<p>I don't see how the lowest ranking being #8 constitutes "underrated."</p>
<p>45 percenter,
Sorry for not being clearer earlier-the strong statements that I previously made for Duke were my opinions and based on my own interactions with people in the business community in various parts of the country. Others will perhaps have different thoughts and I can accept that, but I think we would probably agree that Duke students by and large are very talented and among the finest in the land. Also, statistically, they compare very well to the very top schools and that underpins part of my high regard for the college and its students. </p>
<p>Re U Penn, I agree that it is a terrific academic school and I would probably also agree that its Wharton students would have a higher reputation than most Duke students although I'm doubtful that all of U Penn would receive that same level of consideration. I am not exceptionally concerned with high school students and where they might apply as the driver of a school's reputation.</p>
<p>I really don't think Duke is underrated here or anywhere else.</p>
<p>^^ I agree. At worst overrated, at best simply "rated."</p>
<p>thoughtprocess, you make some good points but I disagree with you on undergrad focus. Dartmouth and Brown have much stronger and reputable undergrad focus and they are always ranked lower than Duke. I have seen cross admits data also, where Duke loses to those two colleges all the time. The only reason Duke is up there is because of their research and graduate programs and that's really what comes to mind when one talks about Duke ( and basketball of course )</p>
<p>You may find hilarious the manipulation of numbers ..but it does happen and it will continue to happen.</p>
<p>
The ability to attract the best high school students is both a driver and a manifestation of a school's reputation, and all top schools compete vigorously to do it. So I assume you didn't mean that quite the way it came out. :)</p>
<p>45 percenter,
What I meant earlier was that how "hot" a school is with certain prep schools or sometimes even in total applications is not IMO a very effective or accurate way to judge the caliber of a school. However, I think that the students that a school ultimately enrolls are perhaps the most important element in judging the quality of a school. On that basis, Duke compares very, very well, eg, Duke ranks 6th nationally (among National Universities) for SAT scores and ahead of all Ivies except HYP. I think that this is a far more telling comparison than Duke's acceptance rate of 21% which places it well behind all of the Ivies except for Cornell. </p>
<p>As for recruiting reputations, I don't want to overstate Duke's position as there are many terrific colleges that will position students to interview for a highly sought after job. Once you get past the first five minutes of the interview, it does not matter where you went-Duke, U Penn, HYP, Stanford, etc. It's up to the individual in the room. In that context, Duke students do pretty darn well despite having a much shorter history and professional network to draw on, particularly on Wall Street where the Ivy colleges have been entrenched for more than a century.</p>
<p>^ hawkette, I generally agree. However, my initial post was in response to your statement that "in the Southwest and West [Duke] would be more professionally competitive than all [Ivies] but HYP." That just isn't the case and, from an academic and career placement perspective, Duke does not have a higher profile in the West--or nationally--than those other schools. And the fact that so many top high school students from that part of the country choose to enroll at--and not merely apply to--those schools is indicative of that.</p>
<p>45 percenter,
Truth be told, I don't think that Duke, U Penn or any of other non-Western elites not named HYP have a lot of power in the West. There are alumni there, but their numbers are comparatively small in the California economy and their influence is relatively modest relative to the top schools in the region. My impression is that employers there know the quality of their local schools and have long histories of working with those students and feel very comfortable drawing from the likes of Stanford, UCB, UCLA, USC, UCSD, Pomona, CMC, etc. I would expect all of those schools to be recruiting peers (and perhaps even preferred) to any non-HYP Ivy and top non-Western privates like Duke and Northwestern. I believe that recruiting is very regional and these forces overwhelm the prestige of the Ivy schools and top privates outside of their home regions.</p>
<p>hawkette, there's simply no data that backs up your "impression" that California employers would prefer graduates of local schools to those of non-California schools with national reputations for academic excellence.</p>
<p>I guess you think that California employers are more provinical in their outlook than I do. But again, the last 15 years worth of graduates of Harvard-Westlake--one of the very top private schools in the state--seem to agree with me. Of the 25 universities most attended by them, only 7 are in California, and the vast majority of the grads have gone to out-of-state schools.</p>
<p>Now, either most Harvard-Westlake grads have decided to relocate permanently outside of California, or they've decided that these out-of-state schools will serve them well in their careers, even in California. Common sense says it's the latter. And I seriously doubt that the majority of graduates of such a highly regarded school could be continuously misinformed for the past 15 years.</p>
<p>Moviebuff...</p>
