<p>Collegehelp, gourman report sucks, it hasn't changed in like 30 years</p>
<p>Duke is stronger as a school - as a whole</p>
<p>Any major-by-major distinction is based on grad rankings - look at how strong the school is </p>
<p>Bottomline - statistically stronger students go to Duke, and the students that go to Duke have better placement after (atleast for biz, med, and law)</p>
<p>Actually the fact Duke has stronger students is linked with its better placement rates. That says nothing to the quality of its education. There is no real difference in academic programs (except in engineering) and, therefore, the OP should choose on other preference factors.</p>
<p>Let's say I have a 3.9 GPA. Would a 3.9 from Cornell or from Duke look better to med schools? Probably the same since the two schools are on par academically. (actually the 3.9 from Cornell might be better considering it is more difficult to achieve. only approx 8% of premeds applying to med school from Cornell had a GPA of 3.9 or higher).</p>
<p>Well, and stronger incoming classes - which in turn means more competetive student body - which in turn means more highly sought after by employers (albiet slight differences between elite schools aren't that important)</p>
<p>I don't think that preference is given to a Dukie over a Cornellian if all factors are equal. ie students from Duke are not more highly sought after than students from Cornell. Students with higher standardized test scores and high GPA's are more highly sought after and Duke has more of those. But as I explained, that has to do with the fact that Cornell's student body isn't as strong. But that's a macroscopic view of both schools.</p>
<p>If we consider only individuals, an individual is not at an disadvantage by going to either school, meaning that if he/she achieves the same stats, he/she gets the same consideration from employers/grad schools.</p>
<p>The exception might be with international employers since Cornell is more well known internationally.</p>
<p>Hm thats a good way to look at it...thats very different from how I usually view choosing colleges but its more accurate about the actual real world sort of things</p>
<p>I'm too infatuated with discussing prestige at a macroscopic level...still, I think Duke has more to offer than Cornell to an undergrad, but I guess you can't measure that so its not arguable</p>
<p>I usually tend to disregard placement rates unless there is a clear disconnect between them and the quality of the student body. Placement rates reflect the school as a whole and has very little effect on the individual. If you have a 2.3 from Cornell or from Duke, you ain't getting into law school even if Duke has a higher placement rate. </p>
<p>The med school acceptance rates of Cornell, Duke, and Harvard are approx. 77%, 85%, and 90%+, respectively. This does not mean any INDIVIDUAL is at a disadvantage by going to either of these 3 schools or that the premed programs at Cornell and Duke are inferior to Harvard's. This simply reflects the inequalities between the quality of the students and is about what you would expect.</p>
<p>On the other hand, MIT's med school acceptance rate is a bit low (mid 70%) when compared with the quality of students. This suggests that there is something with the cirriculum or with its advising or another factor that decreases the success of its med school applicants.</p>
<p>thethoughtprocess-
The Gourman Report has changed quite a bit over the past 30 years.
In 1967, Duke had an academic quality rating of 615 (3.84 on today's scale) compared to 755 for Cornell (4.72 on today's scale). The rating system changed by 1986. The 1986 overall Gourman rating for Duke was 4.77 compared with 4.88 for Cornell. In 1997, Duke had improved slightly to 4.79 and Cornell had improved slightly to 4.90. So, Duke really improved relative to other colleges in the late 1900s.</p>
<p>In 1986, Duke biology was ranked 16th and in 1997 it was ranked 13th (for example).</p>
<p>In 1967, Washington U St Louis was rated 3.41 by Gourman and in 1997 it was rated 4.67. We all know how much Washington U has improved, and the Gourman rating reflects the improvement.</p>
<p>These changes in Gourman rankings show its sensitivity to changes in the academic quality of programs. And, this is despite the fact that academic quality changes very slowly. </p>
<p>Furthermore, the Gourman undergrad rankings are different from the grad rankings. For example, Duke undergrad cell biology is below the top 20 but the Duke graduate program in cell biology was ranked 12th. </p>
<p>Now you know more about the Gourman Report than you did when you posted your comment about the Gourman Report.</p>
<p>To its credit, Duke attracts students with slightly higher SAT scores than Cornell Arts and Sciences (by about 20-30 points). But, a slightly higher percent of Cornell freshmen are in the top 10% of their class. </p>
