LRC note. We've don't need two thread son the same topic so we merged them. The other thread was titled, "porscha dobson and sean mcnulty NEED to leave Dartmouth."
We've long stated that coaching threads are the hardest to moderate as people get really fired up. Ivy League threads are probably a close second. Combine the two and it's difficult. As a result, we're requiring registration to post moving forward. Please remember you are talking about real people.
What's going on with the Dartmouth men's team this year? Consistent underwhelming performances/runners transferring/and very disappointing campaigns at both regionals and Heps this year? What is going on down there that's holding them back because on paper the talent is there??
One thing I was told from someone who went to a similar college around 20 years ago:
Cornell, Brown, Dartmouth will never field competitive teams in nearly anything because the people who are fast (or the equivalent for other sports) enough and smart enough will, 95% of the time, also be able to gain coaches' support at better Ivies which they choose most of the time
Here are the QS World University Rankings for 2024, according to which Cornell ranks 3rd among the 8 Ivies: 1. MIT 2. University of Cambridge 3. University of Oxford 4. Harvard 5. Stanford 6. Imperial College London 7. ETH Zurich 8. National University o Singapore 9. UCL 10. University of California, Berkeley 11. University of Chicago 12. University of Pennsylvania 13. Cornell University 14. The University of Melbourne 15. Caltech 16. Yale University 17. Peking University 17. Princeton University 19. The University of New South Wales 19. The University of Sydney 21. University of Toronto 22. The University of Edinburgh 23. Columbia University
Explore QS World University Rankings® 2024 of 1400 institutions based on 8 key ranking indicators- academics, faculty/student ratio, international student & more.
Just not true. Dartmouth has had plenty of distance success. The problem right now is that they had a good coach who replaced their longtime coach and was building some success. He was then canned as part of a power struggle with the director of track and cross country (not a distance coach). The coach who replaced him promptly injured nearly the whole team. Dartmouth *can* have success because Dartmouth *has* had success. But those recent developments mean that we’ll be lost in the wilderness for some time now.
Consider pre-season baseball rankings. How do they compare with the end-of-season standings? College and university rankings are somewhat comparable to pre-season baseball rankings, only without the season of competition to validate or refute them.
How does a coach injure a whole team? Everything is on the coach these days… maybe just unfortunate injuries or “talent” underperforming based on perceived projection. Seems to be a trend, not sure it’s one person’s fault.
They stopped recruiting Maine kids that’s why. Every fast smart kid from Maine has gone on to other Ivies in recent years compared to years past when most would go to Dartmouth. Feel like we could’ve had another Geoghegan, True, or Shaw there.
The past 2 distance coach hires have been a DISGRACE to Dartmouth. They were both really bad but this new guy, whose name I refuse to even speak, was an unaccomplished D3 coach from Transylvania Univ who had never coached a sub 15 5k runner before arriving at Dartmouth.
Dartmouth should be able to contend with Princeton and Harvard in cross country because they have the most places to train. The wilderness vibe at Dartmouth is a huge selling point to distance runners. 99.99% of all distance runners would rather train in Hanover over anywhere else in the league including Boston. You have to stop at a light every 30m in Boston or take vans. Princeton has like 1 trail. New Haven is a ghetto.
is this Dartmouth’s worst NCAA regional performance in their history?
I know there was another thread on this so I am sorry but their leadership has put the team far from what it could be.
Dartmouth is a program with a very solid and reputable history, and has a really unique and great training environment. it has incredible name recognition, a fine amount of funding/facilities, and yet they are seeming to run the program into the ground.
the coach before sean McNulty was great and all of the guys liked him and bought into him. a conflict with porscha saw his termination. BEN TRUE a legendary American pro who competed on the international stage and a Dartmouth alum applied for the position. who could sell recruits better to go train in hanover than a guy who has lived and trained there his entire pro career. he coached the men’s team last fall and everyone loved him.
