Duke is overrated.

College Search & Selection
41

<p>

Using cross-admit battles in college admissions is a terrible way to measure the quality of the school. First of all, the applicant pools of a lot of the Ivies and Duke don't even have a significant overlap because Duke offers an alternate college experience that these Ivies cannot provide(fun social life+great athletic programs+nice weather+school spirit). I know personally a bunch of kids who applied to their state school, Stanford and Duke for instance i.e. considered Duke as one of their top choices. Thus, unless we know the number of students who actually applied to both a certain Ivy and Duke, we cannot decide if that amount is statistically significant enough for us to consider.</p>

<p>Regardless, all you guys are placing too much emphasis on the whims of high schoolers who are most likely to be prestige-mongerers. Let's face it, most of the kids who are at Dartmouth/Brown/Cornell are HYP or Wharton rejects who then settle for the next best thing unlike most Duke and Stanford applicants. In the areas that matter with regards to measuring the worth of a school(student SAT/ACT scores, student/faculty ratio, class size, alumni giving, etc.), Duke does extremely well. It deserves its #8 spot on the USNews rankings and it will most likely break into the top 5 in the years to come.</p>

42

<p>If anything, Duke is underrated. </p>

<p>I consider Duke and Stanford to be the two premier colleges in America for providing great combinations of academic strength, great and varied social life and successful and nationally relevant athletic life. Measured as a total package, IMO none of the Ivies can match the breadth of the Duke undergrad experience. </p>

<p>And you get the good weather, too. :)</p>

43

<p>I think Duke is on a downhill slide. The town/gown relations suck, and the freshman are stuffed on a different part of the university. Buses run all over the place wasting fuel, while the tour guides extol the virtues of "green Duke".
I don't think it can hold a candle to Penn (Wharton or non-Wharton) OR Chicago unless you want good basketball (which was really over-rated this year) or lacrosse and frats. One of my friends just visited Duke with her daughter and was so unimpressed that she told the daughter that she would not pay for a Duke education.</p>

44

<p>I would really rather like to avoid my further comments on this thread, since it saddens me that I am feeling like I am portraying Duke, a great school, with a negative or cynical light. But, I am being constantly baffled by some continuous claims around here and there, projecting that 'cornell' or 'chicago' aren't even close to the 'superiority' of Duke, etc., when in actuality Duke isn't that much better than these schools. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Using cross-admit battles in college admissions is a terrible way to measure the quality of the school. First of all, the applicant pools of a lot of the Ivies and Duke don't even have a significant overlap because Duke offers an alternate college experience that these Ivies cannot provide(fun social life+great athletic programs+nice weather+school spirit). I know personally a bunch of kids who applied to their state school, Stanford and Duke for instance i.e. considered Duke as one of their top choices. Thus, unless we know the number of students who actually applied to both a certain Ivy and Duke, we cannot decide if that amount is statistically significant enough for us to consider.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Well, this is a pointless debate as to whether or not there are many applicants who apply to both ivies and duke. The point is, had these admitted students have the choice, they would rather choose to attend the ivies over duke...This is statistics about cross admits, not cross-applicants. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Let's face it, most of the kids who are at Dartmouth/Brown/Cornell are HYP or Wharton rejects who then settle for the next best thing unlike most Duke and Stanford applicants.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>You say that kids at Cornell/Brown/Dartmouth are HYP rejects while kids at Duke aren't? LOL. Get real. Also, last time I knew, most kids who apply to Stanford or get accepted to Stanford have also applied to many of the ivies and many times are good enough to be accepted to even HYP. (stanford admits) </p>

<p>Frankly, I don't believe that duke is either underrated or overrated. But, I don't get posters here who argue that duke is superior to cornell or something. In arguing for Duke's rank in this thread, why mention cornell in the first place? If i were to argue for Duke's rank being justified at where it is, I would argue for other academic rankings, not necessarily saying that Duke>Cornell, that Duke students are superior to Cornell students, that Duke has better placements, etc, all of which are ridiculous statements to begin with.</p>

45

<p>Patlees, that info on cross-admit is just straight up false. Straight from Duke's dean of admissions...Duke</a> still step below top schools - News</p>

