<p>Which generally has better programs? Which has a better reputation among the masses? Among employers and other relevant people? Which has greater international recognition? Which generally provides a more enjoyable college experience?</p>
<p>both are great</p>
<p>I would say that Duke has a slightly better rep among employers and grad school ppl</p>
<p>Cornell has greater international recognition though</p>
<p>Cornell prob has slightly better ranked programs, but why does that matter? This is undergrad, not grad!!!!</p>
<p>Duke, I would say provides a slightly more enjoyable college experience.</p>
<p>For which major? Which state do you live in? These are both great schools. My father went to Duke. I prefer Cornell. It is really hard to say which is better overall. I think you have to drill down a little deeper. Cornell has the Ivy thing going for it and has a beautiful campus. Duke has a beautiful campus and warm climate. Cornell has better engineering programs overall but Duke has excellent biomed eng. Duke has outstanding econ, poly sci, botany, biology. Cornell is uniformly outstanding in just about everything. Cornell has almost no weaknesses. But, I don't know as much about Duke. Can't go wrong at either school.</p>
<p>Duke's alumni network is stronger and its campus is very nice.</p>
<p>Both are excellent. For Engineering and the sciences, I'd say Cornell is better. For the rest, they are about the same. However, the campus atmosphere and cultures at the two schools couldn't be more different. It is important to visit both schools before making a decision on which of those two elites to attend.</p>
<p>"For which major? Which state do you live in?"
Industrial/ Systems Engineering; I live in Texas.</p>
<p>Right now, I'm strongly leaning towards ED at Cornell, but I get a little scared everytime I read about the workload. I mean, I'm willing to work, but I don't want to be working all day.</p>
<p>You would work hard at Cornell, no doubt about it, but you would work hard in an engineering major anywhere.</p>
<p>I'm a Cornell alum, and I'm impressed with our alumni network. Remember, there are a lot of us out there simply because Cornell is so big. And there are active alumni organizations in many parts of the country.</p>
<p>One advantage of Cornell over Duke is that it's in a nicer town. Ithaca is very much a college town, geared to serving the needs of the 25,000 students who go to college there (I'm including graduate students and Ithaca College in that total; the Cornell undergraduate total is between 13,000 and 14,000). Durham is not so student-oriented.</p>
<p>Fahood-
A very high percentage of the freshmen who start in Cornell engineering graduate from Cornell engineering (88-89%). That should prove to you that the workload is manageable. And, most of the students who transfer out of Cornell eng to another major do so because of a change in interests and goals.</p>
<p>Duke's undergrad student body is stronger overall. I don't know how to measure international awareness but Duke is ranked higher on THES which is the one international ranking that takes into account both undergrad and grad instead of just grad. However, I think international rep is based off of strength of science and Cornells grad programs beat Duke's grad programs. This can be seen as Cornell is ranked higher on a international Chinese ranking based on science contributions.</p>
<p>However, I'm guessing your talking about undergrad. Duke is more undergrad focused and its much smaller in size than Cornell. Its also can get really hot there whereas Cornell can get really cold.</p>
<p>Duke sends more students to top professional schools proportion wise by a great deal - professional schools = law school, med schoo, and business school. So for anyone considering law or medicine Duke wins.</p>
<p>Cornell has better engineering besides BME (best of the Ivy League!). Duke is more fun socially in terms of parties and obviously the basketball team and its historically awesome football team ranked consistently in the top 120. Of course I might just be saying Duke is more fun because Cornell seems to be stereotyped as cutt-throat and not that fun. </p>
<p>Rep among recruiters - don't really know since no such data is available, but I'd say Duke's is better just because recruiters want to get top students and Duke has a more competetive student body. Thats the only reason for saying Duke's is better.</p>
<p>Also, for many non-traditional majors such as hotel management and agriculture Cornell has tons of oppotunitties - if you are interested in any of those take a strong look at Cornell's colleges other than Arts and Sciences.</p>
