Duke: Overrated?

College Search & Selection
41

<p>Moviebuff: </p>

<p>"I have seen the numbers for a few years now. It is 67-75% to be exact."</p>

<p>No, you haven't. Duke admissions uses the fact it splits applicants evenly with non-HYP Ivies frequently when talking about how strong a school it is. The range is 45-55% between Classes of 2008 and 2010 with Dartmouth, Brown, Penn, and Columbia (look here for one of the admissions directors quotes: <a href="http://www.dukechronicle.com/news/2006/09/04/News/Duke-Still.Step.Below.Top.Schools-2255803.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.dukechronicle.com/news/2006/09/04/News/Duke-Still.Step.Below.Top.Schools-2255803.shtml&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p>

<p>Just apply common sense: even if you think Duke's admissions officers are lying publicly, and that every other school says nothing about it, why would Duke students be just as strong or stronger as non-HYP Ivy schools?</p>

<p>Also:</p>

<p>"I am surprised what you say about the empirical rankings. I find that most people disagree with your analysis."</p>

<p>I'm not sure what this even means. Most people probably agree with me if they look at facts but don't rely on "Ivys are the best" intuition. Look at almost every empirical ranking: US News (minus Peer Assessment) Duke would be top 7-8, on THES Duke is top 10 in America, on WSJ feeder rankings its top 8, in terms of NMS its top 7 in the country, and so on. Please provide an instance of any area of placement or student strength where Duke doesn't perform as well or better than non-HYP Ivies, in order to back up that Duke's undergrad shouldn't be as thought of as highly as it is.</p>

42

<p>thethoughtprocess, I have seen the numbers that you have seen but you certainly have not seen the ones that I have. There is a reason why the Admissions office "splits the applicants evenly". It is a way of manipulating the information and makes it more vague. Clearly, if they would come out and say " The range of cross admits is 45-55% to Brown", you would get the backlash that you are suggesting. </p>

<p>As a matter of fact, i have just verified the number, and it has been reported that: </p>

<p>"nearly 80% of cross admits between Duke and Brown choose Brown". So it is even higher than what i initially said. Anecdotally, everyone that I have met at the two schools during the application process, have ended up going to Brown or Dartmouth when they are paired with Duke.</p>

<p>Duke is great, but certainly overrated in those rankings and underrated reputation wise.</p>

43

<p>I'm fairly certain that between:</p>

<p>Penn
Dartmouth
Columbia
Brown</p>

<p>In a head to head competition, the ivies will win the cross-admit battles with Duke. I don't care what Duke says, but from personal experience and many friends who have gone to Duke, there is an Ivy-inferiority complex prevalent on campus and the vast majority of students are ones who were rejected from HYP, Columbia, Dartmouth, Penn & Brown.</p>

44

<p>

Merely saying that it has been reported that "80% of cross admits to Brown and Duke do not choose Brown" without providing statistics to back up the claim doesn't lend much credibility to you.</p>

<p>

Actually the number 45-55% seems to be pretty specific to me.:rolleyes: </p>

<p>To the OP, You're so deluded that it's almost ridiculous. Most employers outisde of the NE aren't very familiar with Brown, Dartmouth or Penn. I currently work as an administrative assistant for a well-respected corporate recruiter in Michigan and he knows of Wharton, HYP, Duke, Columbia, Cornell, etc. but has only has vague recollections of regular Penn, Brown or Dartmouth. Even my well educated parents and their similarily educated friends had not heard of the three mentioned schools till I began the college admissions process. I would imagine that the situation would be even worse on the West Coast where there's already a strong pool of students from the UC's, Stanford, Pomona, Pepperdine, etc. to draw from. Don't get me wrong: top companies like Google, Cisco, Sun Microsystems, etc. surely recruit from all the schools I have listed including those three but let's face it- even most graduates from the top 10 schools will not be able to work for Google and the like. Therefore, the other college graduates who are not the absolute cream of the crop from their rop 10 school are at the mercy of regional/provincial employers as hawkette mentioned and thus have the value of their prestigious undergrad degree diminished greatly if they happen to venture out of the NE, even if they are originally from California.</p>