<p>I notice that Cornell's graduation rate is about 2 percent higher than you would predict based on student credentials. This tells me that Cornell does a great job with the students it attracts. Duke's is not above what you would expect.</p>
<p>Overall, I give the advantage to Cornell in academic quality AND prestige. Cornell Peer Assessment score = 4.6, Duke = 4.5.</p>
<p>There's an article in today's New York Times Magazine called "Ending Early Admissions: Guess Who Wins?" You have to register and login to see it. It has an interesting box (look in the left margin) that shows where students admitted to two schools end up enrolling. For example (as you might guess), among students admitted to both Harvard and Yale, 65% choose Harvard, 35% Yale.</p>
<p>One of the matchups in the chart is Cornell vs. Duke. According to this source, among students admitted to both universities, 54% choose Cornell, 46% Duke.</p>
<p>I realize that this disagrees with what someone else posted earlier. I don't know which figures are more accurate.</p>
<p>Marian, those numbers aren't real...</p>
<p>They are ESTIMATES based off of the Revealed Preferences survey from some years ago, which is based off of a survey of 3000 high schoolers....so put weight on it if you'd like, but it doesn't reflect reality.</p>
<p>The RP ranking shafts Duke which makes it seem as if Cornell and Duke split applicants evenly - in actuality, Duke wins 75% of the time (according to the Duke admissions dean about 75-80% of students accepted to Cornell, NU, Georgetown, JHU and Duke choose Duke)</p>
<p>I don't know why NYT made it so unclear that these were predictions based off of a survey of high schoolers and not real data.</p>
<p>Also, Collegehelp, Duke beats Cornell (not that significantly though) in every real category:</p>
<p>SAT scores, grad placement, national merit scholars, rankings on US News, THES, WSJ rankings, etc. etc. I don't know why you'd give Cornell an edge on anything other than engineering...it just doesn't stack with the facts regarding placement and student strength - add that to the fact that most actual high school students choose Duke. I mean, Cornell might be better at some weird specific major that Duke doesn't have, but Duke students are, empirically, stronger and more successful post-grad (based on placement)</p>
<p>So in REAL and MEASURABLE categories Duke wins...</p>
<p>Of course, the Gourman report which specifically ranks every department in the nation is definetely accurate...after all, the methodology and empirical evidence is clearly displayed to show that the rankings aren't just arbitary and based on grad school reputation...oh wait....</p>
<p>I think Cornell and Duke have a large number of cross-applicants who apply both places. According to Princeton Review, cross-admits "sometimes" prefer Cornel and "sometimes" prefer Duke. That sounds like a pretty even split. They do not "often" prefer Duke or Cornell.</p>
<p>collehelp, can u post that cross-admit stuff for UChicago, NU, Wash U, and Penn, and Duke</p>
<p>Wow...Princeton Review says applicants "sometimes" prefer Duke...thats about as useful as the Gourman Report</p>
<p>Data provided by the Duke Dean of Admissions says (at many different times):</p>
<p>10-15% of students accepted to any of HYPSM and Duke choose Duke
45-55% of students accepted to any of Columbia, Penn, Brown, and Dartmouth choose Duke
~75% of students accepted to any of Cornell, Gtown, JHU, NU and Chicago choose Duke</p>
<p>However, Princeton Review isn't wrong - 75% can count as "sometimes" </p>
<p>Btw, my two claims are Duke students are stronger and have better placement post-grad, your argument is that Cornell is just better than Duke in everything...</p>
<p>I'll support my claims with facts:
Duke SATs 1360 - 1540
Cornells SATs 1280 - 1480 (though for just Arts and Sciences its 1330 - 1520, which is much higher - but I guess its always convenient to leave out students who bring down average stats...)</p>
<h1>of Duke National Merit Scholars in recent entering class - 110</h1>
<h1>for Cornell - 35 (though Cornell is bigger)</h1>
<p>Placement to one of 15 top professional schools as proportion of student body - and remember, Cornell is in the Northeast, whereas Duke is not and 13 of the 15 survey schools were in the Northeast:
Duke - 8.5% of students went to one of top 15 professional schools
Cornell - ~2% went to one of top 15 professional schools - one fourth the proportion as Duke</p>
<p>Theres other statistics like student-faculty ratio, alumni giving, retention rate, etc. but I won't bother looking at those since they are all summarized by the US News rankings, which places Duke 8th , and THES which places Duke 11th, whereas Cornell is slightly lower in both of those</p>
<p>So, I can't prove Duke is actually better in any academic field since theres no facts to back up that assertion (and no, Gourman report doesn't count as a fact), but when I say Duke students are stronger and do better in terms of pre-professional school placement the facts are there</p>
