OT - University Academic rankings released

US News just dropped their annual rankings for universities. In the past, you kind of had to take these US News rankings with a whole spoonful of salt, forget just the grain, because they were so easily gamed by universities looking to boost their ranking. UAT famously upped their selectivity ranking for a few years (before US News changed the criteria) by making their admissions process all but free and offering a $5 iTunes gift card to any kid who applied. They also did a lot of things straight out of Saban's recruiting book like literally paying elite students to come there while admitting marginal kids as "provisional freshmen" so as to avoid counting them against their average ACT/SAT/Class rank. They weren't the only university doing this, but they were among the best at it. AU would not even consider it, and UAT caught and even briefly passed us in the rankings for a few years there. There are still some things AU could do that are done by institutions in the top tier, but we stubbornly refuse to. We probably leave 10-20 spots on the table because of that.

Here's a list of SEC schools and their peers around the South, link to full list at the bottom. For reference, there are 439 universities in this category, which places AU in the top quarter. Top 10% - ie, top 40 or so - should be our goal. Out of current and future SEC members, Vandy, UF, and Texas make that cut with UGA and ATM knocking on the door.

#7 Duke
#18 Vanderbilt
#28 Florida
#24 UVA
#32 UT Austin
#33 GA Tech
#47 UGA
#47 TX A&M
#53 Florida St
#73 Tulane
#86 Clemson
#93 Auburn
#105 Tennessee
#124 Missouri
#124 Oklahoma
#124 South Car
#142 UAB
#159 Kentucky
#163 Mississippi
#170 UAT
#178 Arkansas
#185 LSU
#216 Miss St

Full List