<p>duke is better than uva...maybe if you want to be a doctor or a white nba player, but otherwise</p>
<p><em>chuckles</em></p>
<p>I like UVa a lot better than Duke, personally. I've visited UVa a few times, and it's so fun and awesome and amazing, I'm thinking about applying there ED. The campus is gorgeous, the students are friendly and smart, and the town is fun, lively, and quaint. Now, my older brother goes to NC State and spends a fair amount of time at Duke, and I have been to Duke with him and find it lacking in many areas. While there's no arguing that the academics are top-notch and the basketball team kicks butt, the students that I met all seemed to need an attitude adjustment. The parties were lame, nowhere near as fun as UVa. Plus, the campus and town were totally lacking. I still want to apply to Duke, because it's an excellent school with many great aspects, but if I got into UVa and Duke, I would choose UVa. That's just me, though. And obviously with a Wolfpack older brother, we weren't exactly excited about Duke, since we've got a bit of a rivalry. :)</p>
<p>excuse me, are you trying to get us to believe that Penn doesnt' have a beautiful campus? whatever ...</p>
<p>No, I meant Duke is better than UVA academically, not for sports and socially (which I think Duke is probably worse than many schools in the region despite it being heralded as having awesome parties by like Rolling Stones due to shoddy journalism)</p>
<p>CalX, I'm not sure how you can say Duke is in a similar neighborhood as UVA or UNC, as since Duke's peer schools (the ones it most evenly competes for students with and has similar academic stats as) are Columbia, Dartmouth, and Penn, thats like saying UVA is as good as many Ivy League schools academically (and its not). Many people use UVA as a good backup, but its not really the same caliber academically. Socially UVA is probably better since students are less high strung. And in all sports sans basketball, also better. Its also cheaper than Duke by like 10 G's assuming no financial aid (even though in many cases, Duke could be cheaper if you do qualify for financial aid). I think UVA's tuition is around 30,000 per year barring aid.</p>
<p>But please don't use generalities to say the school you go to is almost as good as, or as good as, a school thats certainly better academically.</p>
<p>Also, socially, even though its clear UVA and UNC own Duke in terms of parties, I'm sure there are places there you could still enjoy yourself, just a smaller amount.</p>
<p>I forgot, since I've said Duke is "clearly better" and claimed CalX and Jags used personal opinions and generalizations without using facts myself...well I don't want to be a hypocrite.
First, look at the SAT score, which shows how selective a student body was and is probaby mildly correlated with intelligence (and also work ethic). The average SAT score at UVA is in the mid-1300's, while at Duke it is somewhere between 1450 and 1500 based on just Math/Verbal. I used collegeboard.com, which administers the test. However, I think these are Class of '09 scores still. I'd think this would convert onto the 2400 scale pretty well. So on the two-section SAT, Duke on average has more than a 100 point higher SAT score. A 100-point difference in SAT's is usually accompanied by a significant gap in selectivity and strength of undergrad student body. </p>
<p>Duke feeds a higher proportion of its students into one of the top 15 professioanl schools. These were arbitrarily chosen by WSJ in a survey of which schools are the best for getting kids into top law, business, and medical schools. I remember for biz Harvard, Stanford, and Penn were on it, for Law Columbia Harvard Yale and Stanford, for Med Harvard, Yale, Penn...not really sure, kind of forget.
