On Friday, Sept. 1, the Atlantic Coast Conference added three new colleges to join the 2024-2025 season: Southern Methodist University, Stanford University and The University of California-Berkeley. This expansion provides each school with long-term media rights, giving their sports programs the ability to play and travel.

All three colleges reside in West Coast states, despite the name ACC including the word Atlantic — the opposite side of the country. In addition, all three new ACC colleges plan to compete in every collegiate sport.

First, SMU, a private college in Dallas, Texas. Despite its name, SMU is nonsectarian. It is moderately selective with an acceptance rate of 47.3%, meaning that for every 100 applicants, 47 are accepted.

Next is Stanford University, a private college in Stanford, Calif. Stanford is considered one of the most academically prestigious universities in the world, with an acceptance rate of 3.9% — the lowest in the world.

The third and final college approved to join is UC Berkeley,a public university in Berkeley, Calif. UC Berkeley is statistically one of the hardest public colleges to get into with an average Grade Point Average of 3.89, unweighted. 

While these colleges have already received approval to join the ACC, they will not compete in the conference until 2024. In the 2023-2024 season, Stanford and UC Berkeley will compete in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference, and SMU will compete in the American Athletic Conference.