<p>Of course, I am well-informed and consider non-Wharton Penn, Brown and Dartmouth to be FANTASTIC. I just wanted to point out the above to show how meaningless "perceived reputations" are since they can so easily biased by factors such as location. In the end, anyone who attends one of these school will receive a great education and it will be up to each individual's ability from there.</p>

45

<p>45 percenter,
You are consistently misrepresenting my comments, eg, your characterization of my position,</p>

<p>"you insist on maintaining that all hiring is essentially regional" or</p>

<p>"everything is regional"</p>

<p>"the last thing they want to do is to limit the bulk of their recruiting to schools in their own backyards"</p>

<p>The key words are ALL and EVERYTHING and your entire comment about their limiting their hiring practices only to schools in their backyard. I have never said "all" or "everything" and never intended anything of the kind about the absolutes or the limitations that you design. My point has been that hiring is an individualized practice and good students/employees come from all over, from the high prestige schools of the Ivy League to the top privates around the country to the top publics to the lesser ranked publics and privates. </p>

<p>There are good students and good employees to be found in many different colleges around America. That is what employers understand and, for a Bay Area employer, they may discover that a student coming from Mills College might actually be preferable to one from the Ivy League. These employers don't automatically accept that a student from Brown or Dartmouth or U Penn is smarter or better trained than one coming from one of the UCs. The Ivy schools are known and respected, but the individual and his/her interview will be the driver of a hire/no decision, not the label of the school. However, sheer demographics make it very likely that an employer in Silicon Valley is far more likely to see and employ a lot of talented Stanford or UCB grads than they will grads of ABC elite non-Western university. The same is true in other parts of the country. Geography matters and is a major influence on who and how many get into the interview and hiring process. Hence, my view and my comments that regionalism is an important factor in hiring patterns. </p>

<p>Finally, I noticed that you qualified your comments to say for "finance" positions. I have not limited my comments to this one relatively small part of corporate America, eg, Cisco or Oracle or Safeway or Ross Stores or Clorox. Wall Street is important and a prestigious employer for many Wall Street grads, but the US economy is sooooo much larger than Wall Street and there is a disappointing lack of understanding of that here on CC.</p>

46

<p>Haha Hawkette, I should start a thread asking for a comparison of the strength of the romance languages departments at say Duke and Dartmouth and then sit back and wait to see how long it takes before it turns into a "which is held in higher regard by corporate recruiters and investment banks: Duke or Dartmouth?" debate.;)</p>

47

<p>MovieBuff</p>

<p>""There is a reason why the Admissions office "splits the applicants evenly". It is a way of manipulating the information and makes it more vague."The range of cross admits is 45-55% to Brown", you would get the backlash that you are suggesting."</p>

<p>This argument is pretty ridiculous now. The 45-55% range is given because it fluctuates each year over the past 3 within a range of 45-55%. Duke splits applicants evenly with all non-HYP Ivies. This is according to Duke Admissions and Dean Guttentag used this tag line frequently. The 80% cross-admit number is ridiculous/fictional. You might have read it on the NY Times article on the RP study, and thought it was a real statistic. However, thats not cross-admit data - they are purely hypothetical, so please stop misrepresenting facts and making up numbers.</p>

<p>Also, there is no backlash, its just me trying to convince you that making facts up won't win an argument. Duke beats or is even with every non-HYP Ivy in placement, student strength, or any indicator of student success. Why would it not win cross-admit battles? Why would an average student really want to choose a non-HYP Ivy over Duke, other than location?</p>

<p>TruAzn</p>

<p>Why delude yourself so much? You really think Duke has an inferiority complex to Ivies? Maybe Duke wishes it was as good as HYP, but Columbia, Dartmouth, or Brown aren't as good as HYP either. In fact, it seems you think Columbia Dartmouth Brown and Penn are better than they actually are. They are about as good as Duke in most ways.</p>

<p>For example: Why would someone who goes to Duke be upset they couldn't get into Columbia? It doesn't make sense. Columbia's students aren't stronger (lower Stats), they don't place better into top biz/law schools, they don't have better placement on Wall Street (all important), and the weather at Duke is better. Please, I ask for you to apply common sense.</p>

48

<p>I've had friends who were students at Duke, but all of them hated it because of the living conditions there and transferred to Cornell and Columbia and other schools</p>

<p>I personally like Duke though, I'm thinking about applying there (my mom doesnt want me to because of the stories shes heard but I still think its good)</p>