However, Duke ranked 7th on this survey. It was behind HYPS and two others I forgot. I believe it was followed closely by Dartmouth, Columbia, and Penn. I don't know where UVA was, but it wasn't in the top 10. However, the methodology used by WSJ is questionable - only the top 5 schools in each field were chosen, and arbitrarily based on averages from law, business, and med school rankings. So 15 schools is a pretty small sample. However, within 5 years of graduating, 8 percent of Duke students attended one of these top 15 schools. I'm not sure where UVA is, but its probably quite a bit lower (only saying this as after the first 9 schools there was a drop off in proportion of students going onto a top 15 professional school). </p>
<p>On actual popular college rankings, Duke also has the edge on UVA. On the US News rankings, Duke usually ranks between 6th and 10th, somewhere in the mix of Penn, Columbia, and Dartmouth. I'm not sure where UVA ranks, top 20ish maybe? Its below Duke by atleast 7 spots though. US News is just for domestic rankings. On the London Times International Rankings, Duke ranks in the top 15. This is a ranking of all schools throughout the world, not just the US. I believe now its tied with Columbia or LSE, or both. I believe it also takes in account grad or professional programs. Again, not sure where UVA is but certainly below Duke.</p>
<p>So those are my facts: Student body strength, placing students into top programs, and being considered among the best colleges in popular rankings, are my evidence that Duke is certainly better than UVA academically. Now, what evidence is there on the contrary?</p>
<p>Socially, Duke is probaby lamer as I said above it has a much larger number of nerdy kids. However, I'm sure if you had looked around on your visit and weren't limited by being around your friend's friends you would have had a better time. There are good places to hang out everywhere, just maybe a smaller number. Also, yes, Duke is definetely less safe off-campus which hurts the social life because of the gang-violence threatening frat houses due to the Lax situation. But I'm sure fun can be had by anyone atleast somewhere there.</p>
<p>Congrats if you read that, thanks Wiki and ETS, now people stop saying "Oh, well, school Y is better than school X because I went to school X and it sucked and everyone was a light weight...so I'll assume my school Y is better than school X academically too while all real evidence points to the contrary."</p>
<p>To thoughtprocess and others,</p>
<p>Please remember that this thread is dedicated to considering the WHOLE package offered by a school and not primarily its academic ranking and prestige. As originally contended, so much of college learning takes place outside of the classroom. While there are plenty of academic rankings, there is no actual ranking published (that I am aware of) that evaluates and ranks schools based on variety of factors that include, but not limited to, academic strength and prestige. </p>
<p>Take another look at the list of 15 schools (post #117 and add change schools if you like) and try out your own methodology and assign a ranking. I look forward to seeing how you would rank all of these schools based on which has the best combination and not just on its academic ranking/prestige. Most importantly, explain why you rank certain schools higher or lower than others. Thanks.</p>
<p>Michigan (10)</p>
<p>Regarding size, the honors colleges at big state Univeristies help to bring a smaller community feel to the experience and give top students nice perks. Many of these students go on to the top grads schools. UT and Penn State are good examples.<br>
To assess a "good mix" think one of the most important things to look at is the general feel of the campus. Do the kids seem happy? I went to a state school in NY and though the kids partied, there was no spirit. My brother went to an big IVY in new york and the kids seemed too intense. It really depends on what you want.</p>
<p>Pretty much all the best public universities - UT, UCLA, UVA, UF, Michigan</p>
<p>UF, one of the best public universities? ...</p>
<p>OH NO 100 POINTS HIGHER ON THE SAT?!?!?! That's like, 10 questions! GOOD GOD. Only RETARDS would go to UVa, whereas Duke is made up ONLY of geniuses. Thank GOD we have the SAT to let us know where the smart kids go and where the stupid kids go, because it's been proven so many times over that the SAT is an accurate measure of intelligence. I mean, it's not like rich kids from private schools can spend thousands of dollars on prep courses and do far better than they would have had they taken the test with nothing but their raw intelligence, like many poorer, public school kids more likely to attend state-funded institutions do. And even if both did take it with no prep, it's good to know that if you can figure out how many hours it takes to fill a bucket or know what the word "maverick" means that you're smart enough to attend Duke, and way smarter than those dumbass public school kids at UVa. Whew! Thanks, thethoughtprocess.</p>
<p>All public universities in the top 80, that have a population greater than 15,000-UCLA, Berkeley, Wisconsin, ASU, UT-Austin, Michigan, UNC-CH, UVA, UIUC, IU, Purdue, PSU, UMaryland, MSU, Clemson, Georgia, Alabama,
The only privates that come to mind-USC, Duke, NYU-(not sure, but its in NEw York), Stanford, Northwestern</p>
<p>UVa's undergrad popular is only around 13,000. But if you include grad, yes, it is over 15,000. (Either way our social life is awesome. :))</p>
<p>Alice, obviously I meant nothing like that. Of course I was expecting an exagerated reaction like yours pretending like I said the SAT is the most important thing ever. This board has become very PC regarding publics and when facts are given to prove that one school isn't as good as another school academically people get mad. Defend your alma matter, thats fine. </p>
<p>However, I just gave evidence of why Duke is better than UVA academically. I used lots of facts, people who pretend UVA is as good or better than Duke academically needed to be corrected, at least for the benefit of neutral posters.
