Do you think that little of Texas A&M?

No. But I think very highly of Auburn.

SEC and PAC12 are sports conferences. The culture and academics are inconsequential. You join a confernce so sports teams can play one another.

A&M has lots of academic affiliations with other universities. Some are SEC schools, some are not. These affiliations are based on academics not sports.

Perfect because I am tired of red

LSU might be a crap-hole, but they are not the standard-bearer for the SEC.

Ole Miss, Auburn, Tenn, Vandy, and UGA are very invested in academics (I'm not as familiar with the academics of the others). Research dollars bring in a lot of money too.

SEC 2012 said:

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The reality is the state Texas Austin is more similar to California than the SEC west. Most A&M students are from the major metro areas (Houston, Austin/SA, Dallas) which are urban and liberal. Every major Texas city is democratic and unfortunately the whole state will soon be blue. I don't see a cultural clash in the PAC 12. I also think A&M is quite a bit more liberal than Auburn, Ole Miss, etc. A lot of Beto fans on campus.

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I disagree that Texas is closer to California than to the Southeast.

I don't have the attendance numbers to know where everyone is from, but someone mentioned Katy/The Woodlands. Neither are actually Houston although if you were to tell someone from Madison, Wisconsin where you were from, you'd likely say Houston because those folks aren't likely to know where Katy is. No doubt that A&M draws a lot of students from actual Houston / Dallas / Ft. Worth / San Antonio, but the school also draws a hell of a lot of kids from the suburbs of those cities, or from smaller cities around the state.

I don't disagree that every major city is currently run by Democrats. I do disagree that this state will soon be blue. There is a lot of red in the majority of this state.

I cannot speak to the political culture of any other school, but I don't disagree that there has been a lot of liberal incursion into Texas A&M. Texas A&M remains a conservative school, however, and I'd wager that many of its graduates are also conservative. Fans of Robert Francis O'Rourke are free to be dumbasses, but they don't represent the majority of Aggies out there.

Mark the primary metro independent school district for Dallas, FW, Houston, Austin. Now look at the outlying communities. See if you can distinguish between the politics of each and why.

Two special situations:

Houston successfully annexes.

Austin is the state capital.

Both have slightly more muddied politics in part because of that. But both also tend to be more liberal where the schools are the original school system.

SEC 2012 said:

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The reality is the state Texas is more similar to California than the SEC west. Most A&M students are from the major metro areas (Houston, Austin/SA, Dallas) which are urban and liberal. Every major Texas city is democratic and unfortunately the whole state will soon be blue. I don't see a cultural clash in the PAC 12. I also think A&M is quite a bit more liberal than Auburn, Ole Miss, etc. A lot of Beto fans on campus.

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I think you just threw a whole roll of Blackcats in the fire pit just to see what would happen. There is NO WAY you believe that BS....unless you are from Austin. Then that explains it.

If you are saying they both have loyal fans sure but there is no comparison academically. Texas A&M has an endowment in the top ten nationally and Auburn is lucky to be in the top 10 in the SEC. To answer your question I have traveled extensively in Alabama and Mississippi for work and other than passion for college football I do not see many similarities.

Spend some time on campus at Auburn and get back to me. Anyone that knows the 2 schools will tell you they are extremely similar.

And academically, yes, they are a very good school. Endowments don't tell you the quality of the education. We are over twice their size and have access to the PUF and a lot of oil money. Of course our endowment is bigger. It's also bigger than some ivy league schools. The education at those schools is generally considered pretty good.

I would say A&M and Virginia Tech are twins...ranked almost exactly the same academically, both engineering schools, land grant schools, corp of cadets, full of traditions. Couldnt be more alike

Yes, also very similar. But we were discussing SEC schools.

SEC 2012 said:

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The reality is the state Texas is more similar to California than the SEC west. Most A&M students are from the major metro areas (Houston, Austin/SA, Dallas) which are urban and liberal. Every major Texas city is democratic and unfortunately the whole state will soon be blue. I don't see a cultural clash in the PAC 12. I also think A&M is quite a bit more liberal than Auburn, Ole Miss, etc. A lot of Beto fans on campus.

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What a stupid post. So you think every other SEC campus is 100% maga hat wearing social conservatives? You're either a sip troll or regurgitating their tripe.

I looked it up and they are not in the top 10 in the SEC. They would be dead last if not for the economic and educational hell hole that is Mississippi.

By the way LSU which everyone is making fun of has a much bigger endowment than Auburn.

I said they were a good academic institution. Why do you keep talking about endowments?

rsf0626 said:

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I would say A&M and Virginia Tech are twins...ranked almost exactly the same academically, both engineering schools, land grant schools, corp of cadets, full of traditions. Couldnt be more alike

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Except for the whole Texas/Virginia difference which is enormous!

Quit y'all's b******g and don't worry about it. Everybody in the SEC wants what we have not what they have.

SEC 2012 said:

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A&M has more in common with UCLA than LSU. My goodness LSU is a community college with a football program. UCLA is a world class university.

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BY that argument A&M has more in common with:

Rutgers
Penn State
UNC
Cal Berkeley
Washington

Than LSU

Just to mention a few...all those schools are world
Class academic institutions and research behemoths...

Texas A&M is probably not as suburban and conservative as some of you remember. Today the student body is roughly 50% white and nearly 25% hispanic. Only point being that's it's a much more diverse university than it was only a few years ago, mostly due to Sharp and Young's efforts to recruit inner city schools as described below to fulfill A&M's land grant mission.

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When you are recruiting first-generation students, and in particular blacks and Hispanics, you are also recruiting their families," said Christine Stanley, A&M's vice president for diversity.

