U.S. News releases its yearly university rankings. Everyone tries not to care. The magazine issue flies off racks anyway.

Incestuous bit-point ranking tussles among the top Ivies be damned, the Clog’s more interested in how our own university did in this year’s grad school lists, which follow after the jump. read more »

BusinessWeek released their Best Undergrad B-Schools rankings last week. The usually much-touted Haas School of Business pulled an ass-backward slide from its perennial number three perch to the inglorious No. 11 spot, and all in the space of one year.

What happened, the concerned student may ask? read more »

Cal fans, click on ze linkage. Such a thing was unthinkable before the ass-kicking savior’s reign. Hell, actually beating the Ducks in Oregon was unthinkable before his miracle work.

Are we happy about this? Cal football fans kind of have to be. There are some nagging questions, though. Does our team have an identity? Does Nate Longshore inspire confidence? Is he even healthy? Is the defense actually good? Is Oski a little bit creepy (he reminds us of a certain scene in “The Shining”)?

Our superstitious inclination to eschew early celebration is causing all this sacrilegious questioning. We apologize. Enjoying the moment seems like a logical thing to do. Still, those nagging thoughts of impending USC-delivered doom are currently present. Actually, thoughts be damned. We’re just going to push those out of our sturdy golden domes, and celebrate our No. 3 ranking in the nonsensical world of college football. No. 3, baby!!!

Image Source: Michael Smith, Daily Cal
2007 NCAA Football Rankings - Week 5 [ESPN]

Looks like the UC Board of Regents spotted the financial potential in Haas’ recent climb to the No. 2 spot on the Wall Street Journal’s Survey of Business School Programs. Paying big money to be a slave to the Man just got a tad bit more expensive.

Not even a week after the survey was released, the mysterious Regents who get our tuition checks every month announced their decision to increase UC professional school fees by about $15,000 over the next three years (Clarification: The total fees will increase by $15,000.)

Their main reason? “(T)he fee increases were necessary to maintain quality programs and to stay competitive with other high-ranking institutions,” according to the Daily Cal.

Translation: The University of California would like to attain its rightful place on silly media surveys, which are about as revealing as psychics on the Montel Williams show. Aside from the Wall Street Journal’s Survey, there’s also the controversially simplistic rankings of U.S. News. (These rankings are usually deemed insubstantial; that is, unless one attends the No. 1 Public University in the country.)

Well, the regents may have broken the big-time professional dreams of countless prospective Boalt and Haas students’ moms and dads, but look on the bright side, all you disgruntled wannabe Cochrans and Trumps: You are now free to pick your own wardrobe, speak your mind and stick it to the Man. Maybe you can even go to art school, like you’ve always wanted!

UC OKs Fee Hike for Professional Schools [Daily Cal]
Earlier: Takin’ Care of Business: UC Berkeley Outshines the Rest

Unsurprisingly for a blog with a staff made up of philosophy, rhetoric and English majors, the Clog doesn’t often publish business-related news. But two stories that broke this week caught our attention.

According to The Wall Street Journal, UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business is now the No. 2 place to receive an MBA in the country. Good for them.

Though the Clog has to confess that on the few occasions in our lives that we’ve had reason to go to that part of campus, we’ve gotten horribly lost and confused. MBAs are nice if you want to get rich, we suppose–but only a liberal arts degree teaches you how to live on $30,000 a year for the rest of your life.

On a semi-related note, a study using data from a local real estate and economic consulting firm found that UC Berkeley is the city’s biggest employer and pumps more money into the local economy than anyone else.

Is anyone else surprised that a report prepared by UC Berkeley staff highlighted the benefits of the campus for the city during the high season of lawsuits? It’s not that the data are wrong, but it’s always fascinating to see how various sides use facts and figures during disputes. Don’t say we didn’t learn anything in those Lib Arts classes.

Haas Ranks #2 in Wall Street Journal’s 2007 Recruiter Poll [Haas Newsroom]
UC Is City’s Biggest Spender, Employer [Daily Cal]

We were appalled with ESPN six months ago. Six months ago, ESPN had the moxie to give us bowl predictions for this upcoming season—which begins next Saturday.

Sure, ESPN gave Cal the nod at going to the Rose Bowl this year (after losing to USC, again, no less), but that was six months ago. What did anyone know about the upcoming season?

