Delany: AAU Membership Required For Admission

[Calamitous]

Sure it failed in the WAC, but no one cared about it on a national level.

Exactly! The WAC was more watered down (no offense to their past member schools) than the B1G or SEC big name programs. The ACC is perched fairly close to the "watered-down" edge of P5 quality school criteria with all the private schools, but even those ACC schools have money to make it work. The PAC and B12 may become watered down if 16 becomes a target number. I often wonder if the PAC and B12 will grow in the foreseeable future, especially if the NCAA grants the B12 a championship game at 10. The PAC seems happy where they are.

I think the PAC would be wise to stop at 12 and maybe B12 wise to stop at 10 (or grow 2 more if forced). Swofford and the aTm administration created this mess IMO, but now the ACC, SEC and B1G are entrenched with 14 schools apiece. As weird as it sounds, they have to go to 16 if they want to keep regional rivalries and play member schools more often. That likely makes the B12 and ACC a target of more poaching in 10 or 12 years, as there aren't many desirable non-P5 choices outside of UConn, Cincinnati and BYU (and there needs to be 3 more desirable schools outside of the P5 to stave off further B12/ACC poaching). FWIW, UConn is probably the only non-P5 school the B1G would go after. The SEC wouldn't be interested in any of them, I don't think. The ACC and B12 might bite though.

 

[HuskyHawk]

If you work in business, medicine or law, you're absolutely right. But it really depends on your line of work. In my line of work (civil/environmental engineering), Ivy league schools don't matter very much. Stanford, Cal-Berkeley, Cal-Davis, Georgia Tech, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Rensselaer Poly, Tufts, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, Illinois, Texas, Michigan, Purdue and even Virginia Tech are the ones grabbing the best job titles and telling me what to do.

It helps most getting into a grad school or professional school. After that, it helps land your first job, and maybe your second. Once you've been in the workplace a few years, it becomes irrelevant. As you correctly point out, schools are evaluated by field of study as well...whether engineering, business etc. The Ivy leagues help most if you plan to pursue a useless liberal arts major and still hope to work someplace other than retail...or to get a next level degree. My UConn degree is irrelevant at this point, and even my Kansas law degree is mostly irrelevant.

 

[Calamitous]

It helps most getting into a grad school or professional school. After that, it helps land your first job, and maybe your second. Once you've been in the workplace a few years, it becomes irrelevant. As you correctly point out, schools are evaluated by field of study as well...whether engineering, business etc. The Ivy leagues help most if you plan to pursue a useless liberal arts major and still hope to work someplace other than retail...or to get a next level degree. My UConn degree is irrelevant at this point, and even my Kansas law degree is mostly irrelevant.

Yup. After your first job, 90% don't even verify your degree and take you at your word. But your degree is good for water cooler banter during football and basketball season.

 

[AZHuskiePop]

Yup. After your first job, 90% don't even verify your degree and take you at your word. But your degree is good for water cooler banter during football and basketball season.

Good post +1

The genie is out of the bottle. No conference is going to voluntarily contract, and no school would be dumb enough to walk away from hundreds of millions of dollars in TV Revenue. 14 is an untenable number for major conferences. It creates unbalanced divisions, and causes teams from opposite divisions to meet less frequently. That is where the idea for 16 or 20 member conferences comes from. Sure it failed in the WAC, but no one cared about it on a national level. What if the P5 pushes through an initiative to allow a semi final round within conferences? What would TV pay for that?

The only reason for P5 conferences to expand is avoid, litigation or at least bad publicity ,by pretending that it is open to all.

 

[upstater]

It helps most getting into a grad school or professional school. After that, it helps land your first job, and maybe your second. Once you've been in the workplace a few years, it becomes irrelevant. As you correctly point out, schools are evaluated by field of study as well...whether engineering, business etc. The Ivy leagues help most if you plan to pursue a useless liberal arts major and still hope to work someplace other than retail...or to get a next level degree. My UConn degree is irrelevant at this point, and even my Kansas law degree is mostly irrelevant.

 

[whaler11]

Shocking revelation that the academic guy is out of touch with reality.

 

[upstater]

Shocking revelation that the academic guy is out of touch with reality.

100% wrong in that post. For one, grad admission committees don't take much stock of either academic pedigree or GPA or GRE. As for what's useless, it's business. Not only over your career, but in the short-term as well, as studies have shown there's very little learned, or added. But go on with your idiotic conventional wisdom.

 

[HuskyHawk]

100% wrong in that post. For one, grad admission committees don't take much stock of either academic pedigree or GPA or GRE. As for what's useless, it's business. Not only over your career, but in the short-term as well, as studies have shown there's very little learned, or added. But go on with your idiotic conventional wisdom.

So I should have gotten into Yale law after all? Who knew? If you don't think professional schools look at undergrad institution and grades, I don't even know what more to say. Now, if you are talking sciences, you might be closer to the mark.

 

[whaler11]

100% wrong in that post. For one, grad admission committees don't take much stock of either academic pedigree or GPA or GRE. As for what's useless, it's business. Not only over your career, but in the short-term as well, as studies have shown there's very little learned, or added. But go on with your idiotic conventional wisdom.

I was commenting on how once most people start working people stop giving a damn where anyone went to school. 95% of careers, once you've had a job or two you stand on your own, nobody cares where you went. It doesn't even come up in the recruiting or interview process.

As for most grad schools I have zero care or respect for what they do. The MBA programs around here are laughable - they give you the grades to get your corporate reimbursement to keep you coming.

 

[upstater]

So I should have gotten into Yale law after all? Who knew? If you don't think professional schools look at undergrad institution and grades, I don't even know what more to say. Now, if you are talking sciences, you might be closer to the mark.

Yes, you're right about professional schools, not all of them, but certainly Med. and Law, perhaps Business too. But elsewhere they are looking at your work and research, perhaps your project.

 

[upstater]

I was commenting on how once most people start working people stop giving a damn where anyone went to school. 95% of careers, once you've had a job or two you stand on your own, nobody cares where you went. It doesn't even come up in the recruiting or interview process.

As for most grad schools I have zero care or respect for what they do. The MBA programs around here are laughable - they give you the grades to get your corporate reimbursement to keep you coming.

The post he made was about a lot of different things. Not only about the irrelevancy of where you went to school (which I agree with, and most of the people I work with would agree with that too). My eyeroll was about what admissions committees care about (they don't care much about pedigree either, even law schools or med. schools). It was also about what constitutes the uselessness of certain degrees.

 

[whaler11]

The post he made was about a lot of different things. Not only about the irrelevancy of where you went to school (which I agree with, and most of the people I work with would agree with that too). My eyeroll was about what admissions committees care about (they don't care much about pedigree either, even law schools or med. schools). It was also about what constitutes the uselessness of certain degrees.

Well then for once we are on the same page.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Yes, you're right about professional schools, not all of them, but certainly Med. and Law, perhaps Business too. But elsewhere they are looking at your work and research, perhaps your project.

Agreed. I am also told that it is less a factor now (due to declining applications for law, med, MBA) than it was in my time (1990 roughly, when I applied). Law school was very hot then, my class was the biggest ever at KU. If you work between undergrad and grad school, that changes everything. It's common for MBAs, and would carry much more weight I expect. Most law students went straight from undergrad, so there was nothing else to evaluate.