<p>Duke has more National Merit Scholars, higher SAT scores for incoming student, better post grad placement to professional school, higher access to top jobs, etc. Duke students are more talented when they get in, and have more opportunities when they get out, than Cornell or any other pseudo-top 15 school.</p>

<p>The only reason Cornell or Chicago was mentioned by me is because they are among the only other schools that could be considered in the top 10....</p>

<p>Schools that could be considered top 10: Ivies, Stanford, Duke, MIT, Northwestern, Chicago, Georgetown, Cal Tech, Michigan, Berkeley - so about 17 schools I think can legitimately be considered in the top 10, I'd argue that Duke is the best outside of HYPSM and maybe Dartmouth/Wharton. </p>

<p>So if you don't consider Duke in the top 10...another school like Cornell, Chicago, Gtown, Michigan DOES deserve to be in the top 10...which is why I was comparing Duke to those schools.</p>

46

<p>THETHOUGHTPROCESS - where do you get your proof that Duke is better than Chicago? More national merit scholars? Don't think so:
Chicago has 196 NMS to Dukes 90 (<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/454412-national-merit-scholars-2007-schools-have-most.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/454412-national-merit-scholars-2007-schools-have-most.html&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p>

<p>And you can't really use # of students going to grad school because Chicago is #1 (in its size range) for sending kids to the Peace corps. Chicago is top for economics, math, physics, anthropology, and more. Whats duke top for? basketball.</p>

<p>Oh, and Chicago has smaller classes.</p>

<p>Plus, last time I checked, Chicago IS in the top 10.</p>

47

<p>ChicagoBoy -</p>

<p>Chicago only has 40 National Merit Scholars, you misunderstood your own link. If you read the data closely you'd notice Chicago is ranked about 25th on the list, while Duke is ranked 7th on the list. While Chicago gives scholarships for National Merit to 200 students, almost 150 of them are Chicago sponsored by the school, not true NMS. Its just a way for Chicago to lure kids by giving them more scholarship money. </p>

<p>So, Duke has 90 NMS, Chicago has 40 NMS, they are about the same size...</p>

<p>Duke students place better in everything. Including any investment banking job, consulting job, and law/biz/med schools. Its easy to use excuses like the Peace Corps, etc. but there's no evidence for that. However, I'm certain Chicago has superior placement in the Midwest whereas Duke places much better in NYC and major hubs in throughout the East Coast. </p>

<p>Also, Duke is fun whereas Chicago is one of the worst social experiences of any college campus, though this is based only on my own experiences and conversations (I'm a Duke student.) Duke isn't THAT fun, but its better than similarly strong academic schools.</p>

<p>Duke>Chicago for students wanting to go into IB, consulting, law/biz/med school - ie pre-professional, career oriented kids.</p>

<p>Chicago>Duke for students who want to go to graduate school in certain departments such as anthropology.</p>

48

<p>
[quote]
Let's face it, most of the kids who are at Dartmouth/Brown/Cornell are HYP or Wharton rejects

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Well since all of these schools fill ~45-50% of their class with ED admits, that would require every single other admit to be a HYP reject--which I'm pretty sure isn't the case. A lot of people get into these schools and choose to go to other Ivies. That's why Harvard's yield is 85% (as opposed to 100%), Princeton's is 67%, and Yale's is somewhere in between.</p>

<p>The other Ivies hold an undeniable appeal to students.</p>

<p>Dartmouth appeals with its strong intimate community
Brown appeals with its lack of curriculum
Penn appeals with its cross-disciplinary breadth
Columbia appeals with its location in the world's bestest city
Cornell is the only one with a "real" engineering school</p>

<p>And all of course are still academically eminent schools.</p>

<p>And they all beat Duke in cross-admits (statistically imperfect though they may be)</p>

49

<p>
[quote]
I think Duke is on a downhill slide. The town/gown relations suck, and the freshman are stuffed on a different part of the university. Buses run all over the place wasting fuel, while the tour guides extol the virtues of "green Duke".
I don't think it can hold a candle to Penn (Wharton or non-Wharton) OR Chicago unless you want good basketball (which was really over-rated this year) or lacrosse and frats. One of my friends just visited Duke with her daughter and was so unimpressed that she told the daughter that she would not pay for a Duke education.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I was going to reply to this point by point, but it is clear that you have a bias against Duke, so I'm not bothering with it.</p>