<p>How would Duke ride on graduate prestige to make its undergrad seem stronger? That doesn't work in empirical rankings. The only part of the ranking that reflects graduate strength is Peer Assessment score, which actually brings Duke's rank down. Also, it should be obvious Duke's most attractive aspect is undergrad - its placement rates into top grad programs/jobs is only below a handful of schools, while its grad programs are below a larger number of schools.</p>
<p>Also, Duke doesn't lose in cross-admits - year after year, Duke splits 45-55% of admits with non-HYP Ivies. The deans of admission at Duke regularly mention that they are even with Penn, Columbia, Dartmouth, and Brown in terms of cross-admits, and that Duke beats Northwestern, Chicago, JHU, and Cornell (in fact, the main reason the deans of admissions at Duke mention it is because they like to point it out...)</p>
<p>And of course, it doesn't even make sense that Duke would not do well in terms of cross-admits, since the student body at Duke is just as strong or stronger than the non-HYP Ivies. </p>
<p>So...Duke compared to non-HYP Ivies: academics=equal, placement=equal, caliber of students=equal, and then subjective things like weather and social scene differentiate it. Yet posters like OP still seem to pick on Duke...the fact that people think of it as a jock school is the reason I think its underrated - in fact, it has great sports but non-HYP Ivy level academics, placement, and connections.</p>
<p>45 percenter,
I’m not sure what your point is…..</p>
<p>With regard to the H-W information that you provided, with a name like HARVARD-Westlake, it seems pretty natural that there would be a heavy emphasis on Ivy League applications/attendance (also, it would be interesting to see where the parents came from who enroll their children in this obviously strong private high school). Makes sense as these are all great academic schools and just over a quarter of the class will go to Ivy colleges. Although I think it is interesting that the most chosen school was USC (10% of the graduating class). I also found it interesting how few chose Stanford vs the Eastern Establishment colleges. Do you think this high school is representative of all of the top California private high schools? </p>
<p>As for California employers, I will agree to disagree with your view that the college matriculation of H-W graduates serves as an appropriate index of desirability in the eyes of California employers. But let’s take a closer look and think about how the non-HYP Ivy and other elite grads might be seen in California. California is a big state so let’s just focus on one part of the state, eg, northern California. Here are the Top 30 employers in the SF Bay Area. </p>
<p>1 Chevron Corp.</p>
<p>2 Hewlett-Packard Co.</p>
<p>3 McKesson Corp.</p>
<p>4 Wells Fargo & Co.</p>
<p>5 Safeway Inc.</p>
<p>6 Intel Corp.</p>
<p>7 Cisco Systems Inc.</p>
<p>8 Apple Inc.</p>
<p>9 Oracle Corp.</p>
<p>10 Gap Inc.</p>
<p>11 Sun Microsystems Inc.</p>
<p>12 PG&E Corp.</p>
<p>13 Solectron Corp.</p>
<p>14 Sanmina-SCI Corp.</p>
<p>15 Seagate Technology Inc.</p>
<p>16 Google Inc.</p>
<p>17 Applied Materials Inc.</p>
<p>18 Genentech Inc.</p>
<p>19 Yahoo! Inc.</p>
<p>20 Synnex Corp.</p>
<p>21 eBay Inc.</p>
<p>22 Advanced Micro Devices Inc.</p>
<p>23 Ross Stores Inc.</p>
<p>24 Core-Mark Holding Co. Inc.</p>
<p>25 Franklin Resources Inc.</p>
<p>26 Longs Drug Stores Corp.</p>
<p>27 Agilent Technologies Inc.</p>
<p>28 Symantec Corp.</p>
<p>29 Clorox Co.</p>
<p>30 Charles Schwab Corp.</p>
<p>I feel pretty comfortable that these employers have a lot more experience, understanding, and confidence in the local California schools and their graduates than a student visiting from Duke, U Penn, Brown, etc. The employers know Duke, U Penn, et al as fine schools, but that does not give them a free pass and immediate preference over a student from a Western school. </p>
<p>Hiring patterns ARE provincial and this is certainly not limited to the West Coast. It happens in every region. Look at the Ivy colleges and their strength in New York and Boston or Duke/Vanderbilt/Emory in the South or U Chicago/Northwestern/Notre Dame in the Midwest or Rice in the Southwest. That does not mean that these aren’t great schools with students from all over the country at each one of them. But the regional employers also have relationships with the local schools that may have lower national prestige, yet these employers also understand that the prestige and impact of the undergraduate degree is really not that great (notice I said undergraduate, not graduate). </p>
<p>Not sure how we got on this tangent, but I feel that Duke has stronger national recognition (perhaps due to high profile sporting teams) than all but HYP and that it provides a potentially better undergraduate experience than all of these for the student looking for the best combination of academics, social life, athletic life, etc and all of that in a milder climate. Again, the best comp for Duke is Stanford.</p>
<p>Well, I think it's wonderful that we can agree to disagree.</p>
<p>thoughtprocess, Duke loses cross admits to Brown and Dartmouth almost always. I have seen the numbers for a few years now. It is 67-75% to be exact. I am not talking about Cornell, Columbia, UPenn. </p>
<p>I am surprised what you say about the empirical rankings. I find that most people disagree with your analysis.</p>
<p>Where do you see the numbers? Duke's admissions office has publicly stated that the breakdown for non-HYP ivies is 50-50. Logic would say that that figure is correct as false numbers would generate backlash from the non-HYP ivies admissions offices. And if its due to experience at your local schools, I know enough people at private day/selective publics in probably the most prestige-savvy area of the US (NYC of course) and the breakdown isn't that harsh. Not to mention I am one of those people (Northeastern, chose Duke over Brown). </p>
