What non-football school is the best in D-I? Pick one or several but give a brief (or detailed if you wish) explanation.

My choice: Denver. They are a consistent powerhouse in hockey, soccer, and lacrosse. They are in a terrific market and have good academics. Should be in a better conference like the WCC or Big East.

According to the 17-18 Learfield Cup:

Denver #47 / #291
Wichita
Pepperdine
Cal State Fullerton
San Francisco
Providence
Pacific
Gonzaga
Long Beach State
UNC Wilmington #123 / #291

and so on

https://nacda.com/documents/2018/7/18//J...df?id=1799

(11-12-2018 04:17 PM)BePcr07 Wrote:  What non-football school is the best in D-I? Pick one or several but give a brief (or detailed if you wish) explanation.

My choice: Denver. They are a consistent powerhouse in hockey, soccer, and lacrosse. They are in a terrific market and have good academics. Should be in a better conference like the WCC or Big East.

I think Denver's lack of success in basketball makes it a difficult sell as the best non-D1 school, even acknowledging everything else. When you don't have football, hoops is what separates the wheat from the chaff.

Georgetown would be the obvious pick if they didn't have non-scholarship football. Otherwise, it's a discussion between Denver, Gonzaga, St. John's and Wichita State, among others, and probably no consensus on a Number 1.

Lord Stanley - I forgot about those rankings but it does show Denver as tops.

Cyniclone - You make a valid point. Given that Georgetown does have football, who would be your #1 if you had to pick someone?

(11-12-2018 04:38 PM)Lord Stanley Wrote:  According to the 17-18 Learfield Cup:

Denver #47 / #291
Wichita
Pepperdine
Cal State Fullerton
San Francisco
Providence
Pacific
Gonzaga
Long Beach State
UNC Wilmington #123 / #291

and so on

https://nacda.com/documents/2018/7/18//J...df?id=1799

All of these could bring back Football. Look at all their success! Football will only make their star brighter.

- DavidSt

(11-12-2018 04:41 PM)BePcr07 Wrote:  Lord Stanley - I forgot about those rankings but it does show Denver as tops.

Cyniclone - You make a valid point. Given that Georgetown does have football, who would be your #1 if you had to pick someone?

Probably Gonzaga, because their basketball (men's and women's) is consistently strong, and basketball is the 800-pound gorilla for non-football sports. Perhaps Marquette or Wichita State. But it's such a nebulous notion, trying to formalize a hierarchy for quality sports schools, that I think you can make reasonable cases for all sorts of programs using all sorts of metrics.

I think Xavier at least deserves an honorable mention, IMO. I forgot Butler had a non-scholly football team.

(11-13-2018 01:53 AM)DawgNBama Wrote:  I think Xavier at least deserves an honorable mention, IMO. I forgot Butler had a non-scholly football team.

If you are going with the academic rankings X is only rated as a regional school, they don't show up in USNWR or similar rankings.

(11-13-2018 07:56 AM)SuperFlyBCat Wrote:  

(11-13-2018 01:53 AM)DawgNBama Wrote:  I think Xavier at least deserves an honorable mention, IMO. I forgot Butler had a non-scholly football team.

If you are going with the academic rankings X is only rated as a regional school, they don't show up in USNWR or similar rankings.

That's more about the school's mission and amount of research it does than anything else, not the quality of education. Gonzaga and Providence are regional universities too, as well as most schools that focus primarily on liberal arts and business.

(11-13-2018 08:23 AM)Bogg Wrote:  

(11-13-2018 07:56 AM)SuperFlyBCat Wrote:  

(11-13-2018 01:53 AM)DawgNBama Wrote:  I think Xavier at least deserves an honorable mention, IMO. I forgot Butler had a non-scholly football team.

If you are going with the academic rankings X is only rated as a regional school, they don't show up in USNWR or similar rankings.

That's more about the school's mission and amount of research it does than anything else, not the quality of education. Gonzaga and Providence are regional universities too, as well as most schools that focus primarily on liberal arts and business.

Not saying I agree with these academic rankings but lots of small enrollment non research schools show up in the national rankings.

I'd say Gonzaga probably would be #1 right now.... The basketball the big reason. Them finally making the final 4 a big reason why.

(11-13-2018 09:11 AM)SuperFlyBCat Wrote:  

(11-13-2018 08:23 AM)Bogg Wrote:  

(11-13-2018 07:56 AM)SuperFlyBCat Wrote:  

(11-13-2018 01:53 AM)DawgNBama Wrote:  I think Xavier at least deserves an honorable mention, IMO. I forgot Butler had a non-scholly football team.

If you are going with the academic rankings X is only rated as a regional school, they don't show up in USNWR or similar rankings.

That's more about the school's mission and amount of research it does than anything else, not the quality of education. Gonzaga and Providence are regional universities too, as well as most schools that focus primarily on liberal arts and business.

Not saying I agree with these academic rankings but lots of small enrollment non research schools show up in the national rankings.

