this year.

You can put them whereever in the admissions standards list but they need to be listed somewhere.

Also most of the schools listed as poor sports schools are private schools. This probably has to do with athletic funding and recruitment than anything else.

 

[patzan]

No one has mentioned USC yet, so I thought I'd throw it in...but I think Duke takes the cake.

EDIT: additional question: I was once told that Stanford has more NCAA championships (over all sports) than anyone else. Can anyone confirm this? (not in the mood to google it). Pretty good med school, too, I hear.

 

[Tra La La]

No one has mentioned USC yet, so I thought I'd throw it in...but I think Duke takes the cake.

Here's my list:

(1) UCLA
(2) Stanford
(3) UCSF

Why do you think Duke is tops?

 

[criminallyinane]

SUNY-Upstate (syracuse)

SUNY Upstate has no sports teams. Perhaps you are thinking of the separate Syracuse Univ. down the road.

 

[Biscuit799]

College athletics is a "rich get richer" environment. You need funding from alums, retail sales, and sold out stadiums to fund a talented coach and spend all year recruiting. Thus, the high population state schools are generally the most competitive athletic teams. And although YzIa is wrong (some of the "lower standards" schools you mentioned are right up there in terms of reputation with some of the "higher standard" schools), many public schools are viewed as academically inferior (deserved or not, that call is not the point of my post).

 

[derf]

No one has mentioned USC yet, so I thought I'd throw it in...but I think Duke takes the cake.

EDIT: additional question: I was once told that Stanford has more NCAA championships (over all sports) than anyone else. Can anyone confirm this? (not in the mood to google it). Pretty good med school, too, I hear.

UCLA Bruins lead nation with 95 NCAA team championships

Bruin Power!

 

[YzIa]

College athletics is a "rich get richer" environment. You need funding from alums, retail sales, and sold out stadiums to fund a talented coach and spend all year recruiting. Thus, the high population state schools are generally the most competitive athletic teams. And although YzIa is wrong (some of the "lower standards" schools you mentioned are right up there in terms of reputation with some of the "higher standard" schools), many public schools are viewed as academically inferior (deserved or not, that call is not the point of my post).

Exactly which schools did I classify wrong, besides the syracuse screw up? Because none of the schools I mentioned in the "lower" or "higher" are similar in reputation to the other group.

Of the lower I mentioned Indiana, Illinois, Florida, and Texas? (I get most of the Tx med schools mixed up) are probably the better medical schools, but they don't approach the reputation of any of the "top 20/elite" med schools. This post is about selectivity and as you said a lot of the great athletic programs are state universities. These universities are typically less competitive because they give great preference to instate (I don't think we can include out of state applicants in this discussion for schools that accept less than one third of the class as out of state) except in exceptions such as the Cali schools, Wash, Mich, etc. which are extremely competitive. Looking at stats of the schools I mentioned, most have MCAT scores under 31, many close to 29-30, lower expectations, while the ones I listed as more competitive have average MCAT scores mostly above 33. Also, of the schools I listed as less, only 2 are ranked in top 50 in research (which is probably as accurate a way to measure this as there is, sadly), and they both make the list in the 40s. All of the higher expectations list come from the top 20 except NYU, which is still very competitive.

 

[Stanford_Playah]

UCLA Bruins lead nation with 95 NCAA team championships

Bruin Power!

It's a little unfair for compare the typical Stanford athlete with the typical UCLA athlete. The academic standards for admission at Stanford are much higher for the athletes than at UCLA or UC Berkeley. If you're ranking schools by both academics and athletics, most people would agree that Stanford is at the top. Duke is probably close behind in the minds of many, although they don't have nearly as many titles.

 

[Tra La La]

It's a little unfair for compare the typical Stanford athlete with the typical UCLA athlete. The academic standards for admission at Stanford are much higher for the athletes than at UCLA or UC Berkeley. If you're ranking schools by both academics and athletics, most people would agree that Stanford is at the top. Duke is probably close behind in the minds of many, although they don't have nearly as many titles.

