Duke is overrated.

College Search & Selection
221

<p>"If Chicago just tries to fill the uber-intellectual niche with the students it admits, then it is robbing its undergraduates of the ability to experience personal growth through their interactions with people of different personalities. "</p>

<p>By that same token, Duke should probably admit a bunch of C students with 1000 SAT's, otherwise they are robbing their undergraduates of the ability to experience personal growth through their interactions with people of different intelligence levels!
If UChicago wishes to "specialize" in that niche, what's it to you?</p>

222

<p>45,
I'm not a big buyer of the acceptance rate as a great indicator of selectivity. College admissions is replete with stories of students out "trophy-hunting" for the highest branded colleges, eg, Stanford and the Ivies. I doubt how much this really adds to their selectivity. Stanford also occupies a unique place as the only premier private undergraduate university in the western USA and also sits in the most populous state. It's no surprise why they have such a surplus of applicants, but when it comes to their enrolled student bodies (which is what really matters after all), I don't see where Duke has to take a backseat to Stanford. I see the schools as excellent comps for one another and the students and graduates that I know from each seem cut from the most similar cloth vs their Ivy peers.</p>

223

<p>hawkette, let me guess, you are either a duke alum or a duke student, right? Your bias is clearly demonstrated in almost every single thread, lowering schools like cornell while worshipping Duke. In fact, you mention Cornell and other lower tier ivies in every single argument you make while praising Duke. Besides, how can you even argue that acceptance rate shouldn't be a part of measuring for selectivity? After all, there is only so much space available at a certain school, and if more applicants w/ good qualifications apply for the same seats, it gets harder and harder to get in. Simple math. Go figure.</p>

224

<p>btw, even the admissions officers at top schools ackowledge themselves that getting admission to their schools, for the applicants, have gotten so much harder nowadays simply due to the surge of applications, which correlate to the acceptance rate. This means that the schools, over the years, have become more selective, due to the lower acceptance rate.</p>

225

<p>hawkette, believe it or not :) , I generally agree with you about the general comparablility of the students at these schools (although again, SAT scores alone should be used with caution, since othe factors--gpa/class rank/difficulty of high school curriculum, extracurriculars, leadership positions, essays, etc.--weigh heavily in admissions at these schools). However, we were talking about relative selectivity, and using THAT measure alone, there are some differences. If, e.g., only 2,000 kids with 1450 SATs apply to Duke and they all get accepted, while 8,000 kids with 1450 SATs apply to Stanford and only 1,000 get accepted, and both schools end up with the same median SAT for their enrolling classes because 30% of the Duke admits with 1450 matriculate while 75% of the Stanford admits with that score matriculate, Stanford is clearly more selective.</p>

226

<p>
[quote]
I don't see where Duke has to take a backseat to Stanford

[/quote]
</p>

<p>How about business, law, medicine, engineering, science, and liberal arts, for starters... ;)</p>

227

<p>patlees,
I am a fan of Duke but only because I think that the best undergraduate experiences are found at colleges that offer the combination of strong academics, active and diverse social life and excellent and nationally relevant athletic life. For students who are looking for this type of undergraduate experience, I think that Stanford and Duke lead the nation and are closely followed by Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt, and Notre Dame. </p>

<p>As for your suggestion that I am "lowering" Cornell, I think you will see in my earlier post from the Cornell thread that that is not the case. But I do think that, with the demographic swell of top students, the universe of top colleges that they will attend extends well beyond the Ivies and other historical powers. I am willing to recognize this as well as the fact that their full undergraduate experience can sometimes be a better alternative than what is available at the Ivy colleges. </p>

<p>As for your comment about acceptance rates, the key phrase is "applicants with good qualifications." A few schools will publish this data, but most will not so I think we are all speculating about the quality of the applicant pools. I don't think that acceptance are immaterial as the difference between 15% and 45% is likely important, but I'm much less sure of smaller differences and what they mean about a college's selectivity, eg, W&L just accepted 15% of their applicants while Cornell accepted 20%. Is W&L now more selective than Cornell? Maybe, maybe not, but I don't think it is a straight-line calculation.</p>

228

<p>
[quote]
can we turn this into a Duke vs. Pennnotwharton grudgematch instead of the whole Chicago thing please... because um, I'm trying to decide still and ya
cool

