How Does IC and Iowa Stack Up in the Big

HawkGold

Well-Known Member
Fry has been negative about Iowa on a number of issues. Fry and others seem to think Iowa and IC are not good places to bring in BB recruits. IC is not Honolulu, but how does the place and the U really stack up. Big 10 only Comparisons.
 
IC compared to:

St. Paul - Neutral. The climate in SP is terrible. It is a big city (+). It is a big city (-).
E Lansing - IC hands down except for maybe Detroit recruits. Not a terrific place.
Ann Arbor - UM has this hands down except it is basically Detroit.
State College - Nice place. Isolated. Slightly to IC.
Bloomington - Really similar to IC. Close to Indy but no good roads. Neutral
W Lafayette - Nice town. Neutral
Champaign - The Illini city is better and worse. More of a city feel for the campus. Neutral
Lincoln - Not a bad place. Closer to Omaha. Very slight advantage to IC.
Columbus - Hands down the best place for recruits as a city in my opinion. Lot's to offer.
Madison - Worse weather in winter. The advantage to the Badgers
Evanston - City in decline. Decent atmosphere. Being Chicago brings points. Advantage IC
New Bruns... - Advantage IC
College Park - Advantage IC

Let's keep facilities and the actual value of a degree out of this in this thread.

Iowa City and Iowa certainly are middle pack in the Big and maybe a slight advantage as communities.
 
I’m biased and all, can’t say I’ve visited other Big Ten campuses, but when I took my son for a college visit we were blown away by the campus. The campus itself is awesome, and downtown Iowa City is literally across the street with everything within walking distance. My son was like ‘dad, why are you forcing me to buy a car again?’ The river running through it is neat, the old capital building is nice, I can’t imagine Iowa being in the cellar for destination colleges in the Big Ten.
 
I’m biased and all, can’t say I’ve visited other Big Ten campuses, but when I took my son for a college visit we were blown away by the campus. The campus itself is awesome, and downtown Iowa City is literally across the street with everything within walking distance. My son was like ‘dad, why are you forcing me to buy a car again?’ The river running through it is neat, the old capital building is nice, I can’t imagine Iowa being in the cellar for destination colleges in the Big Ten.

It's not the cellar. It's better than West Lafayette, Lincoln and Champaign. Probably Rutgers as well but I ain't ever going there. It's a push with several others and clearly below maybe half. I'd say tied for about 8th is a fair assessment.
 
IC compared to:

St. Paul - Neutral. The climate in SP is terrible. It is a big city (+). It is a big city (-).
E Lansing - IC hands down except for maybe Detroit recruits. Not a terrific place.
Ann Arbor - UM has this hands down except it is basically Detroit.
State College - Nice place. Isolated. Slightly to IC.
Bloomington - Really similar to IC. Close to Indy but no good roads. Neutral
W Lafayette - Nice town. Neutral
Champaign - The Illini city is better and worse. More of a city feel for the campus. Neutral
Lincoln - Not a bad place. Closer to Omaha. Very slight advantage to IC.
Columbus - Hands down the best place for recruits as a city in my opinion. Lot's to offer.
Madison - Worse weather in winter. The advantage to the Badgers
Evanston - City in decline. Decent atmosphere. Being Chicago brings points. Advantage IC
New Bruns... - Advantage IC
College Park - Advantage IC

Let's keep facilities and the actual value of a degree out of this in this thread.

Iowa City and Iowa certainly are middle pack in the Big and maybe a slight advantage as communities.

Ann Arbor is basically Detroit? You undermined everything else in your post (much of which is valid) with that comment. That and using St Paul as your baseline for the U of Minnesota.

It's an island that despite being close, bears no resemblance to Detroit and offers the most prestigious academic profile (public) in the B1G.

But, I'd take the B1G campi over most conferences in the country. The PAC12 obviously gets big points with the natural beauty of the West coast...but even with that, it has its negatives.
 
Ann Arbor is basically Detroit? You undermined everything else in your post (much of which is valid) with that comment. That and using St Paul as your baseline for the U of Minnesota.

It's an island that despite being close, bears no resemblance to Detroit and offers the most prestigious academic profile (public) in the B1G.

But, I'd take the B1G campi over most conferences in the country. The PAC12 obviously gets big points with the natural beauty of the West coast...but even with that, it has its negatives.
Reread. I said it was great but still Detroit. It is a nice place. I don't care for St Paul and the campus location. It's also very much colder. Nothing I said says it is like Detroit.
 
It's not the cellar. It's better than West Lafayette, Lincoln and Champaign. Probably Rutgers as well but I ain't ever going there. It's a push with several others and clearly below maybe half. I'd say tied for about 8th is a fair assessment.
Name all the 8 they are below. You like all of us are biased about Lincoln. You are too harsh on WL. Champaign is a mix. To me is for sure upper HALF but that middle is crowded. 4 thru 9 would all be close. Ann Arbor, Columbus and Madison for sure have an edge.
 
Area Vibes Ratings

W. Lafayette - 87
Ann Arbor - 82
IC - 80
Champ - 62
Bloomington - 73
St Paul - 68
Madison - 75
Lincoln - 81
Evanston - 75
New B - 61
College Park - 57
State College - 77
East Lansing - 76
Columbus - 76

Obviously, a lot of factors go into this not involving college student interests. Also, UMN is nicer than much of St Paul. Champaign is really pretty nice excepting north of Bradley avenue and that is gang related that IC doesn't have to deal with as much. East Lansing isn't bad but there is a lot of crime. Illinois, NJ, and Michigan get negative marks due to state budgets and how that impacts public schools. Iowa has their own issues at the higher ed level.

