To put it into a bit of perspective.... OSU had 284 (to PSU’s 166) this spring.
I doubt if that means OSU is nearly twice as “academic” as PSU.
. What DOES it mean? Who knows, but not much.
It is what it is.
Certainly, there are plenty of “scholar athletes” at every BigTen University - no doubt .... but these “Academic All Conference” lists have - in many respects - been degraded to taking on the meaning of participation trophies...... and probably do a disservice to truly outstanding “scholar athletes”
But every AD and ICA dept just loves to be able to jabber about all of their “scholars”.
As impressive as those numbers sound, they have become - in the Big Ten anyway - for the most part, simply a matter of “how many sports do you have”.
And a rather silly “brag wall banner”.
(FWIW, in relative terms, PSU has been falling further down the ladder vav it’s BigTen brethren - - - but so long as they can claim “we have more than we did before”, it obscures the truth from most fans and backers. C’est La Vie)
Despite all of the “records” claimed by PSU, not only are they far below many of their colleagues, but - in the case of OSU - Penn State ..... despite “setting records” LMAO ...... has more “all academics” than OSU (as just one example) in just 2 of the 20 counted sports.
Sumptin’ don’t add up there Charlie Brown
. Alas.
The full list was published in May. For those who may want to see which PSUers made the lists, it is here:
http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools...-18/misc_non_event/SpAcademicAll-BigTen18.pdf