Not really - the National/Regional split is based on research conducted and doctoral degrees offered, not a varsity/jv split where the "best" schools in Regional move up to National and vice versa. Just to use the Northeast as an example, since that's what I'm most familiar with, the #s 1 and 3 regional universities (around #2 Providence) are Fairfield and Bentley, which are regarded as two of the best business schools in the northeast outside of the Ivy League. There are plenty of Regional Universities that are much more competitive than National Universities in the same area.

(11-13-2018 09:35 AM)Bogg Wrote:  

(11-13-2018 09:11 AM)SuperFlyBCat Wrote:  

(11-13-2018 08:23 AM)Bogg Wrote:  

(11-13-2018 07:56 AM)SuperFlyBCat Wrote:  

(11-13-2018 01:53 AM)DawgNBama Wrote:  I think Xavier at least deserves an honorable mention, IMO. I forgot Butler had a non-scholly football team.

If you are going with the academic rankings X is only rated as a regional school, they don't show up in USNWR or similar rankings.

That's more about the school's mission and amount of research it does than anything else, not the quality of education. Gonzaga and Providence are regional universities too, as well as most schools that focus primarily on liberal arts and business.

Not saying I agree with these academic rankings but lots of small enrollment non research schools show up in the national rankings.

Not really - the National/Regional split is based on research conducted and doctoral degrees offered, not a varsity/jv split where the "best" schools in Regional move up to National and vice versa. Just to use the Northeast as an example, since that's what I'm most familiar with, the #s 1 and 3 regional universities (around #2 Providence) are Fairfield and Bentley, which are regarded as two of the best business schools in the northeast outside of the Ivy League. There are plenty of Regional Universities that are much more competitive than National Universities in the same area.

Schools choose their mission based on their quality.

If you are high quality, you choose to be a research school.

What's the difference between Florida Keys Community College, Florida Atlantic University, the University of Florida, and Harvard? All have great teachers. The difference is that FKCC doesn't do research, FAU does mediocre research, Florida does very good research, and Harvard wins Nobel Prizes for their research.

(11-13-2018 09:52 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  Schools choose their mission based on their quality.

Yea, that's not the case. It's almost like the people who do this sort of thing professionally recognized as such and broke different categories out for exactly this reason.

(11-13-2018 09:35 AM)Bogg Wrote:  

(11-13-2018 09:11 AM)SuperFlyBCat Wrote:  

(11-13-2018 08:23 AM)Bogg Wrote:  

(11-13-2018 07:56 AM)SuperFlyBCat Wrote:  

(11-13-2018 01:53 AM)DawgNBama Wrote:  I think Xavier at least deserves an honorable mention, IMO. I forgot Butler had a non-scholly football team.

If you are going with the academic rankings X is only rated as a regional school, they don't show up in USNWR or similar rankings.

That's more about the school's mission and amount of research it does than anything else, not the quality of education. Gonzaga and Providence are regional universities too, as well as most schools that focus primarily on liberal arts and business.

Not saying I agree with these academic rankings but lots of small enrollment non research schools show up in the national rankings.

Not really - the National/Regional split is based on research conducted and doctoral degrees offered, not a varsity/jv split where the "best" schools in Regional move up to National and vice versa. Just to use the Northeast as an example, since that's what I'm most familiar with, the #s 1 and 3 regional universities (around #2 Providence) are Fairfield and Bentley, which are regarded as two of the best business schools in the northeast outside of the Ivy League. There are plenty of Regional Universities that are much more competitive than National Universities in the same area.

I am seeing schools like Clark, Lehigh, Rice, William and Mary, Villanova in the Tier 1 National rankings, do they fit the bold criteria?

(11-13-2018 11:03 AM)SuperFlyBCat Wrote:  

(11-13-2018 09:35 AM)Bogg Wrote:  

(11-13-2018 09:11 AM)SuperFlyBCat Wrote:  

(11-13-2018 08:23 AM)Bogg Wrote:  

(11-13-2018 07:56 AM)SuperFlyBCat Wrote:  If you are going with the academic rankings X is only rated as a regional school, they don't show up in USNWR or similar rankings.

That's more about the school's mission and amount of research it does than anything else, not the quality of education. Gonzaga and Providence are regional universities too, as well as most schools that focus primarily on liberal arts and business.

Not saying I agree with these academic rankings but lots of small enrollment non research schools show up in the national rankings.

Not really - the National/Regional split is based on research conducted and doctoral degrees offered, not a varsity/jv split where the "best" schools in Regional move up to National and vice versa. Just to use the Northeast as an example, since that's what I'm most familiar with, the #s 1 and 3 regional universities (around #2 Providence) are Fairfield and Bentley, which are regarded as two of the best business schools in the northeast outside of the Ivy League. There are plenty of Regional Universities that are much more competitive than National Universities in the same area.

I am seeing schools like Clark, Lehigh, Rice, William and Mary, Villanova in the Tier 1 National rankings, do they fit the bold criteria?

