(03-18-2020 11:10 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(03-18-2020 08:53 PM)Statefan Wrote:  Research and development is the life blood and real measuring stick.

Maybe for some things, but not athletic conference affiliation. I mean Notre Dame is #101 and Cal-State San Diego is #7. That pretty much tells us the relationship between NSF rankings and conference value, eh?

Now that we've sorted out this is UC-SD, not SDSU, yeah, academic status is a hurdle to clear, not a driver for an invite.

I saw San Diego up there in the top 20 in the world in the ARWU rankings, and was for a brief moment like, "why aren't there more stories of the PAC-12 looking at San Diego" until I realized, "wait, that's the OTHER San Diego that's in the MWC and was in line for a 1-seed this year."

And while every ranking has to have set criteria, actual academic status is a social process and its more amorphous. Combine the happiness to see a Notre Dame undergrad with a good GPA apply to your program spread across a wide number of fields and top tier law school and business schools, which don't get picked up in NSF rankings and which the ARWU is tilted against picking up, and Notre Dame certainly has good enough academic status to get into any P5 conference in the country.