<p>alicejohnson, 7th rank is very different from 25th. And how is Duke settling for mediocrity? Did our rank not improve this year from last year? Why should Duke resort to petty measures such as gaming the rankings? I’m glad Duke doesn’t do this anymore (Rachel Toor talks about how it used to be a practice in the early 2000s). It’s part of what makes the school exclusive.</p>
<p>You’re making way too many baseless statements for a person who isn’t even affiliated with Duke.</p>
<p>Lagunal
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<p>I said that his/her kid goes to Stanford. I am guessing since Brown routinely gets pummeled in rankings, Kalorama is living vicariously through his/her kid’s attendance at Stanford. Also, of course, parents are often proud of where their kids attend college. What you state doesn’t make much sense…</p>
<p>@lagunal: doing formal postbac programs involving coursework is still something that only a very small minority of medical school applicants do. Most premeds who take “postbacs” (and yes, I was one of them) are actually just taking a few years off to polish their CV by doing research or some sort of clinically relevant jobs. </p>
<p>Also I don’t think postbacs detract from the validity of a 4-year graduation rate statistic or make it flawed. Many postbacs were not premeds while in undergrad or decided very late to try for med school. It is not a school’s job to tell students what they should do or major in. The point of the statistic is, based on a student’s own choices, does the school offer the resources (academically and logistically) for a student to complete all the requirements for a bachelors degree in the department of his/her choosing in 4 years. That’s a very fair question. And certainly answering the question with the 4 year grad rate statistic is not flawed.</p>
<p>These New Yorker articles are just Stanford bashing around the time that Stanford made a run at building a campus in New York, which mayor Bloomberg desired in order to increase NY City’s economic development in STEM fields outside of medicine. Of course, Cornell ended up as the “winning” bidder, which is kind of ironic sinbce Cornell has NO RECORD of developing anything close to a Silicon Valley in depressed/impoverished upstate New York.<br>
Clearly, Mayor Bloomberg wanted Stanford, which would have added graduate school programs in computer science, engineering and business and brought great STEM luster to NYCity. The New York academic establishment (NYU, Columbia, Cornell) wanted nothing of the sort-- i.e. a preeminent university with a track record of encouraging economic development and amazing scientific innovation.
It is ironic that the New Yorker does not write more about NYU and Columbia–two highly overrated schools with 25,000 plus students and basically open admissions to their gernal studies programs…</p>
<p>We’re coming back for more. Yes, 7 is pretty good. But we want to be #1. It’s the campus culture. I was talking to Dean Nowicki and basically what he said was that since we’re number 7, we have to get better. If Harvard is already the best, they’re not trying to figure out how to be better than #1. But duke is. We’re always moving forward and you can feel it in the energy on campus. ~current freshman in love with duke</p>
<p>Muckdog mentions the significance of fund raising – and he’s right – however, few individuals realize there are two basic elements that provide substantial long-term endowments increases: (a) donations (obviously) and (b) returns on those investments. Over the last 25 years, Duke has done very well at both, while some of its peers have done well at only one of these critical enablers.</p>
<p>I think Duke had a dip in endowment around the 2008 financial crisis</p>
<p>Every school had a dip in endowment in the crisis. That’s pretty much just a blip in the road.</p>
<p>Absolutely, Jwest22, EVERY endowment – not only university’s – did. However, Duke’s gains over that last 2+ decades are very impressive – better than peer institutions – and endowments exist for LONG TERM purposes.</p>
<p>SBR, TopTier, you’re both correct but I said it because I think Duke suffered one of the biggest losses (along with Harvard, Syracuse etc.).</p>
<p>I’ve known about how great Duke’s basketball team has been since ~1st grade, but I honestly didn’t know they were a top 10 academic institution until 10th grade or so. I think keeping up with the academic reputation aspect might be important.</p>
<p>To be honest, the academic reputation is about 50% voodoo magic anyway. Different schools have different strengths, areas that they are good at, philosophies etc. Just because Duke is top 10 doesn’t mean every department or major will be top notch. And just because other schools are top 50, doesn’t mean they don’t have world renown faculty in particular areas. I’m not discounting the impact of academic reputation or saying top 50 schools are on par with Duke or vice versa. But academic reputation should be taken with large spoonfuls of salt.</p>
