re: Ranking the SEC schools academically?

Vandy PhD and professor elsewhere....

Academic rankings aren't meaningless, but their meaning isn't exactly clear either.

If you're talking research, Florida is the best SEC school. Not really close. (I should correct: I haven't looked at A&M on this.)

If you're talking professional schools, Vandy by an even wider margin.

If you mean overall quality of undergrad education, Vandy has smaller classes, smarter students, and (overall) more accomplished professors. I don't know how else you'd measure something like that -- earning is not the answer from an academic's point of view.

Inside academia, we think more about programs than about schools. Who knows? Maybe Ole Miss is #1 in history. (I know they're good.) Carolina is famous for international business.

Finally, they're all fine schools. It's what you make of it. Vandy is probably the only one where you can major in history and still get interviewed for a Wall Street job. I'd imagine your med school chances would be better with a 3.4 from Vandy than with a 3.4 from one of the other schools.