RebKell's Junkie Boards

[summertime blues]

I stumbled across this and found it interesting. Of course it includes all sports and isn't exactly weighted, but I thought I'd throw it out for discussion. Lots of DIII schools in the mix and I think a few DIIs also. http://www.stack.com/2015/04/20/best-colleges-for-female-athletes/?utm_source=yahoo

_________________
Don't take life so serious. It ain't nohows permanent.
It takes 3 years to build a team and 7 to build a program.--Conventional Wisdom

[Dennis1361]

It is a meaningless piece and weighs athletic performance too heavily and it devalues academic excellence

[ladydawgs96]

[calbearman76]

I give this study high marks for clarity in methodology. The study is a part of an overall study on the best schools for athletes overall and takes into account a variety of academic and athletic measures, each weighted 50%. I had a little problem in finding exactly how the study was narrowed to female or male athletes, but I assume that they only included those factors as they applied to either men or women.

As with most studies of this type, the problem is the methodology itself. The academic side is a bunch of general statistics and a 10% weight for a student survey, which appears to be the centerpiece of this effort. The athletic side is where the study really breaks down.
---32% of the athletic side is from the student survey.
---15% relates to an overall championship score based on 8 sports, including 3 women's sports (basketball, softball and soccer) for the past 15 years. Division 1 championships are given a 3X multiplier, which is how UConn gets to 21 championships.
---25% relates to football and men's basketball attendance. (I could not find if any attendance figures were substituted for the women's calculation.)
---18% relates to the championships and attendance of the school's conference.
---10% relates to student participation in varsity sports (5% each for men and women).

Despite some type of normalizing (which I didn't take the time to understand) the overall impact was to dramatically overweight teams that actually won national titles in one of three sports. The top 9 schools all won multiple titles but that says little about whether the school is good for female athletes in general. Arizona (4th) and Arizona State (9th) are in the top 10 due to softball championships, even though they have the two lowest participation rates for women in the top 50.

There may be some good information buried within the data but the ratings are only as good as the methodology used, and this one isn't too good. But unlike most ratings of this type, at least the authors provided the methodology to see why the outcome was flawed.

[FS02]

In addition to program performance, and academics (of course) I'd heavily weigh how many players go on to play professionally, or have a career in coaching or something to do with their sport.

I don't see how the attendance at other sports on campus is that relevant. And you have to look at all women's sports, not just the ones you consider important for whatever reason.

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@dtmears2

[summertime blues]

[Fighting Artichoke]

[ladydawgs96]

[ArtBest23]

Pretty arbitrary to only count three sports and then extrapolate it to the entire women's program.

Stanford has 45 NCAA Women's championships. UCLA has 39, UNC 29, LSU 25, Texas 23. Why should most of those not count?

And really, is a schools that sends multiple women's teams with perhaps over a hundred athletes to the NCAA tournaments each year in multiple sports a "worse" destination for women's athletics than one which is really good in one sport involving 15 or fewer players each year?

This claims to be the best schools "For Female Athletes", not just for basketball. So by their logic, women participating in track and field, tennis, lacrosse, swimming and diving, hockey, etc., aren't "athletes"?

I think the 3x multiplier is a huge distortion. When combined with the "we're only counting three sports" it renders this meaningless. And that's before you even discuss what the proper balance between academics and athletics should be in ranking the "best" schools for women athletes.

Personally, I think it's pretty hard to get past Stanford's academic rank together with its overwhelming lead in NCAA Women's championships. I doubt there's a rational argument for naming anyone else #1.

[GlennMacGrady]

[ArtBest23]

Well, Stanford won another NCAA Women's title last weekend, winning the golf championship. So make that total 46.

But of course this one, like 40 or more of the others, don't count in this brilliant piece of statistical gymnastics.