by fasterpitch92701 » Tue Jan 18, 2011 3:20 pm
The original post was likely meant as a gross generalization. I don't think anyone could answer your question with creating a firestorm. While going to ANY college is "what you make of it", it's reasonable to assume that many colleges, for right or wrong, are perceived (key word.... perceived) as being "more academic". That's doesn't make it "correct", just perceived. If one were to say that Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Yale, Penn, CalTech, Dartmouth, Chicago, Michigan, Princeton... are "more academic" few would argue. Then there is the list of lesser known "more academic" schools.... Amherst, Williams, Middlebury, Kenyon, Wesleyan, Claremont, Tufts, Bowdoin, Brandeis, Pomona.... again, few would argue. If you need more than a 4.35 GPA, 2250 SAT and 34 ACT's... well... that might be an indicator. Is Harvard better than Chico State? I don't know, after all, Paradise is 14.7 miles from Chico!!! Does Florida State have students who can't write at the 2nd grade level? Yes. But... you can get a great education at UC Davis, Wisconsin, Texas, Auburn, Trinity, Iowa, blah, blah, blah. Can you get a lousy education at Harvard? Yes. But, as a gross generalization, some schools are perceived as focusing more on academics than athletics, right or wrong, and some appear... to focus more on athletics than graduating potential Nobel Prize winners in Physics, right or wrong.
I suppose you might have been fishing for a more bombastic response from the OP. Oh well, my apologies for the diatribe. I suppose I could name a school and claim it is a poor academic choice... ahhhh.... lemme see.... ahhhh... OK, USC's softball team sucks so they must be stupid. Oh... no softball team? And they are not stupid... Geez, my bad. Continuing to ponder the unanswerable.