50

<p>I wouldn't say a lot. You neglect cases where hypsm cross admits choose from the group, which would lower yield for schools as well.</p>

<p>The sentiment is more true than it is not; the hypsm acceptee that chooses to go somewhere else is the exception to the rule.</p>

<p>anyways, I agree that Duke is overrated. bottom of top 10, maybe, not middle or high. but penn is more overrated.</p>

51

<p>The NYT survey on cross-admit choices is just PLAIN WRONG. I have seen evidence to the contrary on various student magazines which actually quote directors of admissions from admissions directors. Since when was the NYT credible?</p>

52

<p>are you seriously asking "since when was the nyt credible?"?</p>

53

<p>Anyone have that link to the huge cross admit PDF done by some university that basically says Caltech is God in terms of cross-admission.</p>

<p>I want to see how that compares to NYT</p>

54

<p>ilovebagels,
Nothing that you wrote about the Ivies above is unique to the Ivies. There are literally dozens of colleges that can make similar claims. What sets the Ivies apart is the athletic conference that they share and the branding power that they have been able to create by their affiliation. Take any of the non-HYP Ivies out of the Ivy League and have them stand on their own or as part of a conference like Duke and then measure them on prestige. My guess is you would be left with.....</p>

<p>Dartmouth = Williams</p>

<p>Brown = Tufts</p>

<p>U Penn (ex-Wharton) = Wash U/Emory</p>

<p>Columbia = University of Chicago</p>

<p>Cornell = Carnegie Mellon</p>

<p>By contrast, Duke's closest comparable is Stanford. </p>

<p>Ivy partisans will undoubtedly attack these comparisons, but I think such attacks reflect a lack of appreciation for the quality of the non-Ivy colleges. They are terrific college choices and IMO certainly can offer an undergraduate academic experience similar to what is offered by the corresponding Ivy college.</p>

55

<p>lmfao, thethoughtprocess, I love how you insist on attacking my university. I wont respond to your attacks, but I do hope you understand that among the academic world, UChicago has a bigger name than your beloved college. Also please support your evidence that "Duke students have better job placement" with hard data and not your spam ********.</p>

56

<p>Hawkette, I am the first to defend Duke. It is a great university. But it is not equal to Stanford. Stanford is among the top 5 in every single academic discipline. Only Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Yale and maybe Cal are in a position to compete with Stanford. In terms of comparison, I think the closest university to Duke is Dartmouth.</p>

57

<p>Alexandre,
I'm glad you like Duke and you're right-it is a great university. </p>

<p>My comparison of Duke to Stanford is about the undergraduate quality and experience that is offered at both schools and I find these two colleges more similar to one another than to any of the Ivy colleges. For undergraduate work, I place both of them on the same tier as HYPM. However, I prefer both Duke and Stanford to HYPM due to their full undergraduate package in and out of the classroom. They are certainly differentiated products vis-</p>

58

<p>Hawkette, there is no distinction between graduate and undergraduate. Most Juniors and Seniors at elite universities take graduate level courses with graduate students, are tought by the same faculty in the same facilities, participate in the same research, meet the same recruiters etc... </p>

<p>I just don't think it is appropriate to compare Duke to Stanford. They really have very little in common, other than their mean SAT scores. But then, WUSTL, Harvey Mudd, Chicago and Dartmouth all have similar SAT means (1440-1460) as Stanford, and again, none of those schools are similar to the other. What sets Stanford apart is its amazing academic offerings. Only a handful of universities on Earth truly compete with Stanford and Duke isn't one of them. </p>

<p>The closest thing I can think of when looking at Duke is Dartmouth. Both are excellent universities with talented students, both have dominant Greek systems, both are predominantly made up of pre-IBankers, pre-Management Consultants, pre-Law, pre-Med students and both have relatively conservative (liberal on an absolute scale but conservative vis-a-vis most elite universities) and wealthy, WASPish student majorities. Stanford obviously shares some of those characteristics, but not all of them.</p>

59

<p>Imo, Duke's closest comparison is Northwestern</p>

60

<p>Duke is at the same approximate level of Dartmouth, Brown, Columbia, but not above them at the level of Stanford. While I'm not that much of a fan of Brown, there is no way Tufts is at the level of Brown. SATs at Tufts are 30-40 points lower and acceptance rate is about double that of Brown.</p>