Do student athletes entering at Stanford and Duke really have superior academic records than those at UCLA and Cal?

 

[YzIa]

Do student athletes entering at Stanford and Duke really have superior academic records than those at UCLA and Cal?

I sort of doubt that Duke's basketball team meets the standards of typical Duke students. Really I guess I don't know though, the only time I have heard of a school requiring its athletes to be on academic par with a rigorous undergrad besides the Ivys is Notre Dame. We've all seen the effects that has had on the football program recently.

 

[derf]

It's a little unfair for compare the typical Stanford athlete with the typical UCLA athlete. The academic standards for admission at Stanford are much higher for the athletes than at UCLA or UC Berkeley. If you're ranking schools by both academics and athletics, most people would agree that Stanford is at the top. Duke is probably close behind in the minds of many, although they don't have nearly as many titles.

I'm a big recruiting guru and have many sources in that field. UCLA tends to be in the top 5 every year in terms of admission entrance/difficulty for athletes. As if one couldn't tell by examining our football and basketball programs recently. Notre Dame, Duke, Stanford all rank highly also. Teams that I assumed would rank highly, like Umich, were actually lower than I thought. But UCLA is right up there with you guys in this criteria.

And by the way, UCLA is #1 in both academics and athletics. see link below. show me an equivilent stanford claim.

#1 Combined Programs

 

[AStudent]

Anyone who takes a shot at UMich is okay in my book

I'm a big recruiting guru and have many sources in that field. UCLA tends to be in the top 5 every year in terms of admission entrance/difficulty for athletes. As if one couldn't tell by examining our football and basketball programs recently. Notre Dame, Duke, Stanford all rank highly also. Teams that I assumed would rank highly, like Umich, were actually lower than I thought. But UCLA is right up there with you guys in this criteria.

And by the way, UCLA is #1 in both academics and athletics. see link below. show me an equivilent stanford claim.

#1 Combined Programs

 

[Stanford_Playah]

Do student athletes entering at Stanford and Duke really have superior academic records than those at UCLA and Cal?

As far as Stanford goes, I don't think there is any question about it. You certainly don't have people getting a 1000 on the SAT playing on the basketball and football teams here (which is why the football program is pathetic), but I personally know a few academically mediocre people who went to UCLA and Berkeley from high school. I think the best students at Berkeley and Stanford are probably comparable, but the difference is that almost everyone at Stanford has a decent academic record whereas the spread is a lot larger in the UC's and athletes there are usually at the tail end of it. I haven't met a single athlete here whom I would not consider intelligent and hard-working, but I know athletes at the UC's that are neither. I think this is pretty obvious if you know people who go to both the UC's and Stanford, unless of course you're from one of the UC's and despise Stanford.

 

[derf]

Do student athletes entering at Stanford and Duke really have superior academic records than those at UCLA and Cal?

Cal and Stanford do have very similar admission criteria for athletes with UCLA and other similar schools really not that much different. Notre Dame is the most difficult for athletes.

 

[Stanford_Playah]

I'm a big recruiting guru and have many sources in that field. UCLA tends to be in the top 5 every year in terms of admission entrance/difficulty for athletes. As if one couldn't tell by examining our football and basketball programs recently. Notre Dame, Duke, Stanford all rank highly also. Teams that I assumed would rank highly, like Umich, were actually lower than I thought. But UCLA is right up there with you guys in this criteria.

And by the way, UCLA is #1 in both academics and athletics. see link below. show me an equivilent stanford claim.

#1 Combined Programs

Since the basis for the claim (in a completely unbiased UCLA newspaper I might add!) is the Director's Cup, I'll turn the tables right around on you and give you an unbiased source:

http://www.answers.com/topic/nacda-director-s-cup

In fact, I'd like you to show me where it says UCLA is in the top 5 in entrance difficulty for athletes. I would be shocked if they're even above Berkeley in that department.