<p>And while its easy to say "agree to disagree" at least show the reason why you disagree. I would definitely like to see how you reason that Duke's graduate schools "high" rankings (they aren't ranked high) are manipulated to produce high undergraduate rankings.</p>
<p>hawkette, you seriously underestimate (1) the national reputations and career placement of the non-HYP Ivies and other top schools, and (2) the national scope of the recruitment programs of companies such as you listed. I guarantee you that many--if not MOST--of the companies on your list regularly conduct on-campus interviews at several of the non-HYP top schools, and employ many of their graduates--I know for a fact that they come to and hire from Penn. National and multinational corporations just are NOT as provincial as you make them out to be, and companies such as Google, Apple, Oracle, Cisco, H-P, Gap, etc., etc. don't prefer graduates of California schools over graduates of Penn/Wharton, Columbia, Brown, Chicago, Northwestern, etc. simply because the California schools are in their backyard. Just as national/multinational corporations in the Midwest don't favor midwestern schools over the national academic powers just because they happen to be nearby. Anyone who really knows how these corporations work--or is truly familiar with the on-campus recruiting at the top non-HYP schools--understands this. The idea that only Harvard, Yale, and Princeton are truly national schools, and that all other top schools--with the possible exception of Stanford and Duke because of their sports programs--are regional, is simply naive and unsupportable by any facts or data.</p>
<p>And you keep referring to the strength of the non-HYP Ivies in NYC as an indication of their regional strength. In case you aren't aware, NYC happens to be the financial and commercial capital of the world. Strength in placement on Wall Street, or in the numerous multinational corporate headquarters in NYC, indicates a lot more than mere regional strength. Again, anyone truly familiar with the financial and corporate worlds, no matter where he or she is located, clearly understands this.</p>
<p>45 percenter,
I don’t think you are reading my posts, but rather interpreting anything less than complete capitulation to your Ivy perspective as misinformed, if not na</p>
<p>
hawkette, I think it is you who is not reading my posts. I have never asserted that the Ivies are superior to other top national schools (Stanford, Chicago, Duke, etc.) in academics, prestige, or career placement. What I have repeatedly asserted, however, in response to your contrary assertions, is that all of these schools (Ivies PLUS Stanford, Duke, etc.) have strong NATIONAL reputations that carry throughout the corporate world and are respected by corporate recruiters. Your "everything is regional" view of recruiting by national and multinational corporations is, I believe, simply incorrect, and a Wharton or Columbia student would be just as desirable to a Google or Hewlett-Packard recruiter for an in-house finance position as would be a Stanford or Berkelely student. Indeed, he/she may be even more desirable because of the plethora of Stanford and Berkeley grads locally available. Similarly, a Stanford student would be as desirable as a Wharton or Columbia student for an in-house finance position at, e.g., Pfizer (HQ in NYC) or GE (HQ in CT).</p>
<p>My personal experience with Fortune 500 companies is that they recruit nationally, not locally, and they are very interested in recruiting from top schools with national reputations wherever they may be. And the last thing they want to do is to limit the bulk of their recruiting to schools in their own backyards.</p>
<p>But if you insist on maintaining that all hiring is essentially regional, and that all top schools except for HYP are essentially regional, then I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.</p>
<p>First of all, I tend to agree with Hawkette about Duke's excellence. It is an amazing university. I am not sure I agree that it is a top 5 university, but it is definitely as close to the top 5 as it gets. </p>
<p>This said, I also agree with 45 percenter. Hiring is not regional. There are a dozen or so universities that every major company will aggressively recruit at. Those include all the Ivies, plus other excellent universities such as Cal, Duke and Northwestern to name a few. Companies, like graduate schools, hav a "preferred" list of campuses. It is too bad nobody has conducted a through examination of Fortune 500 companies recruitment activities or put together a thorough Corporate Assessment Score just as the USNWR did with the Peer Assessment Score. I am certain as universities become more pre-professional, a widespread corporate assessment score, covering all major industries and geographic locations, will be calculated on a frequent basis. I would be very surprised if such a Corporate Assessment Score did not mirror the Peer Assessment score.</p>
<p>I don't know if it deserves a consistent number 8, but it is definitely a great school. My oppinion is that it should be lower than Columbia and Chicago and stuff, overall, but i dunno about their undergrads, but Chicago and Columbia grad programs definitely put them above duke.</p>
<p>As for USNEWS, screw them.</p>
<p>Duke is absolutely on par with Penn, Dartmouth, Brown, Columbia, Amherst, and Williams. Its grad placement is suberb, and it does very well with recruiters. Duke's selectivity might have taken a recent hit, but this hasn't changed the school's overall excellence and its classes continue to be full of incredibly bright, high scoring, and capable students.</p>