<p>@frenchhorngirl: </p>
<p>Although you use reliable sources to attempt to prove an argument, you still cannot prove one school is better than an another. As I stated before, university education is a qualitative experience; you cannot prove one qualitative experience at Stanford is better than another qualitative experience at Duke with quantitative data; rankings are quantitative data. </p>
<p>Every student has different experiences at Stanford and Duke; for some students, the overall experience will be better at Stanford. For other students, the overall experience will be better at Duke. For you, it appears your experience will be better at Stanford since you are defending your “Stanford is better than Duke” claim fervently. Although more students choose Stanford over Duke, they don’t know whether their overall educational and social experience will be better at Stanford over Duke… so that data does not prove that one is better than the other.</p>
<p>You can only say one elite university is better than another elite university in terms of academics if you qualify it with a certain program/major. If you major in mechanical engineering, then maybe Stanford is better academically. If you major in Biomedical Engineering, then Duke maybe better academically for you. </p>
<p>In terms of quality of life, this will vary for person to person. Maybe Senior A likes going to frat parties; maybe Duke will offer more of what he is looking for than Stanford, even though Stanford has a higher quality of life ranking. Maybe Senior B likes going to the city; Stanford offers nearby San Francisco, so she will have a better time in Stanford. The Princeton Review quality of life and academic rankings are very general; they don’t go into these nuances that I brought up. </p>
<p>No matter how sophisticated Princeton Review, US News, and NY Times get with their statistical techniques, they will never be able to prove that one elite university, like Stanford, is better than another elite university, like Duke.
Why? Because you cannot prove that one general QUALITATIVE experience is better than another with QUANTITATIVE data.</p>
<p>Sure, I didn’t use reputable sources (btw, haven’t you heard about the controversies about some of the reporting at the New York Times?) to prove my claim, but I used logic/reasoning to prove my claim, which is just as valid.</p>
<p>Anyway, I’m going to stop commenting as well, and this time I mean it. This has gone WAY TOO FAR and gotten ridiculous. If you want to continue these arguments, start a new thread or PM me.</p>
<p>I also apologize to the OP for playing a role in taking this conservation off-topic. If this matter comes up again, I will start a new topic and not take over your board.</p>