(10-13-2015 02:17 PM)MercerCo_BearCat Wrote: (10-13-2015 02:16 PM)HoustonRocks Wrote: Some other AAC schools may be in the AAU someday. Some will never be.
Curious, who have the chance? and who has no chance? I'm a little ignorant on the AAU.
Academic geek warning...
Research budgets will dictate this. There is something to setting academic standard for admissions, graduation rate, etc. (undergrad academic standing). They care about membership in various other organizations, how many PhDs your staff have. How many doctorates you issue. How many awards your faculty gets. Publications (and citations to them). All that fun stuff... But the real kicked for AAU membership is the research budget a school has. And its weighted to National Science Grants (Ag grants count about 50 cent on the dollar).
Tulane's medical school keeps them in the loop. But barely. The big boys of the AAU spend more on research than Tulane has in their entire budget (Tulane $500mil budget, Johns Hopikin's research budget is north of $2 Billion). Tulane pulls in research grants just north of $150mil. Oregon is dead last in the AAU for research dollars, at $110mil.
Nebraska and Syracuse were each asked to leave the AAU because they had less than $100mil in research grants (in Nebraska's defense, they got screwed on the ag grant issue AND their medical school is counted as a separate institution).
Cinci and South Florida both have large research budgets. Cinci with $430mil ($267 in Federal grants) USF with $433mil ($236 Fed). But most of those grants are not the competitive grants the AAU is looking for (National Science Foundation being the key ones). They also have other institutional issues trying to get AAU membership (PhDs granted standing in the academic community, publications, etc.)
UCONN was invited to apply to the AAU in 2013. They have less research dollars than Cinci or USF, but the dollars come from the right place. But at only $80mil in listed research grants, the outcome seems doubtful (unless other research grants aren't including in their budget).
Dartmouth. Georgia. A ton of other schools are trying to get in. Nebraska is trying to get back in (they hope to triple their "acceptable" grants soon). I don't see any other AAC schools with a chance.
Temple isn't a top 100 school and University, isn't selective, and fatally - doesn't have strong graduate programs and a has a tiny research budget ($17mil).
Tulsa and SMU are academically good schools. But Tulsa's total budget is $250mil (with a $1 Bil endowment though!), a disproportional research budget for the size of the school - but not nearly enough to matter. Also, while it is selective, it isn't hyper selective or a world renowned name (maybe in petroleum engineering circles, but...). Ivy league, Rice and Cal Institute of Tech are the only small school members (less than 15k kids) and have all been members for generations.
SMU suffers from the same problems. Not a major research institution.
Navy presents an unusual prospect, but I don't think they give a rats ass about joining the AAU and their goals don't align with each other anyway. Just a different animal.
I don't think any other AAC teams even think of themselves as prospective AAU members. Let alone getting the attention of the AAU itself.
Fun fact: The Big Ten board of presidents said they would not have invited Nebraska if they were not an AAU member. All Big Ten Members, but Nebraska, are AAU members (including non-sports member U Chicago). So in all the "expansion" talk, add "AAU" member to the Big Ten list.