re: Ranking the SEC schools academically?

That's what I don't get. Ranking universities as a sum of parts is fricking worthless at this scale. There's not enough difference to matter in any meaningful way. I'm in architecture at Auburn and I only care about how good that program is. Vandy doesn't have an architecture program, why should I care where Auburn as a whole is ranked in comparison?

It's easy to get National Merit Scholars to go to your school, you just pay them. OU is doing the same thing, they literally pay those kids so much in scholarships they are making a nice income to go there and thus be able to throw out the nice stat. If you think a National Merit Scholar from California really is choosing Bama or OU over Stanford and UC Berkeley because of educational value you are smoking something. It's a smart strategy to get some academic cred because it is a lot easier than getting an extra hundred mill a year in research dollars.

Baylor actually takes the cake in "gaming" the system though. They actually pay their students to retake SAT's after admission and reward them for getting higher scores so they can boost their stats.

It's Vanderbilt and everyone else.

Most SEC schools are BY DESIGN meant to provide an educated workforce for their own state first w/ some regional consideration. Arguments over whether Arkansas is better than Tenn are a joke b/c unless you're applying for a job w/in those states or the HR person taking a look at your app is an alum the person isn't going to assign any greater weight to your education. So UGA grads will have a leg up in ATL, Bama in Birmingham, but neither gets special consideration applying for jobs in NYC.

There are minor differences b/w programs at certain schools (USC has #1 Int'l Biz program in world) but these do not make an appreciable difference on public perception of the school (and shouldn't, b/c the majority of your school's grads don't get a degree in your one or two first class programs).

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according to this Top Schools in the world

Vandy, Florida, Texas A&M, UGA, UK, Missouri, USCe, Auburn, and Arkansas

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typical, List, where they go by names.

There is no way, Wash U, in STL is in the 30's, many of those schools are ranked on name.

I talked to a buddy who goes in the Honors College at Bama and he said the same thing. It apparently always happens after Bama football hits a really good streak, but he was expressing concern about how there's a widening gap between what he saw as the strong academic out-of-state folks and the in-state folks who fail out after a year.

^ Co-signed. Excellent school.

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I was speaking with my Mother last night--she's a former professor at Alabama. She told me that according to some of her friends that still teach at U of A the University is larger than its ever been, more than half of the students are from out of state, professors have received a raise every year for the last four years where other schools in state have not granted a school-wide raise in five. To say revenue is up at the University of Alabama would be an understatement.

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And I was told by a well off alumni that they've grown the size of the undergraduate classes too quickly by accepting students with marginal test scores and grades in what basically amounts to a money grab. The average ACT score for an entering UA freshmen is 22. At Auburn it's a 27. TIFIW

Mizzou gets the "upper echelon" cred because of the AAU status. Fair or unfair, the AAU is considered the gold standard of "Tier 1" status. There are a few elite private schools that are Tier 1 and Non AAU (Notre Dame, Wake Forest, etc.) but that is because they put no emphasis on research.

I also completely agree that most of this stuff is meaningless to the average grad. It comes in to play if you are applying for grad school or for jobs out of state or with prominent companies. In the end though you can get a great education at any school and the mission of a lot of these schools is about serving their state and not academic rankings.

The reason schools care about this stuff though is money. A higher rated school gets more research dollars. AAU membership means more research dollars. Research dollars equals jobs.