Wurster Hall: Syracuse University of Syracuse

Once again trying to make sense of all the numbers and words.

Welcome back to our new Data and Analytics Series, Wurster Hall - “Like Evans Hall, but a little more art and design focused.”

This week we’re going to do a deep dive on the University of Syracuse, a university in Syracuse. Known by locals to the region as Racuse, many consider it a de-facto Ivy League school. Or as some have put it, an Ivy League level of tuition but with an SEC Education. But enough blabbering, let’s get to what you’re here for! The math, the numbers, and the meaning!

US News and World Report University Rankings

We start this week by looking at the US News and World Report Rankings since 1984, which is the best publicly available data. Thanks to Andrew G. Reiter (available at: http://andyreiter.com/datasets/) for putting it together! I’m sure this was your intended use. Pretty clear and easy trendline here! And that my friends is the high-level analysis we provide here in Wurster Hall.

What’s In A Name Anyways?

Our next important data point when comparing these two prestidigitacious universities is the number of letters contained within each of the names of the cities that the universities are located in. As covered last week, Berkeley has 8 total letters and 6 unique letters. Syracuse on the other hand, located in Syracuse, NY, also has 8 total letters and 7 unique letters, just edging out over Berkeley. Credit where it’s due, this is a statistical measure that is sure to show up on the field on Saturday.

Zoo Bears

Another important statistic to cover is the DtNBZ+, or “Distance to Nearest Bear in Zoo”. This metric is assessed by using Google Maps to find the nearest Zoo to each university, and then a cursory search of the inhabitants of that Zoo. In this week’s edition, unfortunately UC Berkeley is further from their nearest bear as Syracuse University has a bear roughly 2.6 miles from campus. Of course some of those points are deducted as it’s an Andean Bear and not a true Grizzly or Black Bear, but still, this will be something to monitor, especially in the trenches as the Golden Bears derive a lot of their power from their proximity to the nearest bear (this is why we used to have a live bear mascot.)

Wikipedia, The World’s Dictionary

Of course no comparison of these fine universities, or any university for that matter, is complete without looking at how much they’ve contributed societalogically, namely, how many references does their Wikipedia page contain. (This is a hidden factor in the US News and World Report rankings). As we learned last week, Cal Berkeley of Berkeley, CA has 309 references as of press time, while Syracuse sits around 293. Close, but fortunately we have to tip the scales here to UC Berkeley. Look for this to impact the field during the portion of the football game, right before the coin-flip, where the referees consider wikipedia length as a function of how to determine what targetting is.

Hot Diggity Dog

This week we’re excited to a debut a “hot” new statistic (do you get it?), distance from campus to the nearest Hot Dog stand/restaurant. Those of you from Berkeley know that the nearest Hot Dog to campus is of course Top Dog, currently on Durant, but soon to open a second location in downtown Berkeley! Using a highly technical calculator, we estimate that laid end to end, Top Dog is around 1,000 hot dogs away from campus, give or take 30. Syracuse on the other hand’s nearest hot dog stand is Tall Paul’s Dog Cabin, a completely real restaurant apparently. While the completely real photo I found online on the left looks amazing, unfortunately any Bears fans looking to savor these protein tubes will have to walk nearly 9,000 hot lengths just to get to the location. Another win for California.

Wait, How Much Is Tuition?

Another important measure of academic prowess is the tuition bill. Measured annually in dollars (/ˈdälər/ n. A dollar is a standard unit of money used in the United States, Canada, Australia, and several other countries.), this metric helps us to judge a university by its effective worth. Take for example Racuse, who when they opened in 1870, charged $40 for tuition or roughly $1,142.86 in today’s inflation adjusted value. UC Berkeley on the other hand elected to make tuition free for any and all California residents in 1868. That $0 cost adjusted for 2026 inflation figures is still just $0 which is frankly incredible. Flash forward now to 2026 and Syracuse is charging $69,180. This of course is incredibly ridiculous, mainly for the reason that if they had found a way to increase it another $240 the entire tone of this paragraph would be different! Another incredible point in favor of California.

Building Envy

Any head to head matchup can often be predicted by height as the old time saying goes that we’ve all heard of. In any case, we’d be remiss not to compare building heights across both campusii with Syracuse’s Lawrinson Hall coming in at 223 feet, just shy of the 307 foot Campanile found in the middle of Cal’s campus. Another win for California!

Take a Hike

This next datapoint shouldn’t be too hard to understand as we turn again to our good friend Google Maps to see just how far it is from each Chancellor’s House to their respective Football Stadium. It’s pretty close as far as distance with UC Berkeley just taking the edge by 0.1 miles (or 1,000 hot dogs, a Top Dog if you will). This is also true when considering the elevation gain on that hike. At UC Berkeley, you gain about 0.019 miles of elevation (200 hot dogs) on the trek while at Syracuse, you only gain 0.007 miles (72 hot dogs). Pathetic. That walk to the stadium is crucial for last minute hydration breaks! Take your time! Enjoy the scenery (and the rest of that roadie in your pocket).

And with that, we’ve learned everything we need to know about Racuse! That’s all the statistics! We scrounged the whole internet and came up with these delectable data points. Thanks for reading, and join us next week as we learn about…the University of Wagner from Wagner, New York!