 

[automaton]

Since the basis for the claim (in a completely unbiased UCLA newspaper I might add!) is the Director's Cup, I'll turn the tables right around on you and give you an unbiased source:

http://www.answers.com/topic/nacda-director-s-cup

In fact, I'd like you to show me where it says UCLA is in the top 5 in entrance difficulty for athletes. I would be shocked if they're even above Berkeley in that department.

owned

 

[derf]

Since the basis for the claim (in a completely unbiased UCLA newspaper I might add!) is the Director's Cup, I'll turn the tables right around on you and give you an unbiased source:

http://www.answers.com/topic/nacda-director-s-cup

In fact, I'd like you to show me where it says UCLA is in the top 5 in entrance difficulty for athletes. I would be shocked if they're even above Berkeley in that department.

nice job redirecting the question. I'm not arguing the success that Stanford enjoyed over the past few years, just that UCLA is the best and most successful athletic program and best combined program.

1 UCLA: 95
2 Stanford: 89
3 Southern California: 83
4 Oklahoma State: 45
5 Arkansas: 40
6 LSU: 40
7 Texas: 36
8 Michigan: 31
9 North Carolina: 30
10 Penn State: 30

read it and WEEP

 

[Stanford_Playah]

nice job redirecting the question. I'm not arguing the success that Stanford enjoyed over the past few years, just that UCLA is the best and most successful athletic program and best combined program.

1 UCLA: 95
2 Stanford: 89
3 Southern California: 83
4 Oklahoma State: 45
5 Arkansas: 40
6 LSU: 40
7 Texas: 36
8 Michigan: 31
9 North Carolina: 30
10 Penn State: 30

read it and WEEP

According to the UCLA student-run newspaper again?

The Director's Cup is the gold standard for overall athletic excellence. So your claim that UCLA is the best for academics and athletics combined rests on UCLA being better academically than Stanford.

 

[Tra La La]

Face it: both UCLA and Stanford are the ****.

 

[automaton]

Stanford is a great school academically and athletically, there is no doubt about that. UCLA is not far behind, plus it's not in "frigid Northern California."

 

[Haybrant]

please guys; this whole stanford vs. UC thing has been done many a time over on SDN;

one question tho: who really cares about the ultimate frisbee championship, or the pogo stick championship; it's all about football and basketball, and unless im wrong I think UCLA takes the cake on that (the Wizard of Westwood has got to be the best nickname ever!)

 

[willthatsall]

Schools like Hopkins, Wash U, Northwestern, UCSF, Vanderbilt, UTSW, UCSD, Case, NYU, UChicago, Baylor, Emory, among others have what are considered high admission standards with sports teams that either are not very good, non existent, or are not division I.

Vanderbilt, Northwestern, and Baylor are all DI and play in major conferences. The others in that list are not comparable at all. Oh, and Baylor just won the national championship in basketball...women's basketball. Respect Title IX.

 

[YzIa]

Vanderbilt, Northwestern, and Baylor are all DI and play in major conferences. The others in that list are not comparable at all. Oh, and Baylor just won the national championship in basketball...women's basketball. Respect Title IX.

Baylor University won a national championship, Baylor College has a top medical school.

Vanderbilt and NWU do not have overall good sports programs in their respective conferences or on the national level. Especially when talking about the major sports. = Pertaining to this thread. These two programs are on a different level than the other schools I mentioned, but are not strong sports programs.

I originally said the schools either weren't very good teams, weren't D1, or weren't there at all. All of the schools I mentioned fit into one of the categories, and I included schools from each of the categories. It was intentional to include some well know schools with eh D1 sports programs as well (which is why NWU and Vandy were mentioned).

 

[Biscuit799]

Exactly which schools did I classify wrong, besides the syracuse screw up? Because none of the schools I mentioned in the "lower" or "higher" are similar in reputation to the other group.

