Was a great athletics program a factor in choosing schools?
 

It obviously wasn't for me.

But I wonder if certain people cared enough to want to go to a school that was great at *insert sport*.

Wasn't like I set out saying "I prefer Nebraska over Kansas because they're better at football." However, my parents are UNL alumni, and so I was raised being a Husker fan from birth. It definitely made me rule out some schools like Kansas State.

But there were other reasons too.

Yea, I went to Baylor because I LOVE football. :p :p :rolleyes:
(actually I do love football and that kind of sucked)

YES. :D

FIGHT ON!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, this is too funny to me... we have the worse sports teams EVER

Hmmm number 2 ranked creative writing department in the country vs. number 2 ranked football team. I’m happy with my choice.

Not at all - I wanted a school that had a good academic reputation so my diploma would mean something. With cost constraints what they were, financial aid (grants and scholarships) were also big factors.

I was a big UConn fan growing up, so no matter where I went to school I figured I'd still follow UConn basketball. It just turned out my school's sports program wasn't good enough to even make it an issue.

One of my room mates was from Nebraska. They were even worse than Indiana in football.

Things have changed at Nebrsaska football, but Indiana still smells. At least we occasionally have a good basketball team, and men's soccer is top.

Things change, and they stay the same.

Both my parents went to Texas, so I really never knew any other school. There wasn't anywhere else I wanted to go. My grandmother lived right next door to campus and I grew up on the 40 Acres.

Our sports have had good times and bad times. Right now, things are good. But I'm loyal whatever we do.:)

I didn't give a damn, but I know a lot of people who went to UK because they liked the basketball team.

No. I chose Indiana because it has one of the top five journalism schools in the country, and because when I visited the campus I knew that's where I belonged. (At the end it was really between there and American University in DC, not exactly a big sports powerhouse. :D )

Being in the Big Ten is just a side benefit. ;)

Had I actually been an athlete I might have had a different answer, depending on what sport I played.

Not really - each of my top 3 schools were in a different conference! I did want a school with a soccer program, though.

I chose my school because of the creative writing program, too.

I applied to a bunch of different schools but the only Div I schools I applied to were Penn State, Florida State, Virginia Tech, and Pitt. However, my #1 choice was Carniege Mellon, Div III followed by RPI, Penn State, and VT. I ended up at Penn State.

The common denominator: top engineering programs. Of course, I switched out of engineering as a freshman...

Nope. I didn't know what sports Winthrop even had. I am not much of a sports fanatic. The only sport I knew Winthrop had was basketball because they had won the Big South Conference Title for years. Once I got there, I realized they had a tennis, baseball, track, and softball teams. I did know Winthrop's mascot was an eagle. My mom swears I chose Winthrop because of the mascot (sidenote: my fave band is The Eagles, so I guess it does look a bit suspicious.)

Huge Understatement!!!

For example if the Hockey team (mens or women), or the Football team (it might help if they'd won a game in the last 6 years) had more than say 200 random students - not family or friends, alumni, or opposing fans - show to a game, even play-offs it'd be a big thing, heck a huge thing!!!

This from a school of 60000+

Of course there are some exceptions like University Western Ontario or Queens... but they are a huge exception.

When has Nebraska ever been worse than Indiana at football!?! Considering that from 1969 to 2001 we won 9 games a year - every year, and last year was the first year since 1961 we were below .500, unless youre ALOT older than I ever imagined, Nebraska has always been better than IU at football. Even last year we went 5-6 while IU was 3-8.

When I was a senior in high school, I didn't even bother to look at sports. I was looking at tiny Div. II schools (Ohio Dominican and Point Park) and neither were really tops in any sport. At the time, I was split between education and journalism, but went to ODU because it was closer.

When I transfered, I did look at sports, but I didn't let it affect my decision.

Athletics? The running joke at my school was that they'd installed stereo at the football stadium so that you could watch the game on the campus TV channel and hear "both" fans cheering. :p

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Sorry, just thinking that my school of a great athletic program is hilarious. I think our Ultimate Frisbee team can beat our football team.

You guys both realized that the creative writing programs ranked are the grad school programs, right? ;)

Not that there's not going to be some spillover (i.e. usually Lorrie Moore teaches grad classes at my school, but the past few semesters she's taught one section of undergrad advanced fiction too), but on the whole, the ranking of grad schools doesn't necessarily reflect on the undergraduate programs.

At any rate . . . I didn't choose my school for its athletics, but I had football tickets a couple of years and basketball tickets one year, and I definitely enjoy going to games. My college experience wouldn't have been complete without college football game days.

Yeah, but chances are, the cats in said graduate programs are the ones teaching the undergrad writing classes. I'd rather be taught by someone in the best program in the country than someone at Backass State U. Plus there's just the whole awesome creative writing vibe that really pervades all of Iowa City.

HAYLE TO THE NAW!

My application to U.Florida was the biggest waste of $25 ever. I knew I wasn't going; I didn't want a school with a big sports program.

I agree. There is nothing like a Big Ten game. :D

Eh, not really. I work for a lit mag, and thus I get to read submissions from a LOT of grad students or people who have recently graduated from various programs. The Iowa workshop is obviously famous amongst the creative writing set, but the stuff from Iowa grad students really isn't any better than the stuff from those who are in the graduate programs anywhere else. The majority of creative writing graduate programs accept extremely limited number of students per year (most programs have 8-20 students a year -- Iowa is a little different because it is so much bigger, topping out at, I think, 40ish) so once you get to that level, the quality really doesn't vary all that much from program to program. (Of course, that may influence undergrad a little -- with more potential TAs, you could have a wider variety of undergrad classes.) Plus, the acceptance process is sooo arbitrary when compared with almost any other subject. Unlike other programs (med, law, business, etc.), it's very common for people to get accepted to, say, Iowa even though they were denied by Florida (decent program, but lower ranked). Two-thirds the battle is who reads your stuff and what they like.

Plus, as always, just because someone can write doesn't mean they can teach how to write. ;)

Wow I would have never known that if you hadn't told me...

I can’t speak for Iowa but at U of H the undergrads have a unique opportunity, by having access to the unlimited resources of the graduate program.

Nope. But the games were fun anyway.

It wasn't for me (obviously, since I went to Eastern Michigan when they had a 57 game losing streak, which they broke my sophomore year), but I'm highly suspicious of my sports fanatic brother who went to U of Mich (football) and UNC for grad school (basketball). Highly suspicious...

ETA: He started at UNC when Michael Jordan was there.

YES!! In the 5th grade I went to a UK basketball game, saw the UK PEP band and decided I wanted to go to UK and be in the pep band.

So I did, and I was.

Had I not gotten in at UK I would have waited and tried again. I didn't want to go to any other school.