Back in March 2005, I was interested in which top academic colleges also had good baseball programs. I first listed all Tier 1 and 2 national undergraduate colleges, as ranked in 2005 by U.S. News & World Report. (Tier 1 national colleges are roughly the top 50% of accredited 4-year colleges in the United States.) I then filtered out all colleges that were not ranked by the Sports Weekly/ESPN College Coaches Division I Baseball Poll as of March 28, 2005. This poll ranks the top 25 Division I college baseball programs, plus other programs receiving votes. Shown below are all colleges that are both ranked academically in Tier I among national colleges and ranked among the 39 top Division I baseball programs. Shown are the academic rankings, the baseball rankings, and the academic and baseball rankings combined. The colleges are shown in order of their combined rankings. You can click on the college name for the U.S. News web site for that college.
The academic rankings are found here. The baseball rankings are found here. (Note: The rankings currently reported have been updated; they are not the ramkings I used in my original project.)
UPDATE: I've updated the ranking as of August 19, 2005. The new U.S. News college rankings are out, and the college world series is over, so college baseball rankings are final. The final, revised rankings are below. If you want to see my original rankings, go here.
|
College |
Academic Rank |
Baseball Rank |
Combined Rank |
|
| Rice University (TX) | 17 | 11 | 28 | |
| Stanford University | 5 | 30 | 35 | |
| University of Southern California | 30 | 15 | 45 | |
| Tulane University (LA) | 43 | 3 | 46 | |
| Georgia Institute of Technology * | 37 | 10 | 47 | |
| University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill * | 27 | 22 | 49 | |
| University of Florida * | 50 | 2 | 52 | |
| University of Texas – Austin * | 52 | 1 | 53 | |
| University of California * | 20 | 37 | 57 | |
| University of Miami (FL) | 55 | 13 | 68 | |
| Baylor University (TX) | 78 | 4 | 82 | |
| University of Washington * | 45 | 39 | 84 | |
| Pepperdine University | 34 | 55 | 89 | |
| Clemson University (SC) * | 78 | 16 | 94 | |
| University of Tennessee * | 85 | 9 | 94 | |
| University of Nebraska – Lincoln * | 97 | 6 | 103 | |
| University of Arizona * | 97 | 17 | 114 | |
| Auburn University (AL) * | 85 | 38 | 123 | |
| Florida State University * | 109 | 14 | 123 | |
| University of Alabama * | 104 | 24 | 128 | |
| Texas Christian University | 97 | 32 | 129 | |
| University of South Carolina – Columbia * | 109 | 21 | 130 | |
| * means public school |
Created by Wes Parsons, April 3, 2005, revised August 19, 2005.