<p>Duke Dean of Admissions says - 75-80% of students who get into Duke and Cornell choose Duke. However, it really depends on your major and what you want in terms of weather etc.</p>
<p>I'd say that, in general, Cornell's better at the sciences and engineering. The rest of the stuff (weather, political leanings, location, class size, etc.) will depend on your own preferences. I'm the type who actually prefers big schools. I like having more class choices, being able to meet new people every day, and finding new parts of the campus to explore each semester. Being able to do research with top-notch professors is more important to me than getting personal attention in Bio 101.</p>
<p>You'd recommend Cornell over Duke for non-engineering science....why? I would think Duke is better for undergrads in science fields (or atleast pre-med...I don't know how much you can use med-school placement data to discuss overall undergrad strength in science though.)</p>
<p>Duke is pretty LACy but since its undergrad is much smaller and still has lots of strong grad programs I'd think there are more resarch opps at Duke for undergrads in like bio and chem and physics...of course, theres no way to know either way. </p>
<p>Anyways what field are you interested in? My views - engineering - Cornell, everything else - Duke</p>
<p>i'd say both schools are very very close academically with a slight edge going to Cornell. </p>
<p>"Duke is more undergrad focused"</p>
<p>how so? Smaller student body does not always mean more undergraduate focus. I know Cornell's new president is taking rather large initiatives to improve undergraduate education to make it "the best in the US." My point is it's just difficult to truly compare undergrad focus without having attended both schools.</p>
<p>"Duke sends more students to top professional schools proportion wise by a great deal - professional schools = law school, med schoo, and business school. So for anyone considering law or medicine Duke wins"</p>
<p>again, this is a situation where you should ONLY compare Duke to Cornell arts and sciences to get a real idea. Cornell has so many unique fields that are different from duke, and many of them don't require grad schools. I mean, how many hotel or architecture and art students really want to go to med school? Probably zero, but these majors which cornell has and duke doesn't so the proportion of student body going to med school is thrown off. I know Cornell has superb med school placement (around 90% for those with a gpa above 3.4), though only a small proportion of its students is premed. Compare the % applied and the % accepted statistics between the two schools to get a good idea. </p>
<p>"Duke is more fun socially in terms of parties"</p>
<p>Cornell has the second largest greek system in the country. I believe this is calculated by proportion as well. </p>
<p>My point is just both schools are about equal in most everything. Neither one will get you ahead any further than the other one will. I'd say go to Cornell if you're interested in particular aspects such as engineering, hotel, arch, etc. ... but for everything else pick on preference. Duke has its basketball, but Cornell has the ice hockey. Duke has more fans at their bball games, but Cornell ice hockey is like taking the first few rows of crazy duke students and spreading them out over the 4,000 seat arena. Such a tradeoff!!</p>
<p>Oh come on, college basketball is so much more fun than college hockey, how could you compare Duke Cameron to Cornell hockey....though I heard the Harvard game is really intense, its not as intense as Duke UNC which was shown on two ESPNs at the same time.</p>
<p>Duke has one of the best law school and med placement rates in the country...probably only behind HYPS in terms of sending kids to top professional schools...I mean, Cornell's is probably great too but not as good</p>
<p><a href="http://wsjclassroom.com/pdfs/wsj_college_092503.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://wsjclassroom.com/pdfs/wsj_college_092503.pdf</a>
Interpret the survey as you will...I interpret it as Duke is one of the best in the nation for sending students to top professional schools...like I said, Cornell is probably good too, but not as good as half the rest of the Ivy League and Duke</p>
<p>Also, the students who actually attend Duke are stronger statistically (SATs (1360 - 1540 versys 1280 - 1480), more national merit scholars (110 - 35 despite Cornell being larger), more Rhodes scholars and other fancy things (Duke is behind only HYPS out of private schools for such scholarships over the last 10 years) so I don't know why you'd say Cornell would get a slight edge on academics.</p>
<p>ah, btw, I'm biased....lol</p>