The point being IC just isn't a deterrent compared to the Big.
 
Reread. I said it was great but still Detroit. It is a nice place. I don't care for St Paul and the campus location. It's also very much colder. Nothing I said says it is like Detroit.

Fair enough re: Ann Arbor.

But the U of M is commonly described as being in Minneapolis (main campus is in Minneapolis with a primo view of downtown). There are a couple of satellite buildings in St Paul but Minneapolis is the city typically associated with the U of M.
 
Area Vibes Ratings

W. Lafayette - 87
Ann Arbor - 82
IC - 80
Champ - 62
Bloomington - 73
St Paul - 68
Madison - 75
Lincoln - 81
Evanston - 75
New B - 61
College Park - 57
State College - 77
East Lansing - 76
Columbus - 76

Obviously, a lot of factors go into this not involving college student interests. Also, UMN is nicer than much of St Paul. Champaign is really pretty nice excepting north of Bradley avenue and that is gang related that IC doesn't have to deal with as much. East Lansing isn't bad but there is a lot of crime. Illinois, NJ, and Michigan get negative marks due to state budgets and how that impacts public schools. Iowa has their own issues at the higher ed level.

The point being IC just isn't a deterrent compared to the Big.

West Lafayette the #1 vibe in the B1G? Lincoln #3? Surely you jest.
 
Name all the 8 they are below. You like all of us are biased about Lincoln. You are too harsh on WL. Champaign is a mix. To me is for sure upper HALF but that middle is crowded. 4 thru 9 would all be close. Ann Arbor, Columbus and Madison for sure have an edge.
C-Bus, AA, Madison, College Park for sure as college towns. I'd put Evanston and St. Paul/Minneapolis above IC as well. Evanston far above. The campus is built out onto Lake Michigan. It's ridiculously nice. Best case I could give you is a 3 way tie with State College and Bloomington in 7th. Rutgers not ranked and IC above the rest.

Lincoln, Champaign and West Lafayette are really just Wal-Mart versions of towns, not distinctly better than Ames.
 
West Lafayette the #1 vibe in the B1G? Lincoln #3? Surely you jest.

Purdue is a great school, far better than Iowa, but West Lafayette is trash. Purdue is also a major sausage fest, with damned near a 60/40 male to female split, which is backwards from a lot of other big colleges. The engineering school there completely dominates and skews the ratio in a major way. My buddy who did engineering there said that while it is a great school, he would never want to send his sons there because of the horrible ratio.
 
West Lafayette the #1 vibe in the B1G? Lincoln #3? Surely you jest.
What it says. It's a bit.. more than a bit like OK Prez says, but overall it's a nice place and not trash. I'd live there in a heartbeat. Carbondale IL is a trash university town. Not WL. Not Champaign. Ames isn't either, but not as much growth as places like Champaign or WL as far as housing improvements. Nice is about how to describe it. Sort of Mayberry. Never met anyone from there (little over an hour for me) that didn't like it. Lots from my town go there that can't get into U IL that are still good students. Low crime, affordable. Friendly. Campus traffic doesn't flow well, but neither does Ames.
 
C-Bus, AA, Madison, College Park for sure as college towns. I'd put Evanston and St. Paul/Minneapolis above IC as well. Evanston far above. The campus is built out onto Lake Michigan. It's ridiculously nice. Best case I could give you is a 3 way tie with State College and Bloomington in 7th. Rutgers not ranked and IC above the rest.

Lincoln, Champaign and West Lafayette are really just Wal-Mart versions of towns, not distinctly better than Ames.

Campus yes, but you overate Evanston itself. Maybe getting around Chicago is my thorn.
 
Campus yes, but you overate Evanston itself. Maybe getting around Chicago is my thorn.

It's a pain in the ass to get from Iowa to Evanston and vice versa. There is no good east-west road to get you to 294, which is what you gotta get to head to I-88 to get back to Iowa. And if you take the family truckster to Evanston to then drive around Chicago, it's a massive pain in the balls that will involve paying Gambino Brothers Parking Associates $44 to pull into a parking garage. But if you live there and can take the train, it's totally fine. The area east of the train tracks all the way to the Lake in Evanston is one of the nicest parts of the country. The whole North Shore is that way. Very picturesque, but Evanston is the only spot on the North Shore with a lot of critical infrastructure in walking distance. It's basically like a small Chicago neighborhood with about 5% as many homeless people.
 
It's a pain in the ass to get from Iowa to Evanston and vice versa. There is no good east-west road to get you to 294, which is what you gotta get to head to I-88 to get back to Iowa. And if you take the family truckster to Evanston to then drive around Chicago, it's a massive pain in the balls that will involve paying Gambino Brothers Parking Associates $44 to pull into a parking garage. But if you live there and can take the train, it's totally fine. The area east of the train tracks all the way to the Lake in Evanston is one of the nicest parts of the country. The whole North Shore is that way. Very picturesque, but Evanston is the only spot on the North Shore with a lot of critical infrastructure in walking distance. It's basically like a small Chicago neighborhood with about 5% as many homeless people.
Agree
 
But, I'd take the B1G campi over most conferences in the country. The PAC12 obviously gets big points with the natural beauty of the West coast...but even with that, it has its negatives.
Can we all just take a minute and appreciate what's probably the first and only Latin plural usage of the word campus on the entire internet, certainly the only time it's been used on a sports board of any type?

Out-frickin-standing.
 
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