They should, based on US News stated criteria. Scanning school websites they seem to offer a fair number of PhD degrees and talk about their research conducted. Don't know why it would be doubted.

(11-13-2018 11:03 AM)SuperFlyBCat Wrote:  

(11-13-2018 09:35 AM)Bogg Wrote:  

(11-13-2018 09:11 AM)SuperFlyBCat Wrote:  

(11-13-2018 08:23 AM)Bogg Wrote:  

(11-13-2018 07:56 AM)SuperFlyBCat Wrote:  If you are going with the academic rankings X is only rated as a regional school, they don't show up in USNWR or similar rankings.

That's more about the school's mission and amount of research it does than anything else, not the quality of education. Gonzaga and Providence are regional universities too, as well as most schools that focus primarily on liberal arts and business.

Not saying I agree with these academic rankings but lots of small enrollment non research schools show up in the national rankings.

Not really - the National/Regional split is based on research conducted and doctoral degrees offered, not a varsity/jv split where the "best" schools in Regional move up to National and vice versa. Just to use the Northeast as an example, since that's what I'm most familiar with, the #s 1 and 3 regional universities (around #2 Providence) are Fairfield and Bentley, which are regarded as two of the best business schools in the northeast outside of the Ivy League. There are plenty of Regional Universities that are much more competitive than National Universities in the same area.

I am seeing schools like Clark, Lehigh, Rice, William and Mary, Villanova in the Tier 1 National rankings, do they fit the bold criteria?

W&M doesn't have a lot of graduate programs (Though we do have some), but we do have a ton of undergraduate research.

(11-13-2018 10:22 AM)Bogg Wrote:  

(11-13-2018 09:52 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  Schools choose their mission based on their quality.

Yea, that's not the case. It's almost like the people who do this sort of thing professionally recognized as such and broke different categories out for exactly this reason.

I'm guessing that you think quality means "a quality undergraduate education." But that is only a small part of being a quality university.

A university is a triangle of undergraduate education, graduate education, and research. Each side reinforces the others. Research lets you put cutting-edge experts in front of the students. Grad students provide cheap skilled labor. Undergraduates are how research results are passed on to society at large.

A teaching-only institution has professors whose knowledge is 2-3 decades out of date. Students may like their professors, but they don't even realize that the information they're given in their senior year electives is hopelessly outdated.

The primary function of teaching-only institutions is to verify to employers that this student was smart enough to get into college and hard working enough to pass classes. The actual material learned in those classes is irrelevant. Goldman Sachs will hire a 4.0 history major from Dartmouth because Dartmouth only lets smart people in, not because that person learned anything from their university.

High-quality teaching schools are just really high-quality admissions departments.

True, some schools stress different legs of the triangle more than others.

For example: Notre Dame chooses to spend more resources on undergraduate education. Nevertheless, Notre Dame produces high level research, ranking just ahead of Ohio State and Michigan State in the Leiden Rankings (which measures # of highly cited papers published) when adjusting for size. It also ranks 90th in number of doctorates awarded, just ahead of Rice and Case Western.

(11-13-2018 11:26 AM)TDenverFan Wrote:  

(11-13-2018 11:03 AM)SuperFlyBCat Wrote:  

(11-13-2018 09:35 AM)Bogg Wrote:  

(11-13-2018 09:11 AM)SuperFlyBCat Wrote:  

(11-13-2018 08:23 AM)Bogg Wrote:  That's more about the school's mission and amount of research it does than anything else, not the quality of education. Gonzaga and Providence are regional universities too, as well as most schools that focus primarily on liberal arts and business.

Not saying I agree with these academic rankings but lots of small enrollment non research schools show up in the national rankings.

Not really - the National/Regional split is based on research conducted and doctoral degrees offered, not a varsity/jv split where the "best" schools in Regional move up to National and vice versa. Just to use the Northeast as an example, since that's what I'm most familiar with, the #s 1 and 3 regional universities (around #2 Providence) are Fairfield and Bentley, which are regarded as two of the best business schools in the northeast outside of the Ivy League. There are plenty of Regional Universities that are much more competitive than National Universities in the same area.

I am seeing schools like Clark, Lehigh, Rice, William and Mary, Villanova in the Tier 1 National rankings, do they fit the bold criteria?

W&M doesn't have a lot of graduate programs (Though we do have some), but we do have a ton of undergraduate research.

Well there you go.

(11-13-2018 11:28 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  I'm guessing that you think quality means "a quality undergraduate education."
...
Goldman Sachs will hire a 4.0 history major from Dartmouth because Dartmouth only lets smart people in, not because that person learned anything from their university.

If you get a "quality undergraduate education" during your undergraduate studies and leave school with a good job, then the school did everything you needed it to. I personally know multiple people who went to Bentley and stepped right into jobs at major financial/accounting firms after graduation. They weren't hurt in any way by not having a fully fleshed-out Physics department because it had nothing to do with their majors. There's nothing wrong with specializing, and there's nothing inherently more noble about being meh at everything over being really good at a specific few things.