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Heck, I'll do both!</p>

<p>For undergraduate,</p>

<p>Penn > Duke > UChicago.</p>

<p>Boom.</p>

229

<p>
[quote]
As for your comment about acceptance rates, the key phrase is "applicants with good qualifications." A few schools will publish this data, but most will not so I think we are all speculating about the quality of the applicant pools. I don't think that acceptance are immaterial as the difference between 15% and 45% is likely important, but I'm much less sure of smaller differences and what they mean about a college's selectivity, eg, W&L just accepted 15% of their applicants while Cornell accepted 20%. Is W&L now more selective than Cornell? Maybe, maybe not, but I don't think it is a straight-line calculation.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>My Harvard interviewer, when I was applying to Harvard, told me that back in his days, about one out of 3 or 4 applicants who applied to H got in. Now, it is like one out of ten. H has always been H and the school has always attracted some of the best applicants in the country. It is, however, much harder to get in nowadays simply bc there are so many more people who are applying. And, for your argument about having 'good applicants', well, consider the fact that college admissions have become so much more unpredicatable compared to the past, even a decade ago, and many with excellent credentials get denied. This implies that for high achieving candidates, it has become more selective and more difficult to get into these top schools. And, I think that WashU's selectivity might be a bit higher than Cornell's. Only 3 yrs ago, it wasn't so selective. Now, it is very unpredictable and some get into HYP, not WashU. Acceptance rates, at the top schools, should be accounted for in measuring selectivity along with other stats. Also, comparing one's acceptance rate from the past and now can provide a glimpse of roughly how much more competitive the admission has become.</p>

<p>
[quote]
I am a fan of Duke but only because I think that the best undergraduate experiences are found at colleges that offer the combination of strong academics, active and diverse social life and excellent and nationally relevant athletic life. For students who are looking for this type of undergraduate experience, I think that Stanford and Duke lead the nation and are closely followed by Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt, and Notre Dame.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>But, you also mentioned several times how Cornell is similar to schools like Tufts or Carnegie Mellon while Duke is as superior as Stanford (while it is cleary not)...besides, you mentioned that Cornell's rep and prestige is largely contingent on its affiliation with the Ivy League and thus it wasn't rightfully justified, while ignoring many of the distinguished programs at Cornell. (in fact, most of Cornell's programs are ranked top 15, ranging from engineering, law, science, medicine, MBA, undergrad ranking, architecture, and many others.)</p>

230

<p>Hawkette, Cornell's Engineering presence at the undergraduate level does not exceed that of the other schools you listed above. It exceeds the others only in the number of graduate students, size of faculty, resources devoted to the college of Engineering and in research activity...but not in the precentage of undergrads majoring in Engineering. </p>

<p>Last time I checked, 15%-20% of Cornell undergrads where part of the college of Engineering. That is similar to the percentage of Columbia (18%), Dartmouth (15%), Duke (18%) and Princeton (17%) undergrads enrolled in their respect colleges of Engineering. I am not sure about Brown, but I am pretty sure that Brown has somewhere between 15% and 20% of its undergrads majoring in Engineering.</p>

<p>In fact, most elite universities have between 10% and 20% of their undergraduate students majoring in Engineering. The only exception to that rule are the tech schools like Caltech, CMU and MIT (which obviously have a lot more) or schools like Chicago, which do not have Engineering altogether.</p>

231

<p>Alex,
The numbers for collegeboard.com will explicitly say “engineering” under their popular majors groupings which they provide for majors with 5% or more of the graduates.<br>
In a search, I found the following data on collegeboard.com:</p>

<p>% of undergrads majoring in engineering</p>

<p>19% Cornell</p>

<p>15% Princeton
12% Duke
5% Dartmouth
<5% Brown</p>

232

<p>I don't look at acceptance rates...if a million kids want to go to penn state it doesn't make it a better school than Harvard.</p>

<p>in reality, its better to look at the actual quality of students enrolling. Duke beats most Ivy schools in terms of average SAT, National Merit Scholar, % of class in top 10, and so on - or at least falls in line with them.</p>

233

<p>Stanford is more prestigious than Duke and is far superior in every engineering discipline besides BME, which is is actually weaker in. However, Duke and Stanford perform roughly the same at sending their students to the top biz/law/med schools and Wall Street. They are at the same level academically when it comes to liberal arts/sciences. So, job prospects are great coming out of both schools and they offer virtually the same quality of education. Also, both schools perform at a similar level athletically, they both have great weather and offer great social scenes.</p>

<p>Between the two schools, non-engineers should choose based on fit in terms of location preference(West Coast or East) and financial considerations.</p>

234

<p>I am not sure where you got your data from Hawkette, but it is not correct. I don't have a lot of time, but here are a couple:</p>

<p>Dartmouth College (from its own website):</p>

<p>"Forty-five full-time faculty members serve approximately 600 undergraduate students and 180 graduate students."</p>

<p>600 out of 4,000 is 15%</p>

<p>[Dartmouth</a> - About Dartmouth - Facts<a href="scroll%20down%20to%20Thayer%20School%20of%20Engineering">/url</a></p>

<p>Duke University (from its own website):</p>

<p>"As of the fall 2007 semester, Pratt's faculty included 94 tenure-track individuals, 5 professors of the practice, and 13 research professors. We have 1,110 undergraduates and 449 graduate students."</p>

<p>1,110 out of 6,300 is 18%</p>

<p>[url=<a href="http://www.pratt.duke.edu/about/index.php%5DDuke's"&gt;http://www.pratt.duke.edu/about/index.php]Duke's&lt;/a> Pratt School of Engineering, located in Durham North Carolina is a teaching and research facility.](<a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/home/about/facts.html%5DDartmouth"&gt;http://www.dartmouth.edu/home/about/facts.html)&lt;/p>