Of the lower I mentioned Indiana, Illinois, Florida, and Texas? (I get most of the Tx med schools mixed up) are probably the better medical schools, but they don't approach the reputation of any of the "top 20/elite" med schools. This post is about selectivity and as you said a lot of the great athletic programs are state universities. These universities are typically less competitive because they give great preference to instate (I don't think we can include out of state applicants in this discussion for schools that accept less than one third of the class as out of state) except in exceptions such as the Cali schools, Wash, Mich, etc. which are extremely competitive. Looking at stats of the schools I mentioned, most have MCAT scores under 31, many close to 29-30, lower expectations, while the ones I listed as more competitive have average MCAT scores mostly above 33. Also, of the schools I listed as less, only 2 are ranked in top 50 in research (which is probably as accurate a way to measure this as there is, sadly), and they both make the list in the 40s. All of the higher expectations list come from the top 20 except NYU, which is still very competitive.

I'm sorry, I re-read my post and i didn't mean to put you on such a defensive. I was merely trying (in my own, poorly worded way) to convey that many of these schools (i.e. Florida, Illinois, Indiana) do have very good if not great academic reputations, and if I'm not mistaken, as recently as 2 years ago, UF was ranked only slightly below Baylor...certainly not lower enough to warrant inferiority. There seems to be a real elitism amongst many memebers of this forum, and while it is true that many schools have more stringent academic standards for entrance, those schools are not inherently better than any other school. I can tell you right now I never would have fit in at Yale. People seem quick to jump to the US News Research rankings, while the Primary Care rankings are just as valid, more so if you don't want to go into research. And as many posters since my last comments were made mentioned, Stanford, UMich, UCLA, Notre Dame (no med school but academically competitive) have some of the best sports programs in the nation. In fact I'd like to ammend my earlier remarks, because in general, the OP may have been right.

 

[YzIa]

I'm sorry, I re-read my post and i didn't mean to put you on such a defensive. I was merely trying (in my own, poorly worded way) to convey that many of these schools (i.e. Florida, Illinois, Indiana) do have very good if not great academic reputations, and if I'm not mistaken, as recently as 2 years ago, UF was ranked only slightly below Baylor...certainly not lower enough to warrant inferiority. There seems to be a real elitism amongst many memebers of this forum, and while it is true that many schools have more stringent academic standards for entrance, those schools are not inherently better than any other school. I can tell you right now I never would have fit in at Yale. People seem quick to jump to the US News Research rankings, while the Primary Care rankings are just as valid, more so if you don't want to go into research. And as many posters since my last comments were made mentioned, Stanford, UMich, UCLA, Notre Dame (no med school but academically competitive) have some of the best sports programs in the nation. In fact I'd like to ammend my earlier remarks, because in general, the OP may have been right.

Just two things I wanted to correct, UFlorida has never been ranked near Baylor in USNews Research rankings, and PC rankings are mostly useless because the main difference between that ranking and the research ranking is removing research funding and replacing it with % entering primary care.
In effect, it is removing funding which leads to medical advancements and innovation, which makes it advantageous to attend such a university (whether or not you are interested in research), and replaces it with the % of the class entering the least competitive specialties (primary care). In my eyes, there is no reason to consider that a good thing (while not necessarily bad either), which is why the Research rankings are used to measure rank and prestige and the PC rankings are used to soak up chemical spills in the labs of research schools.

 

[Biscuit799]

Just two things I wanted to correct, UFlorida has never been ranked near Baylor in USNews Research rankings, and PC rankings are mostly useless because the main difference between that ranking and the research ranking is removing research funding and replacing it with % entering primary care.
In effect, it is removing funding which leads to medical advancements and innovation, which makes it advantageous to attend such a university (whether or not you are interested in research), and replaces it with the % of the class entering the least competitive specialties (primary care). In my eyes, there is no reason to consider that a good thing (while not necessarily bad either), which is why the Research rankings are used to measure rank and prestige and the PC rankings are used to soak up chemical spills in the labs of research schools.