who does porscha hire instead? A GUY WHO COACHED A D3 SCHOOL TO 30TH AT THEIR REGIONALS. that is a deliberate move to hurt your men’s distance program. he seems like a nice guy, but he is not cut out for the job. he has broken at least 10 femurs by now, and the guys on the team aren’t idiots. they know how under qualified he is and are deeply unhappy.
what else? porscha did ZERO recruiting for the men between the old coach and sean, and their roster is way too small as a result. there are two sophomore cross country runners, and three freshmen. are you serious??
they couldn’t field a full 12 runners at heps, and only ran 6 at regionals. their number 1, 3, and 4 men were all out at regionals. whether because of injury or sickness or otherwise, that falls on the coaching.
sixteenth place for a program/school like dartmouth, losing to central connecticut state university and umass amherst is EMBARASSING when you think about what each of their recruiting pools are.
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7 blocks south of the main gate of Columbia University
Why would someone apply to 85 colleges knowing that he would get accepted by so many. Don't college applications cost money? Who can afford that.Was ego the reason he did this? And who told the media about this. And isn't it...
Suppose an applicant for undergraduate education wants to study nursing. I would argue that Penn is not only among them, but the best of the Ivies for nursing. Why? I think Penn is now the only Ivy offering a BS in nursing. Columbia and Cornell many decades ago offered BS degrees in nursing but stopped offering them. Penn is usually not ranked by US News & World Report - whose rankings are now tarnished if not disgraced after the Columbia debacle - among what you might describe as the more prestigious Ivies - Harvard, Princeton, and Yale usually slot into that tier - but Penn is almost certainly, and by default, the best Ivy for someone wanting a BS in nursing.
Suppose an applicant for undergraduate education wants to study architecture. Which would be among the more prestigious Ivies for that applicant? I would argue that Cornell is not only among them, but the best. Cornell's undergraduate architecture program is often the best ranked undergraduate architecture, Ivy or non-Ivy, program in the USA.
What about the student featured in the CNN report which is the subject of this thread? He was clear that he wanted Cornell "because the university [Cornell] is the 'best Ivy League for engineering'.” Cornell is usually not ranked by US News & World Report among what you describe as the more prestigious Ivies. But for this student, Cornell may be the best Ivy as it is often thought to have the best engineering school among them.
How about someone wanting to study medicine, dentistry, law, or to get an MBA? Princeton, for such an applicant, though usually ranked by US News & World Report among what you describe as "the better Ivies," is the least among them as it has no medical school, no dental school, no law school, and no graduate school of business.
How about someone wanting to study veterinary medicine? Cornell and Penn are the only Ivies with vet schools, and Cornell's is usually ranked first or second in the USA with Penn's usually very highly ranked, too.
I think there is often too little emphasis on school offerings. A student can get an undergraduate degree in Materials Science & Engineering at Brown, Columbia and Cornell but at Princeton there is no such undergraduate major: a Princeton undergraduate could get a certificate in Materials Science & Engineering at Princeton, but not a degree solely in the latter. (I hope I'm not seen as attacking Princeton University. I worked on a contract in Princeton about nine years ago and loved the town. And I have fond memories of racing as a high schooler and after college on the track in Princeton University's Jadwin Gymnasium.)
Anyway, I wanted to provide specifics even if at the expense of belaboring the point, though I could have furnished additional examples. But I think the case is made that it is possible for the Ivy League schools not named "Harvard," "Princeton," or "Yale" to be among the better Ivies, to be the best Ivy, or even the best school in the world, for some students with particular aims.
All these rankings are nonsense but this one shows how silly they all are.
It ranks colleges by...undergraduate teaching. Shouldn't that be pretty much the #1 category for serious students? Teaching? That's what you get for your four years, in an academic sense. Time with teachers.
Most of the big Ivies hire strictly for research and many classes are taught by assistants or grad students. not at Dartmouth. They hire for teaching ability and I never had an assistant teach a class.
Dartmouth ranked #4 in the nation by this. I'm not saying this ranking means anything....but I am saying that the headline rankings...rank things that don't matter a whole lot compared to how important undergraduate teaching is.