A&M has also stepped up its financial aid. It created a new scholarship for low-income, first generation students. It now offers additional aid to National Hispanic Scholars and recipients of the National Achievement Scholarships, which are awarded to black students. And it expanded its Century Scholars Program, which was created in 1996 to recruit students from 40 specific minority-majority schools in Dallas and Houston. Now, the program has been expanded to more than 100 schools and has increased its annual recipients from fewer than 50 students per year to about 400.

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4 said:

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Spend some time on campus at Auburn and get back to me. Anyone that knows the 2 schools will tell you they are extremely similar.

And academically, yes, they are a very good school. Endowments don't tell you the quality of the education. We are over twice their size and have access to the PUF and a lot of oil money. Of course our endowment is bigger. It's also bigger than some ivy league schools. The education at those schools is generally considered pretty good.

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I agree with 4. Auburn may not be ranked as high academically but they have great people at that school, as we do. They also have some very successful graduates, such as Tim Cook. And culturally, they are almost identical to us. They are like A&M was back in the 1970s. We were not ranked as highly academically as we are now, but from the 1950s forward we have produced some outstanding and highly, highly successful graduates. Very similar to what Auburn has done the last 20 to 30 years.

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unfortunately the whole state will soon be blue.

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I think that might be wishful thinking on your part.

Don't make the mistake in thinking that Hispanics are liberal. By and large, they are culturally conservative though they may vote against their cultural nature and vote Democrat in higher margins.

SEC 2012 said:

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The reality is the state Texas is more similar to California than the SEC west. Most A&M students are from the major metro areas (Houston, Austin/SA, Dallas) which are urban and liberal. Every major Texas city is democratic and unfortunately the whole state will soon be blue. I don't see a cultural clash in the PAC 12. I also think A&M is quite a bit more liberal than Auburn, Ole Miss, etc. A lot of Beto fans on campus.

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This ain't it chief.

NO I have worked in California, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and there is no comparison in the genuiness
of the SEC states compared to the give me space state

I will admit that I'm being argumentative over a silly point but Auburn is not comparable to A&M academically. The reason I am using endowment is because it is a real measure of economic opportunity which is significantly more important than any stupid academic ranking (where we also beat Auburn) By that measure we are blessed to live in Texas and have attended A&M and Auburn is not even in the same ballpark.

I am thrilled we are in the SEC but it is not academically superior to the B12 which is fine because I believe that conference affiliation has little or nothing to do with academics so in a sense we get the best of both worlds.


Edit to add. It will make people angry but we are culturally MUCH more similar to the B12. Just look at where your friends and neighbors went to school. I think people are conflating culture with passion for football those two things are very different in my opinion.

Of the schools TAMU Lists as peer institutions, only 1 is in the SEC, Florida. Four of the schools are University of California systems schools, seven are Big 10 schools.

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Just look at where your friends and neighbors went to school

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Here in my little neck of Cinco Ranch (Katy), I have a t-sip, a Red Raider, two families of Swamp Kitties, a Pittsburgh grad, an OU family, and I believe a family with ties to the northeast, perhaps Boston U, in addition to the two Aggie families on my street. In my overall neighborhood, I've seen three Alabama yard signs, one UT, some pig people, several more Swamp Kitties, several more t-sips (one of which the dad went to UK/grad in Austin, the mom went to the Naval Academy, the oldest is currently at A&M, the middle child is about to start at Texas State, and the youngest is just starting high school but loves her dad's burned orange stuff). Of course we're going to have a lot of Big 12 types, being in Texas, but I'm not seeing any Jayhawks or Wildcats around here.

Libraries are relics. I dont think I stepped foot in sterling my entire time as a student and that was 20 years ago.

lsu and Texas tech are similar in my eyes. Maybe 10% of the students are there to actually get an education and go places. 90% just mess around and somehow a few of those earn degrees. All of them are really annoying fans, lsu just has a better team.

Not football, but anyone remember when Ben Simmons couldn't win that award because he basically didn't even go to school?

Sterling C. was a decently nice place when I was there. The university was always putting money into it and remodeling it ('09-'16 w/ undergrad and grad).

McInnis80 said:

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Of the schools TAMU Lists as peer institutions, only 1 is in the SEC, Florida. Four of the schools are University of California systems schools, seven are Big 10 schools.

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Don't bring no stinkin' facts to the SEC! SEC! SEC! board.

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A&M and Auburn were separated at birth. Couldn't be two schools more alike.

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lol no. For a lot of reasons.

TAMU bball fan said:

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Texas A&M is probably not as suburban and conservative as some of you remember. Today the student body is roughly 50% white and nearly 25% hispanic. Only point being that's it's a much more diverse university than it was only a few years ago, mostly due to Sharp and Young's efforts to recruit inner city schools as described below to fulfill A&M's land grant mission.

Quote:

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When you are recruiting first-generation students, and in particular blacks and Hispanics, you are also recruiting their families," said Christine Stanley, A&M's vice president for diversity.

A&M has also stepped up its financial aid. It created a new scholarship for low-income, first generation students. It now offers additional aid to National Hispanic Scholars and recipients of the National Achievement Scholarships, which are awarded to black students. And it expanded its Century Scholars Program, which was created in 1996 to recruit students from 40 specific minority-majority schools in Dallas and Houston. Now, the program has been expanded to more than 100 schools and has increased its annual recipients from fewer than 50 students per year to about 400.

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The engineering academies were part of the push for diversity and low income students as well. A&M will be a minority majority campus by 2020.