I didn't say UVA is a bad school, in fact its a really great school...it must be to even be mentioned this often on a top-school crazed forum such as CC. But don't give it too much credit than is deserved, especially at the expense of another school. Note that, unlike everyone else, I used facts. Its getting annoying when people bash schools even though all evidence proves their claims are incorrect (specifically replying to Jags and CalX here). </p>
<p>Plus, it seems you have a gripe with me saying the SAT is somewhat correlated with intelligence. The brunt of your anger shouldn't be directed at me, but instead at colleges who use SAT to predict who the best students are to a degree. I just did the same as admissions directors. </p>
<p>Thanks, also, for generalizing Duke students much in the way you claim I generalized UVA. I pointed out that UVA's SAT score median is over a 100 lowers than Duke's. Your reply was that many Duke students use test prep courses. Again, lets use facts. You say rich kids from private schools...UVA is 65% white, Duke is 53% white. Obviously race isn't perfectly correlated to income, but just saying, you can't assume Duke has more private school kids than UVA without using FACTS - i couldn't find any actual private/public school data, if you could to back up your claims that would be great. UVA has a ton of smart people, I wouldn't worry about it ever being called a school of "dumbasses." Plus it probably has sweet parties.</p>
<ol>
<li>100 points SAT avg spread between two schools is a big difference when talking about class size of 2,000 to 3,000.</li>
<li>Duke's avg SAT is ~ 1465 and UVA's is 1319, so it actually is 146 point difference.</li>
<li>Duke has 65% of students coming from public school and UVA has 77% coming from public school, so I'm not sure sure how much that would contribute to increased coaching for the tests.</li>
</ol>
<p>You can not compare a public school with a private school sometimes. You just can't.</p>
<p>Berkeley's average SAT pales compared to Duke's too.</p>
<p>Am i the only person who sees a major problem with everyone on this website constantly comparing the quality of institutions by the SAT scores of their entering freshmen? although i know that is not exactly the debate here, i have seen too often on this test score-crazy website posts that attempt to be the final word on which school is better based on average SAT scores. i begin attending W&L this fall; this year's entering class had the highest avg SAT scores in the school's history (about a 1410 M/V). Yet, I in NO WAY think that W&L is a 'better school' than UVA for the sole reason that its avg. SAT scores are almost 100 points higher. i laugh at the idea that duke and uva are being compared in such a manner.</p>
<p>Pirt, I'd laugh too if SATs were the only method of comparison being used to compare UVA and Duke. Other factors were discussed, including rankings which take into account feeding undergrads into top grad programs, alumni happyness, retention...etc. </p>
<p>You have to admit though, SAT is one way of looking at school selectivity, among many of course</p>
<p>Pirt8528, you're spot on!</p>
<p>youre right, thoughtprocess. as a matter of fact, ill even admit that SAT scores are probably the single best way to judge selectivity, if such a factor had to be picked.</p>
<p>what i cannot stand, however, is when an ongoing debate about two schools (look at any "_______ vs. _<strong><em>" thread) is suddenly ended by such a post: "Dartmouth 25-75% SAT scores _</em></strong><strong><em>, Brown 25-75% SAT scores</em></strong>."---as if those numbers are some sort of trump statistic that overrides quality of professors, strength of various academic departments, size of the school, etc.</p>