49

<p>...Speaking of inferiority complex, look at these rankings and let me know which school is more likely to have an inferiority complex. I'm pretty sure kids at Columbia are more depressed about not being able to get into Princeton/Yale than a student at Duke, because empirically Duke is just as good or better in every way while still being far away from the Northeast. Lets take a quick look at placement, student strength, and a couple of misc. items. Please feel free to actually contend the contents of the sources I provide, rather than just dismissing them and providing fictional facts (such as MovieBuff).</p>

<p>Placement: Duke is as good or better in placement even in the Northeast, let alone the South.</p>

<p>For mainly Ivy professional schools Duke places as good or better than non-HYP Ivies :
<a href="http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/pdfs/wsj_college_092503.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/pdfs/wsj_college_092503.pdf&lt;/a>
On Wall Street (where I've worked and seen first hand):
<a href="http://www.ibankingoasis.com/node/5768%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ibankingoasis.com/node/5768&lt;/a>
There are other lists with similar results btw.</p>

<p>Student Strength: Duke is as good or better than every non-HYP Ivy.</p>

<p>You can look up SAT scores yourself. Duke has the highest range compared to Ivies aside from HYP.
<a href="http://collegeboard.com/splash/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://collegeboard.com/splash/&lt;/a>
Woah, look, more national merit scholars choose Duke, most in the country other than 5 schools. Not at all surprising though.
<a href="http://www.nationalmerit.org/06_annual_report.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nationalmerit.org/06_annual_report.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Misc. </p>

<p>Research: Duke gets as much funding as any non-HYP Ivy pretty much, per capita or absolute.
<a href="http://mup.asu.edu/research2006.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://mup.asu.edu/research2006.pdf&lt;/a>
International: Duke higher ranked than non-HYP Ivies (aside from Columbia)
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THES_-_QS_World_University_Rankings%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THES_-_QS_World_University_Rankings&lt;/a>
Btw, Duke students aren't just stronger (or as strong) coming in:
<a href="http://www.mediarelations.k-state.edu/WEB/News/NewsReleases/scholarstop10of5.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.mediarelations.k-state.edu/WEB/News/NewsReleases/scholarstop10of5.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>So, going to Columbia means you get the same academics and placement as Duke, but are totally in the shadow of Princeton/Harvard down the road. Too bad....I can understand now why people who attend non-HYP Ivies need to make threads bashing non-Ivy schools - just a bit upset that Harvard was out of reach.</p>

50

<p>hawkette,
I am not consistently misrepresenting your comments, as anyone who reads our posts can easily ascertain.</p>

<p>However, there appears to be a continual shift in your position in this thread. First, you stated in post #13:</p>

<p>
[quote]
Outside of NYC, Duke has tremendous brand power and national name recognition (thanks Coach K)-in the South, Duke would be at a premium to all of the Ivies and in the Southwest and West would be more professionally competitive than all but HYP.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I responded to this particular assertion in post #14, maintaining that Duke is not "more professionally competitive than all but HYP" in the Southwest and West. I reaffirmed that in post #28.</p>

<p>You then shifted your position in post #29, saying:</p>

<p>
[quote]
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 . . . . 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.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>So your position shifted from "Duke would be more professionally competitve than all but HYP" in the Southwest and West, to "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" and "recruiting is very regional." I then responded to THIS assertion in posts ##30, 36, and 37.</p>

<p>Now, in post #45, your position has shifted yet again:</p>

<p>
[quote]
However, sheer demographics make it very likely than an employer in Silicon Valley is far more likely to see and employ a lot of talented Stanford or UCB grads than they will grads of ABC elite non-Western university.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>So now it's not that California employers will prefer graduates of local schools, as you expressed in post #32:</p>

<p>
[quote]
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.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>but rather it's just "demographics" and that larger numbers of local graduates will apply for positions and be hired. That may be true, although neither of us has the data to know for sure. I would suspect, however, based on my own personal experience with and knowledge of multinational corporations, that they would vigorously strive to recruit nationally and even internationally to get the "best of the best", seeking a broad diversity of educational and geographic backgrounds, in order to ensure that they don't become merely regional.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Finally, I noticed that you qualified your comments to say for "finance" positions.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I did not intend to "qualify" my comments by discussing a hypothetical in-house finance position. I was merely using that as an example. The same hypothetical would also apply to an in-house position in marketing, product management, human resources, public relations, regulatory affairs, etc., etc. The same logic applies with equal force.</p>

