In less than a month, every college campus in our fine state will be filled with football teams and other fall athletes as they report for camp. Not long after that, the leaves will start falling and campuses will be buzzing with excitement, music, and drunk freshmen yelling at pedestrians.
In honor of that, I fired up the ole’ algorithm to see if it could decide where all of these campuses rank against each other. Remember, these power rankings are the result of facts and data alone with no input from my personal opinions or biases. Now, let’s see what the numbers have to say.
Note: I didn’t include any community or technical college in these rankings since, let’s be honest, those students & alumni aren’t doing much reading anyway.
Tier 1: Elite
It’s hard to argue that these schools aren’t flat-out great. Say what you want about the UofM’s campus, but their football games alone make them a top-tier school in this state. There may be nothing better than getting blackout drunk in a parking lot at 10 am on a cold autumn morning, and Dinkytown is the pinnacle of that experience. Just pounding hotdogs and chugging room-temperature Fireball like it’s your job in the hopes of completely wiping the incoming 7-13 loss to Northwestern from your future memory. Is their campus comprised of 99% brown buildings and sprawl across 30 fucking square miles? Possibly. Do I care? Not one bit. Add game days at Mariucci and The Barn in there, and the U is a first-ballot Tier 1 college.
Winona on the other hand, you can definitely make an argument it shouldn’t be considered elite. I saw a cool picture of the campus one time when I was 14, and it’s never left my brain. Since then I’ve always considered Winona to be one of the best schools in the state with zero evidence to back up my case, and I’m not changing now. In their defense, they are right next to La Crosse which can’t hurt and the basketball team was nasty in the 2000s, so I’m keeping them in the Elite tier until further notice.
Tier 2: Flat-Out Good
Now, none of these schools are going to blow your tits off, but you really can’t go wrong with attending any one of them.
UMD has D-I hockey, so it checks the same “blackout in a sports setting” box as the UofM.
St. Scholastica is great if you like old shit and nature.
St. Kates is an all-girls school, and I support women’s education, so if you disagree with their placement here, you’re a racist.
St. John’s has elite levels of game day tailgating and they’re so for the boys that they don’t even have women on campus. They do have that whole thing of monks living on campus though, many of whom have committed a myriad of sexual crimes, but were just gonna ignore that for right now.
Tier 3: A great time, if you’re kind of dumb
Now who are we kidding here, none of these schools are going to win any academic awards any time soon. We’re never going to have a President who’s an alum of Bemidji State. But, if you’re looking to have fun in college, and school isn’t your “forte” or you’re “a bad test taker”, these could be the schools for you.
There’s quite literally nothing else to do in Moorhead, Marshall, or Bemidji than to drink frequently, shoot firearms, and operate heavy machinery. Combine those three things, and you’re bound for a solid 4 years. Or 5.
Tier 4: Herpes
This tier should come as a surprise to no one. There’s probably about a 65% chance on any given night that if you step foot on campus at St. Cloud or Mankato, you will leave with an STD. Quite honestly, if you last 4 years here and only come out with a few cold sores you’re one of the lucky ones.
Full disclosure, the reason that this tier isn’t further down the list is that even though you’ll most likely leave these campuses a battered man with more diseases than you came in with, you’re going to have so much goddamn fun while doing it that it won’t matter one bit.
Tier 5: Exactly Fine
Honestly, I got nothing when it comes to these schools. I’m sure all these schools are perfectly fine and all the students live in dorms, go to class, walk around in crewneck sweatshirts with the name of their school on it, and have medium amounts of fun. Do I think a lot of those students are also extremely bored most of the time? Absolutely. Something about these schools just doesn’t do it for me.
Tier 6: Way Too Religious
Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with being a religious person and wanting to learn more about your faith, but. . . On the other hand, it is impossible to have a top-tier college atmosphere if half the school is either in mandatory mass or trying to finagle their way into a hand job while watching The Passion of the Christ. Not to mention, most of these schools have an open-door policy, so even that part is out of the picture.
Tier 7: Who?
We’re just gonna skip past these schools and pretend like they don’t even exist. I’m not even ashamed that I have absolutely zero awareness of these colleges.
Tier 8: Absolute Dogshit
I think we’re in full agreement when I say we should just get rid of these fucking schools altogether. There’s nothing good coming out of them.
Taking out a high-interest loan, four years in a row, just to pay for tuition so you can live in Morris, Minnesota has to be one of the dumbest financial decisions of all time. UofM-Crookston may be in the worst part of the state. Augsburg, Metro State, and NCU all might be in the worst part of the cities, and none have any redeeming qualities about them.
Nothing against the alumni of these schools, I’m sure they’re great people and everything, probably.
Tier 9: You might get roofied
Now say what you want about St. Thomas, but the only people that disagree with their placement here have to be Tommie alums. I’m aware that it has the nicest campus in the state, a shit ton of money from wealthy donors, and tons of incoming D-I athletes.
Do you know what it also has? Quite possibly the worst population of individuals ever assembled on one campus. I don’t know what it is about St. Thomas, but somehow it has the innate ability to attract people with massive amounts of money and zero amount of personality.
Now, I’m not saying that you will get roofied by a creepy upperclassman if you attend St. Thomas, because that would be libel. All I’m saying is that you MIGHT get roofied there because the campus is made up of human beings with questionable morals. There, not libel.
Again, this is not a biased opinion fueled by outside factors and personal vendettas. I’m simply just sharing the results of my study after the data. Facts were carefully collected, analyzed, and put through my algorithm.
PSA: If you’re a proud alum who bases his or her self-worth on where your school ranks on a list, you may need to touch grass. “College is a $120,000 hooker, and you are an idiot who fell in love with her. She’s not going to do anything else for you, it’s done.”
below average at a few things. bad at a lot of things. Minnesota sports sad boi.