The Gaucho Manifesto #2

If there is one thing that bothers me about UCSB's reputation, it's the fact that people only know it as a party school. I won't disagree because I think the Gauchos can rage with the best of them.



However, it bugs me that people won't give UCSB its academic due. This leads us to explore reason #2 as to why the Gauchos should never ever lose the Big West's bid to the NCAA tournament, academics.



I'm currently in my second year of law school, and, if you don't know, rankings are a big deal to law students. Specifically, the rankings of US News & World Reports. The higher your school is rated, the more likely you are to get a high paying job when you graduate. On the other hand, most people in the legal world seem to agree that these rankings are not accurate reflections of a law school. These are the people who attempt to convince US News to stop their rankings because it's unfair. These people also realize (at least I hope they do), that US News will never ever stop these rankings.

Now, I'm not naive enough to believe that undergraduates student don't check the US News & World Report for academic rankings. As a result, you can't turn a blind eye to them because Students still do look at them. Also, I think most would agree that the rankings do a good job of getting most schools in approximately the right area. This long winded explanation brings me to UCSB's academics.

UCSB consistently ranks in the Top 50 of the US News & World Report's rankings of the Top National Universities. We have great academics. The unfortunate problem is that most people only associate UCSB with a good time and a great party. That is true. Also, we're a fine academic institution.

We have a great Engineering Department, our science program is rated consistently high, and we even have a Nobel prize winner in the Economics department.

As most Gaucho alumni believe/realize, most of the kids we're recruiting for the basketball program aren't usually legitimate prospects for the NBA. A good number will get to play overseas, but most won't make it to the league. By logic, we can presume that most players want to go to a school with a great academic reputation. UCSB has that for them.

Like all schools, UCSB also has a tutoring program in place for their athletes. Admittedly, it's not as fancy and great as some of the big name schools, it still does the trick. Therefore, these athletes should be able to finish with a nice GPA and 4-5 years of basketball to put on their resume. That can't be bad.

Compared to our competition, only UC-Davis is ranked ahead of us and it's not by much. UC-Irvine is ranked even with UCSB. Cal Poly, while not ranked, has a great reputation among Californians. However, combined with the other reasons, UCSB should have no problem pulling in top notch recruits who want to get a education. This should be another notch on the post for our program.