51

<p>


</a>
Um, except for Penn. You did such a great job with that post, I thought I'd help you make it perfect. ;)</p>

<p>Actually, in case you haven't noticed, I'm a big fan of marshalling facts to support assertions, and you really did do a great job of it (and you didn't even have help from one of those Wharton chicks*).</p>

<p>*your word, not mine</p>

52

<p>45 percenter, thanks, I appreciate it. Unlike Wharton chick, I made an error...</p>

<p>But yeah, like you, I always like facts more than anecdotal (or fictional) evidence. Easier to trust a reputed source than an anonymous CC poster.</p>

53

<p>I don't see how Duke gets 45-55% of cross admits against the non-hyp ivies if Duke's yield is so low. Isn't it something like 30%? Duke is a great school, but I don't think its grads are in any better position than grads of Columbia, Dartmouth and Penn, particularly on Wall Street. I don't think any of the rankings really matter, as they change every year. (Will anyone really think Princeton is better than Harvard when it comes to jobs, prestige, etc?) It seems the WSJ feeder rankings have been debunked a lot on cc, so I don't know how much weight, if any, should be given to it. All in all, I think Duke is definitely a top school and rightfully deserves to be!!</p>

54

<p>Duke has a great law school both Dick Nixon and Ken Starr graduated from it…..</p>

55

<p>No shifting here. Consistent thinking (here and elsewhere) is that only a handful of undergraduate colleges have strong national recruiting power (HYPSM) relative to the regional powers. In their respective regions, the local top privates and top publics would do as well as, if not better, than all non-HYP Ivies and other top privates like Duke. In the West and Southwest, IMO the Duke name is better known than non-HYP Ivies, but still probably at a recruiting deficit to strong locals like Stanford, UCB, UCLA, USC, etc. </p>

<p>Re your comments about recruiting nationally and internationally, this sounds a little bit like the myth about where the top students are going to college. In another thread, we explored at length where the top colleges took their students from. </p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=363558%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=363558&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>The top schools claim that they have national student bodies, but the results of the data gathering that we did for the USNWR Top 20 indicates that these colleges draw most heavily (and out of proportion to the national population) from their home regions. I don't find this particularly earth-shaking news nor the idea that graduates of regional area colleges dominate the employment rolls at top companies in the region. But to some Ivy partisans, this is tantamount to apostasy as some perceive the Ivy brand as all powerful and able to conquer all (see dcd's unfortunate comments in Dartmouth vs Wash U thread). The Ivies are great academic schools (though not uniformly so) and have many excellent students, but that claim can be made by a lot of schools. Duke is certainly one of those schools and can match the academic offerings of the non-HYP Ivies and then some as Duke provides IMO a superior experience outside of the classroom.</p>

56

<p>I hope Duke admissions get relaxed and the quality of the student body drops, because then its easier to get in =D!!!</p>

57

<p>thethoughtprocess, you are beginning to remind me of posterX...Amazing how one can rationalize numbers.</p>

58

<p>
[quote]
the vast majority of students are ones who were rejected from HYP, Columbia, Dartmouth, Penn & Brown.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Lol the vast majority? I don't recall seeing your survey on campus asking if we were rejected from the Ivy League. </p>

<p>But since we are using anecdotal evidence, let me add that I know plenty of individuals (including myself) who turned down schools in the Ivy League to attend Duke. </p>

<p>However, I would not say the vast majority as that would be unsupported...go figure</p>

59

<p>It really amuses me that some of these Ivy supporters think that everyone wants to go to an Ivy League college. LOL! Nice academic schools, but you guys have got to get out more. There are many excellent colleges around the country and they aren't filled with students who are Ivy wannabees. Ivy promoters thinking that students feel stuck (or worse) in these other schools reminds me of John Kerry's (St. Paul's HS, Yale) ridiculous insult about the poor soldiers being stuck in Iraq because they didn't study hard enough or weren't smart enough. The non-Ivy folks might phrase their plea:</p>

<p>"Halp us I V Leeg-We R Stuk Hear N DoorHamm"</p>

60

<p>huhhH?????</p>