Almost nothing.

So, we’re a week away from the start of college football, and yes, those predictions are coming out again. We still think they’re too early, but hey, we like to give you our thoughts about them.

We guess that SI.com has become the resident Cal-hater among “respectable” publications (or Web sites). We think they’ve taken Stewart Mandel’s cautionary advice too far and that they must have a UCLA grad on the staff somewhere—even if he or she is just a janitor.

SI.com is predicting that the Bears will travel to El Paso for the Sun Bowl (the hell of college bowl games). USC plays for the national title while the Bruins head two hours (five hours if there’s traffic) south to play in the Holiday Bowl in San Diego.

Does SI.com really think that the Holiday Bowl will pick UCLA over Cal if both teams finish with identical records? Well, we probably would. The Bruins still have a little bit more marketability over the Bears. And as we know, these bowl games are all about the money.

Speaking of having identical records with UCLA, to whom does Cal lose in the conference? And if all three loses for the Bears are in conference, then does that mean Tedford’s boys shut up all those SEC fans and beat Tennessee in seven days?

Over at SportsLine.com (or CBS Sports? We think they changed their name), Dennis Dodd thinks Cal heads to Pasadena for the Rose Bowl.

He also rants about a lot of other things. Like how new Stanfurd coach Jim Harbaugh hired his defensive coordinator—by searching the Internet.

Image Source: Deng-Kai Chen, Daily Cal
Sports Illustrated’s Bowl Projections [SI.com]
Twenty-five things to watch this season [CBS Sports]

Ever since the AP poll dropped out of the BCS equation, not many people have seemed to care about it. However, it’s still official. Schools can still claim a national championship through AP.

So, the coaches’ poll has come out already and Cal was No. 12 there. Where are the Bears in the preseason AP poll? No. 12 as well. We guess the coaches and writers really didn’t take Stewart Mandel’s cautionary advice. Or maybe they did. Remember, the Bears were ranked No. 9 in last year’s preseason poll.

But the shocker of all shockers isn’t that USC is No. 1 or LSU is No. 2. It’s UCLA.

The Bruins are ranked No. 14! No. 14! This is a team that went 7-6 last year. 7-6. Sure, UCLA defeated the Trojans, but then it got embarrassed by Florida State in the Emerald Bowl.

Yes, the Bruins return 20 starters. Yes, they return their quarterback. Yes, they return their leading rusher and probably have the most dominant defensive lineman in the conference, but NO. 14?!

UCLA is the only six-loss team ranked in the top 25. Talk about overrated. If we’re going to cautiously approach the Pac-10, then there’s no way the Bruins make the top 15. No way.

Oh well. As for Tennessee, the team the Bears open with on Sept. 1, they’re ranked No. 15. The same in the coaches poll. And like we said before, we still think the Vols have to be the favorites to win that game. We have confidence in our Cal team, but until the Bears prove it on the field, the ghosts of Knoxville will always haunt Cal.

Image Source: Allison Porterfield, Daily Cal
Earlier: Bears Ranked No. 12 in First ESPN/USA Today Coaches’ Poll
USC leads the pack in AP’s preseason Top 25 poll [SI.com]

No, these aren’t football rankings (we’ll be talking about those later), but rather the most unimportant-important statistic about colleges were released today. UC Berkeley stands as No. 21 in U.S. News & World Report’s annual rankings of the country’s top colleges and universities.

Cal also retains its title as “The No. 1 Public University in the Country.”

But of course, the U.S. News & World Report rankings have come under fire as of late, with many schools opting not to give the magazine certain statistics.

This is what Lloyd Thacker, who runs Education Conservancy, told the CC Times:

bq. “It has distorted and skewed how (college) admissions are perceived,” said Thacker, a former college counselor. “Their impact far exceeds their educational relevance.”

And of course, some don’t think the report is helpful at all.

bq. “The kind of work that U.S. News & World Report does doesn’t really get to the heart of what we do here at St. Mary’s,” said Michael Beseda, the Moraga college’s vice provost for enrollment. “They’ve narrowed the discussion in this country of what an undergraduate education should be.”

bq. “Any informed educator who thoughtfully thinks about the ranking systems realizes (the ranks) are inadequate,” Beseda said.