<p>Both Cornell and Duke are great schools, but I always feel obligated to respond whenever I see something like the Gourman report or flawed RP ranking being given weight.</p>
<p>again, I think the differences are sooo small, they should not matter when making a college decision. </p>
<p>Also, i'm not sure where people get off saying duke has better recruitment. To my knowledge, there's no data that's been released that has proved anything. I can't imagine that Duke engineering gets more attention than Cornell engineering does. </p>
<p>Something that may skew the SAT ranges again ... Duke gives merit scholarships while Cornell does not. This will attract stronger students with the cheaper tuition. This pushes Duke's SAT range up a bit past Cornell's (but not by much). </p>
<p>That "75% choose duke over Cornell" numbers seems to be off. This is judging by the fact that I know a surprising number of students who also got into Duke. Of cousre, this isn't the best way to estimate the data, but I guess neither is taking somebody's word for it on a college forum. </p>
<p>The important thing is being successful at either school will put you on equal footing when it comes to grad schools and job placement. Cornell does edge duke with the peer assessment scores (where college presidents, professors, and grad schools adcoms are asked to evaluate other colleges), though not by a huge margin. Cornell will certainly carry the edge with fields like engineering and hotel stuff, but other than that they're dead even.</p>
<p>is there a website link or something that says duke's cross admits stats? There's been proof from data collected from surveys of thousands of both high school and college students, and the data they provide certainly suggests it's closer to 50-50 than this 75% number.</p>
<p>Its quoted there, but I'm sure a quick google would back that up - I'd love to see real data, but all I've seen is quoted data and not raw data</p>
<p>Duke gives out 30 Merit scholarships a year, which is about 2 percent of its student body. </p>
<p>My argument is that Duke has stronger students overall, not that its academic departments are better than Cornells. The closest to real corporate recruitment data would be the "global corporate survey" which is included in the THES ranking....but I'm unsure of that.</p>
<p>edit- the linked article only discusses Cornell, Georgetown, and NU, but doesn't mention cross-admit data with Chicago and JHU which I mentioned above ... i'll look around to find admit data for those two</p>
<p>edit: also here</p>
<p>This is one of those many anecdotal evidences, probably not true any more… regardless:</p>
<p>top of the top students go to : HYPS
top students as good as as above students but got unlucky go to: MIT, Duke, UPenn, Columbia
then u know the rest :)</p>
<p>Now Flame away (Duck!!!)</p>
<p>" My argument is that Duke has stronger students overall,"</p>
<p>Cornell has more students who were in the top-10% of the class though (at least i believe somebody mentioned it here). Every college I've ever looked at has always openly stated that they place more emphasis on GPA and rank than SAT scores, no?</p>
<p>Again, splitting hairs to the negligible differences between the schools. </p>
<p>EVERY college ranking systems has its flaws, and everybody will point out issues with them, regardless if its US News, WJS, Gourman report, etc. Never the less, they are the ones doing research and reporting what they find ... not us.</p>
<p>though for just Arts and Sciences its 1330 - 1520, which is much higher - but I guess its always convenient to leave out students who bring down average stats...)</p>
<p>Convenient, but extremely fair. To include colleges that don't care much for test scores like School of Art, Industrial Organization and Hotel Management would naturally make Duke look stronger, and I fail to see why the lower test scores for these students would demonstrate that they're weaker students than Duke ones, considering the irrelevance of test scores in their fields of study.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>thank god somebody else said that, i'm usually the only one!!! By comparing CAS to Duke, we're evaluating comprable programs. You'll notice that the stats for the architecture school at Cornell are quite a bit lower. This doesn't mean students aren't smart, it means that AAP looks for certain credentials (like creativity and artistic ability) that the SATs cannot measure. Architecture is the most competitive program to get into at Cornell, the acceptance rate is usually around the single digits, yet their SAT scores are among the lowest at Cornell. why? Students are judged on their portfolios not their SATs. If duke had architecture, i'm sure they would evaluate students the exact same way. Though it may be inconvinient for your statement that duke has stronger students than Cornell, it's certainly the most fair way to evaluate both student bodies' SAT scores.</p>