Well now you're getting into the validity of the rankings, which has been addressed in many other threads. The PC rankings show which schools are dedicated to training clinicians. Maybe that doesn't mean much in your eyes, but ask patients if they'd rather have a great clinician or great researcher. If you want to focus on research then that's great, go to a top notch research school, then knock yourself out. But the reason they are presitgious is only because of money, they get the big research dollars. If you think you'll be a better doctor because of what school you went to, you're sorely mistaken. Most of the schools not listed on the research rankings are the schools that provide earlier patient contact and more opportunities for actual healthcare experiences (i.e. preceptorships, community clinics, etc.). For those of us that think sitting in a lab for 9 hours is a punishment worse than death, then the primary rankings are (at least) as valuable as the research rankings.

 

[Biscuit799]

My apologies to the OP

more to the topic...

I've actually heard a study referenced where undergrad schools with big name sports are, on average, harder to get into. Prospective students think they'll have more fun at a big name sports school, plus there's name recognition that schools without big sports names don't have. Thus more students want to go there, naturally making admissions standards higher. For example, in Florida, the toughest schools to get into are FSU and UF, where as FIU, FAU, Gulf Coast, etc. all are part of the same state system but are much easier to get into.

 

[willthatsall]

nice job redirecting the question. I'm not arguing the success that Stanford enjoyed over the past few years, just that UCLA is the best and most successful athletic program and best combined program.

1 UCLA: 95
2 Stanford: 89
3 Southern California: 83
4 Oklahoma State: 45
5 Arkansas: 40
6 LSU: 40
7 Texas: 36
8 Michigan: 31
9 North Carolina: 30
10 Penn State: 30

read it and WEEP

A couple years ago, Sports Illustrated ranked every Division I school according to overall success and Stanford and Texas were the top 2, although I can't remember in which order. I don't know exactly what rankings system they used either, but it gave more weight to major sports, while still taking overall success into account.

 

[YzIa]

Well now you're getting into the validity of the rankings, which has been addressed in many other threads. The PC rankings show which schools are dedicated to training clinicians. Maybe that doesn't mean much in your eyes, but ask patients if they'd rather have a great clinician or great researcher. If you want to focus on research then that's great, go to a top notch research school, then knock yourself out. But the reason they are presitgious is only because of money, they get the big research dollars. If you think you'll be a better doctor because of what school you went to, you're sorely mistaken. Most of the schools not listed on the research rankings are the schools that provide earlier patient contact and more opportunities for actual healthcare experiences (i.e. preceptorships, community clinics, etc.). For those of us that think sitting in a lab for 9 hours is a punishment worse than death, then the primary rankings are (at least) as valuable as the research rankings.

I guess that I fail to make the connection between what the PC rankings evaluate on in regards to the quality of the training of clinicians because the amount of grads going into PC doesn't reflect that. Clinical trainings is applicable to all speciaties, well almost all. While the peer/residency evaluations are a good indicator, too much of the rankings are based on poor criteria in my opinion. To each there own.

 

[patzan]

Here's my list:

(1) UCLA
(2) Stanford
(3) UCSF

Why do you think Duke is tops?

I guess it's a tie between Duke and Stanford for me. Both great sports and great med schools. UCLA has had good big time sports in the past (70s and 80s), less recently. And what is UCSF good in besides med school?

EDIT: For the record, Vandy never claimed to have good athletics.

 

[USCTex]

nice job redirecting the question. I'm not arguing the success that Stanford enjoyed over the past few years, just that UCLA is the best and most successful athletic program and best combined program.

1 UCLA: 95
2 Stanford: 89
3 Southern California: 83
4 Oklahoma State: 45
5 Arkansas: 40
6 LSU: 40
7 Texas: 36
8 Michigan: 31
9 North Carolina: 30
10 Penn State: 30

read it and WEEP

Live in the present. John Wooden is gone.
Actually, I'm just jealous that I'm stuck here in downtown near south central instead of westwood...

For real though, success in sports such as water polo, women's golf, etc. don't hold a lot of prestige. They don't generate any money for the school and indeed cost the schools to maintain them. Victory in these lower tier sports certainly doesn't elicit a whole lot of alumni donations.

Meanwhile, success in one of the big sports -- football, basketball, etc. -- not only brings in more booster donations but can also increase general alumni giving even for graduate programs.