But what are you going to do?

This is a society and a country that lives by the seat of its pants. We (not The Clog, but our society) like things quick, simple and easy (drive-thru weddings, online shopping, SparkNotes, Wikipedia, etc).

If a publication is going to come out every year and give us fast-food style rankings, then this Ritalin-obsessed society is going to eat it up and think that those rankings are important.

Some colleges hope to counter rankings’ sway [CC Times]
UC Berkeley Stays Out of Ranking Dispute [Daily Cal]

No surprise here.

For the fifth consecutive year, the Pac-10 media have picked the boys from Troy to finish atop the conference.

And for the fourth consecutive year, Cal was picked to finish second behind Pete Carroll’s USC team.

There really isn’t too much to read into this. Every year, every conference has these preseason rankings, and every year, they’re pretty much wrong in some sense. But we all like our preseason rankings.

If you’d like to know, UCLA was picked to finish at No. 3, and our good friends at Stanfurd were picked to finish last. Wow, that’s a gutsy call, especially since the Card won only one game last year.

But speaking of rankings, ESPN has been ranking all 119 Division I-A football teams in terms of their performance in the last decade.

The Bears land in at No. 35, which is a pretty fair assessment.

You have to remember that Cal was pretty much the doormat of the Pac-10 for most of the late 1990s. Also note that the Bears had won only one game in 2001, the year before Jeff Tedford became Cal’s head coach.

Also note that of the 55 games won in the last 10 years, 43 have come under Tedford.

We don’t know which number is more impressive—the 12 games the Bears won in the five years before Tedford or the 43 in the Tedford era.

Image Source: Ben Gallup, Daily Cal
Pac-10 football: Cal picked No. 2, Stanford last in poll [Mercury-News]
Middling major conference teams, top mid-majors among Nos. 25-50 [ESPN]
Teams just outside top 25 include big names, underachieving programs [ESPN]

In college football hype is everything, and in college, video games are everything—almost. What do you get when you mix the two? How about EA Sports’ NCAA Football 08?

While it’s not a cultural icon like EA Sports NFL franchise, Madden, it still gives us some insight into the world of college football.

What insight? How about rankings? We all like preseason rankings—even if it is a video game company doing the rankings.

As it turns out, Cal is only one of three Pac-10 teams in the top 25. EA Sports gave the Bears a No. 16 ranking. OK, so it’s not as high as Athlon Sports’ rankings (which we think may be a little high), but at least Cal’s getting some love.

As Gamespot.com put it:

If it weren’t for those pesky Trojans, Cal fans would be in the midst of an in-conference renaissance practically unheard of in the history of the program. Coach Jeff Tedford led his team to a share of the Pac-10 title last year, thanks in part to UCLA’s late-season defeat of USC; it’s just another chapter in the team’s revival of fortunes, one that has seen the team go from an also-ran in the conference to a yearly contender. 2006 didn’t get off to the greatest of starts, as the Golden Bears made the trip to Knoxville and got stomped by Tennessee; this year they’ll be looking at the Volunteers with revenge on their minds, as the teams play the rematch in Berkeley. Should they win that game, and manage to beat in-conference opponents like Oregon and UCLA on the road, the looming November 10 home showdown against national-title favorite USC will be perhaps the biggest game ever played at Memorial Stadium.

How true. After years of wallowing in USC’s shadow, and of being a real bad football team, Bears fans forget that we’re in the middle of the resurrection of this football team. If Pete Carroll and the Trojans weren’t in Cal’s way, then maybe the Bears could have been in the Rose Bowl in 2004 and last year.

But we do have a few more questions about the rankings. Yes, USC is No. 1. There’s no dispute to that, but Michigan as No. 2?! Didn’t the Trojans embarrass Big Blue in the Rose Bowl earlier this year?

Also, we don’t mind that UCLA is the only other team from the Pac-10 in the top 25. They did return pretty much their whole team from last year, but remember this—the Bruins went 7-6 last year. We don’t think that’s good enough for a No. 19 ranking.

And who the hell picked Jared Zabransky as the cover boy? Sure Boise State was a great story last year, but there had to be someone better than Jared Zabransky to put on the cover.

NCAA 08 Top 25 [Gamespot]