235

<p>earlier someone said duke basically trumps cornell is every department. well they only share 2 schools, so here ya go:
cornell > duke in engineering, easy.
i cant find any evidence to show that either one has a better arts and sciences school. you could claim that duke has higher SAT, but i dont think this will be true, because cornells arts and sciences SAT is VERY high and brings up the overall SAT range for cornells overall undergrad school collection.
in addition, cornell has the #1 hotel school, ag school, and ILR school in the nation, and i think the vet school may be also</p>

236

<p>i think people on this board tend to give way too much credit to the SAT test. Many people slack off in high school, or didn't study/take prep classes for SATs, but end up doing very well in college. I think we should look more at the end product, at the end of the 4 years of college.</p>

237

<p>
[quote]
However, Duke and Stanford perform roughly the same at sending their students to the top biz/law/med schools and Wall Street. They are at the same level academically when it comes to liberal arts/sciences. So, job prospects are great coming out of both schools and they offer virtually the same quality of education. Also, both schools perform at a similar level athletically, they both have great weather and offer great social scenes.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>evil asian dictator:</p>

<p>Duke is a fantastic school, and it is one of the best schools in the nation and rightfully so. But, why do you keep your bias to the extreme level as to say that Duke is superior to other comparable schools and say that Duke is equivalent to Stanford, an even more prestigious school w/o doubt, in regards to law/biz/med school placement?</p>

<p>Harvard Law School </p>

<p>2006-2007 # of Students Undergraduate Enrollment
Harvard 241 6,715
Yale 113 5,303
Stanford 79 6,391
Penn 57 9,730
Princeton 54 4,775
Brown 48 5,798
Cal-Berkeley 48 23,863
Columbia 46 5,593
Cornell 45 13,523
Duke 41 6,259</p>

<p>Yale Law School </p>

<p>2005-2006 # of Students Undergraduate Enrollment
Harvard 89 6,715
Yale 86 5,303
Stanford 42 6,391
Princeton 34 4,775
Columbia 18 5,593
Brown 17 5,798
Cal-Berkeley 16 23,863
Duke 13 6,259</p>

<p>Although I don't have numbers for H or Y med schools or other top biz schools, I suspect that similar results are the case that Stanford get an edge in better placement into other top grad schools other than law, compared to Duke.</p>

238

<p><a href="https://www.admissions.duke.edu/jump/applying/who_2011profile.asp%5B/url%5D"&gt;https://www.admissions.duke.edu/jump/applying/who_2011profile.asp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>MyOpinion: It was 21%, :rolleyes:</p>

<p>Being overconfident isn't always a good thing. Unless, you enjoy making a fool out of yourself.</p>

<p>Also, yea.. I might as well change my theory from North Carolina vs. Northeast to North Carolina vs. elsewhere</p>

<p>If the acceptance rate for North Carolina is 30% and the overall acceptance rate is 21%.</p>

<p>There is nothing you can do in math that can have you average 21%.</p>

<p>First of all. .for the Class of 2011.. it was 4053/19207. This gives a 21.1% acceptance rate.
Let's say that the acceptance for all people in North Carolina is 30%.
Let's give three different scenarios.</p>

<p>The first scenario is that 100 people from NC apply to Duke.
The second is that 5000 people from NC apply to Duke.
The third is that 10000 people from NC apply to Duke.</p>

<p>The acceptance rate will always be 30%.</p>

<p>In Scenario #1.. this means 30 are from North Carolina and 4023 are from elsewhere.
(30/100)<em>100= 30% and (4023/19107)</em>100= 21.05%</p>

<p>In Scenario #2.. 1500 are from North Carolina and 2553 are from elsewhere.
(1500/5000)<em>100=30% (2553/14207)</em>100= 17.97%</p>

<p>In Scenario #3.. 3000 are from North Carolina and 1053 are from elsewhere
(3000/10000)<em>100=30% (1053/9207)</em>100=11.4%</p>

<p>I guess I was wrong for narrowing it down to the Northeast. I don't have a way to prove that. I guess my new argument is that it is likely harder to get into Duke from everywhere outside of North Carolina. It is hard to argue with numbers. Depending on the number of people who apply. The larger the number.. the more of a difference it makes. One would have to look at the overall quality of both applicant pools but I would imagine that the quality is very similar.</p>

239

<p>You can't put ENOUGH weight on the SATs! Its the only normalized aptitude testing that students entering colleges take - its the only direct numerical comparison of quantitative strength that we have when comparing colleges.</p>

<p>Duke's SAT scores are in range or higher than half the Ivy's. It also attracts more NMS than half the Ivy's. It also has better law/biz/med placement, post-graduate scholarships, and post-grad employment opportunities than half the Ivies (or at least in the same range, equal or better). </p>

<p>If you think Duke is as good as Harvard, then you are overrating it, if you think Duke is as good as Dartmouth or Penn or Brown than you are right on.</p>

240

<p>what i mean is about that is, on this board, too much credit is given to high school grades, gpa, class rank, sat scores. All that SAT math tests are 8th grade math material, the verbal is significant, but not as much as people say it is. Some of the smartest people I met in college, had average SAT scores.</p>