<p>"Oh come on, college basketball is so much more fun than college hockey, how could you compare Duke Cameron to Cornell hockey"</p>
<p>I was really serious when I said take all of those crazy duke fans and concentrate them all into a 4,000 seat arena. Seriously!!! I've been to plenty of crazy college basketball games (growing up in Syracuse) ... but Cornell hockey is intense!! </p>
<p>For what it's worth, the SAT range in arts and sciences at Cornell is around a 1330-1520 and engineering is like 1360-1550, give or take a few. </p>
<p>I'm biased as well, but will you at least agree that the OP wont go wrong at either school and that neither schools will give him or her a competitive advantage over the other?</p>
<p>Duke's acceptance rate to med school was 85% last year, I believe. Cornell's was 77%. Not too much of a difference in my opinion, especially considering Duke has a stronger student body.</p>
<p>I'm probably biased since I am a premed Cornell student who has done exceptionally well (both GPA-wise and on the MCAT) but I really feel that Cornell's premed classes (intro bio, organic chem, physics, and gen chem) prepare very well for the MCAT. I aced the Physical Sciences section of the MCAT with absolutely no high school physics and after taking the lowest form of physics at Cornell. I scored a 30 on my diagnostic while most of my peers in the MCAT course (from top Californian schools like Stanford, Berkeley and such) were scoring in the teens. Admittedly, I may be an outlier but I truly feel that for a top notch student, Cornell provides exceptional premed education. The problem is that the level of education Cornell provides is slightly above the level of its students which is why Cornell has the reputation for grade deflation and slightly lower med school acceptance rates.</p>
<p>Oh, yeah, haha, agreed definetely - when your talking about the top 10 or so schools in the country, you are splitting hairs</p>
<p>I just think Duke is better...lol</p>
<p>BTW, where'd you see the break down of Cornell's stats by college? I didn't know they did that.</p>
<p>ok, thanks for the info, but just a few more questions for anyone in Cornell Engineering:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>How much reading is assigned on a weekly basis?</p></li>
<li><p>How bad is the grade deflation? What are the grades normally curved to in engineering?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Here is how I would compare Cornell with Duke, major by major, excluding many fields in which Cornell has a program but Duke does not. This is based on US News Best Colleges and Best Graduate Schools, and the Gourman Report. I used graduate program rankings as well as undergrad rankings based on the assumption that the strength of the grad program adds something to the undergrad experience at universities. (This doesn't apply to LACs.)</p>
<p>Cornell and Duke tie
biology
poly sci
sociology
econ</p>
<p>Duke is better than Cornell
biomedical engineering</p>
<p>Cornell is better than Duke
chem
comp sci
earth sciences
math
physics
English
history
psych
fine art
engineering (except biomed)
business
drama
music
classics
comparative lit
languages
astronomy
botany
environmental sciences
genetics
anthropology
medieval studies
near/middle eastern studies
southeast asian studies
statistics
zoology (animal science)
molecular bio
cell bio</p>
<p>Collegehelp, that is if you embrace the "grad school" rank applies to undergrad. The bottom line is grad schools weight them equally and Duke has many more top firms recruiting on its campus. Duke is better overall (slightly) and that is what matters, trying to rank undergrad programs in things like english is ridiculous in my opinion. Even alexandre would agree with me on that point.</p>
<p>well slipper, I concede that the differences in academic quality between Duke and Cornell are not major. I really like Duke and think it would be a great school academically and socially.</p>
<p>I also concede that it is not possible to make fine distinctions in the academic quality of specific majors, especially at top schools like Duke and Cornell.</p>
<p>I principle, however, I think it is possible to rank individual undergrad programs but you have to identify meaningful criteria for ranking them. Then there is the laborious task of collecting information about students, faculty, curriculum, scholarly activities and opportunities, visiting lecturers and speakers, and so on. I think it is possible for individual programs to be very different in quality, even in English. For example, I think I would get more out of a course taught by someone actively engaged in writing and literary criticism and publishing.</p>