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50 Top Academic/Athletic Programs

By Mark

Came across an interesting ranking of the fifty top combined academic-athletic college programs in the country as compiled by Stack magazine. Stack is a publication dedicated to high school athletes and features articles on how to improve their performance. It ranked the nation's top Division I colleges on the performance of their entire athletic department and for academic performance used that old standby, the US News and World Report ranking.

Guess who came in first - I have to admit to being surprised. In rankings of this type, my first guess is always either Stanford, the annual winner of the Directors' Cup or UCLA, who seems to field more teams that win more championships than anyone else, Both schools, with Stanford having a clear edge, have the academic ranking to boot - Stanford being number 4 in US News. But, no, t'was not to be as UNC came out the winner, buoyed by its number one rankings in men's and women's basketball and baseball and three other top five rankings to beat out Texas. Stanford was third followed by UCLA, with Duke fifth. The full list can be found here. It must really eat at the Blue Devils to see UNC number one, especially in a ranking that includes academics.

By the way fellow Cat fans, Northwestern came in tied for 23 with a Florida State - it would have been even higher if Stack had included women's lacrosse in its numbers. NU, after all, is the home of the three-time defending national champs.

Full post as published by Sports Biz on December 04, 2007 (boomark / email).