<p>Just a few thoughts here. I am not sure why anybody in their right mind would want to bash Stanford at all. I have no connection to Stanford, and a strong connection to Duke, and have no issue at all with anyone who wants to identify Stanford as one of the top two or three Universities in the world. Stanford is a terrific place with boatloads of money, a great campus, and a great international reputation. In my view, the Duke story is as equally compelling, although different. If you run down the list of highly ranked schools, other than Cal Tech, all the other schools were established academic powerhouses in 1900. Stanford and Chicago, for example, were founding members of Association of American Universities that year, along with the Ivies (except Dartmouth) Michigan, Hopkins, and a few other places. Duke was little ol Trinity College in the backwater of Durham. Today, people actually debate the relative merits of Duke against schools hundreds of years older. Its the youthful energy and related rise that sets Duke apart. Rather than worrying about whether Duke is seven or five or ten, whatever that means, consider attending because it is a remarkable exciting place, in a growing region, that has rapidly become one of the leading institutions in the world.</p>
<p>Duke is a great great place on its own terms.</p>
<p>I think Duke is a bit overrated… My brother got in but was rejected from Harvard, Stanford, and Penn, and would have had no shot at MIT. I know one kid who got a likely from Stanford and got into CalTech, and turned them down for MIT, and another girl who got into Harvard, MIT and Duke and chose MIT. I personally think USN should change their algorithm. Realistically USN rankings should be something like H, S, Y, P, M, U of C, C, then Penn and Duke tied for eighth. I know that Duke is usually favored over Penn but both are great schools, and although a girl from my school chose Duke over Penn my brother would have done the opposite.</p>
<p>And I think Harvard Square smells funny and Yale is STILL in New Haven. What was your point?</p>
<p>Typical Duke haters – just like Lakemom. They’ll go away.</p>
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<p>When you said a “bit,” you weren’t kidding. 7 vs 8 is inconsequential - sounds like US News has Duke almost exactly where you would place it.</p>
<p>How would you guys compare stanford and dukes academics?</p>
<p>@spilding102: Your question is rather broad; it does specify a discipline, a broader academic arena, or even undergraduate or post-graduate studies. That’s fine, although it obviously means responses will be quite generalized.</p>
<p>Traditional wisdom indicates that both universities provide superb academic challenges and preparation, with Stanford marginally ahead of Duke. However, I believe this stereotyped response misses a truly essential point. Both these great institutions are almost certain to provide FAR more academic and intellectual capacity than virtually any student can fully capitalize upon. Consequentially, unless one truly is included in the perhaps 0.5 percent of Stanford and Duke students – and that is MIGHTY rarified territory – that potentially exceed the institution’s capacities, the two universities are essentially equal.</p>
<p>I read an anecdotal study just this week, which asked Ivy League undergraduates what non-Ivy universities they’d most closely compare to the Ancient Eight; unsurprisingly, they ranked Stanford and Duke as #1 and #2. I mention this because it illustrates my overriding thesis that the two institutions – Duke and Stanford – are remarkably similar. </p>
<p>I will conclude with a thought that is not entirely responsive to your query, but I suggest is truly important. Constant debate exists within the elite higher educational community regarding stature, rankings, and so forth. For example, is Harvard Law better than Yale, Columbia Business School better than Chicago’s, Hopkins’ pre-med preparation better than Stanford’s? This academic “contentiousness list” obviously is endless.</p>
<p>However, what all these debates miss is the matter of INDIVIDUAL cultural fit, and that is truly critical. To illustrate, while there may be essentially no major academic or intellectual differences, for almost all undergraduates, among Stanford, Penn, Duke, Dartmouth, and Northwestern, there certainly are significant “cultural fit” distinctions. Philadelphia and Chicago are huge cities, while Hanover is a village; the Bay Area and Durham have delightful winter weather, but Hanover is really cold (which some will love and others will hate); West Philly is highly diverse, but Evanston is less so. Therefore, rather than focusing on insoluble questions concerning academic nuances at the elite national universities, might it be wise to concentrate on which “cultural fit” is best suited to a specific individual? </p>
<p>@TopTier why are you referencing articles that put the ivys on such pedastals? They need to be asking which schools did Duke students consider or feel are most similar to Duke. </p>
<p>Seriously can’t stand this ivy obsessesion. </p>