Sports & Selectivity

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Rankings

Probably the biggest exposure I had to colleges before I began studying schools’ academic merits was through collegiate sports. As a college basketball and football junkie in high school, I took seriously the opportunity to root for a competitive sports team – and witness other elite athletic talent – when selecting colleges.

1. Duke University
2. Stanford University
3. University of Michigan
4. University of Notre Dame
5. Northwestern University
6. Vanderbilt University
7. University of Southern California
8. University of California, Berkeley
9. University of Wisconsin, Madison
9. University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
11. University of Virginia
12. Georgia Institute of Technology
12. University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
14. Georgetown University
15. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
16. Boston College
16. University of California, Los Angeles
18. University of Texas, Austin
19. Ohio St. University
19. University of Florida, Gainesville
21. Rice University
22. University of Maryland, College Park
23. Wake Forest University
24. University of Pittsburgh
25. Villanova University

In a small twist, let’s do the same ranking, but eliminate public schools, under the logic that a student is seeking a (in most cases) more intimate learning environment. This ranking illustrates that there is a serious lack of private schools with a major sports scene.

1. Duke University
2. Stanford University
3. University of Notre Dame
4. Northwestern University
5. Vanderbilt University
6. University of Southern California
7. Georgetown University
8. Boston College
9. Rice University
10. Wake Forest University
11. Villanova University
12. Princeton University
12. Yale University
12. Harvard University
15. Columbia University
15. Dartmouth College
17. Davidson College
18. University of Pennsylvania
19. Brown University
19. Cornell University

As you can see, there are essentially 11 private schools that compete in a major conference in either basketball or football (Rice is a technicality, as it competes in mid-major conferences, but has a powerful baseball team). After that, the Ivy League sneaks in due to its Division I basketball status along with Davidson College, which likewise is Division I. Neither the Ivy League nor the Southern Conference (Davidson) is a particularly competitive conference. Thus there is a huge disparity between #11 and #12 in this ranking.

This ranking is a basic approximation of access to elite level sports combined with basic admission selectivity. I subjectively assigned scores to each school for this “approximation of access to elite level sports” based on conference affiliation and recent success in football and men’s basketball (I’m ashamed of my failings as a feminist here). According 2/3 of the ranking weight to this score and 1/3 to the SAT rank, we have the following Sports & Selectivity rank.