<p>^It depends what the OP wants to do with Mechanical Engineering though. If he IS DEAD SET on going to graduate school and becoming a Mechanical Engineering professor or researcher, then Princeton would be the better choice.</p>
<p>However, if he merely wants to get a job in engineering/go into finance/do anything else like most students, then the opportunities/overall flexibility that the Robertson at Duke offers cannot be beat.</p>
<p>In college, most students change their minds about what they want to study multiple times anyway. At least that’s how it works in private schools…</p>
Dunnin, are all 5,000 Princeton students taking the same class? Do Robertson scholars have a label on their head that gives access to special office hours?</p>
<p>Never underestimate being in special groups and Scholar designations- Professors will make more time for you, you get more out of class access time, etc. </p>
<p>I would take the Robertson and wouldn’t ever lose a wink of sleep.</p>
<p>And I hate Duke and applied ED to Princeton.</p>
Roberton Scholars get special advising, special research opportunities, special funding for community service in the summers, special access to the top faculties at BOTH DUKE AND UNC-CHAPEL HILL and special recommendation letters for admission to top graduate programs so adcoms explicitly know if they don’t somehow know already how special these students are exactly.</p>
<p>The average Princeton student can’t compete with the top Duke student. These are both selective, top 10 schools we are talking about here.</p>
Ok…but in this case, the Princeton student is the same person as the Robertson scholar Duke student. I don’t believe the OP will need to bust down doors to get access to Princeton’s wealth of resources. I think he’d likely be a top student at both campuses.</p>
<p>ha!..I just fell off my chair laughing on this comment:</p>
<p>“The average Princeton student can’t compete with the top Duke student.”</p>
<p>are you kidding me?</p>
<p>the fact is that the average Princeton student turned down Duke to attend Princeton…and the top Duke student would only be average at Princeton…</p>
<p>thanks, but you have just described the type of resources available to the average Princeton student…</p>
<p>“Roberton Scholars get special advising, special research opportunities, special funding for community service in the summers, special access to the top faculties at BOTH DUKE AND UNC-CHAPEL HILL and special recommendation letters for admission to top graduate programs so adcoms explicitly know if they don’t somehow know already how special these students are exactly.”</p>
<p>more the reason to choose Princeton over Duke</p>
<p>"In college, most students change their minds about what they want to study multiple times anyway. At least that’s how it works in private schools… "</p>
<p>I am tired to see Duke students trying to tie Duke with HYPSM. Duke is a great university, no doubt. But being good does not mean in the same league as HYPSM.</p>
Wait, so you have a Princeton education and you couldn’t comprehend the logic behind my statement? Guess what Einstein, not everyone who is HYPSM-caliber actually applies to HYPSM. You can find kids who are accomplished enough to be in Harvard or Princeton at nearly every school in the country and there are plenty of them here at Duke. I know many kids here who just applied to Duke and UNC or Duke, Vandy, Emory, etc. who would have stood a good chance of getting admitted to a school like Princeton had they applied. Not everyone applied to all the USNews Top 10 or 25 schools and enrolls at the <em>best</em> one they get into. That’s simply not the mindset of most high-achieving students that I’ve interacted with.</p>
<p>So yes, the top Duke students would blow away average Princeton students with regards to academics. In fact, it’s not entirely clear that the top Princeton students are truly better than the top Duke students. The admissions process at both universities is very holistic so it’s likely that what a certain Princeton student lacks for smarts when compared to a Duke peer, he makes up for with significant leadership and extracurricular accomplishment. The top half of the Princeton student body is probably slightly better than the top half of the Duke student body though.</p>
<p>
I love it when unintelligent CC posters use a mocking tone to poke fun at what they think is a logically flawed statement only to discover that they are not smart enough to understand the logic in the first place…</p>
<p>
Then please explain to me why the “average” Princeton student doesn’t get admitted to a T14 law school or a recognizable med school, win a prestigious fellowship or work for Goldman or McKinsey? Duke Robertson Scholars are doing all of the above and more.</p>
<p>lesdia, is it really that difficult to understand that the topic of this discussion is a student that would be a top Duke Student but only an average Princeton student by definition?</p>
<p>yet you continue to claim that a top Duke student would blow away an average Princeton student.</p>
<p>say, by the way, care to describe to us what your definition of an “average Princeton” student would be?</p>
<p>lesdia, but you are wrong, because the “average Princeton student” does get admitted into all those programs, schools and firms that you mention…</p>
<p>“Then please explain to me why the “average” Princeton student doesn’t get admitted to a T14 law school or a recognizable med school, win a prestigious fellowship or work for Goldman or McKinsey? Duke Robertson Scholars are doing all of the above and more.”</p>
<p>I am not sure I understand the logic here. Let’s see:</p>
<p>The OP would be a top student at Duke
The OP would be an average student at Princeton</p>
<p>Therefore, using that logic, average students at Princeton = top students at Duke </p>
<p>It is ok I suppose, since we all agree that quality of student body is not that important right?</p>
<p>If that is not the case, it is safe to say if the OP is a top student at Duke, he will also be a top student at Princeton, and will have access to the same benefits he would at Duke…only as a university, Princeton is better than Duke. Duke is amazing (arguably among the top 10 universities in the US), but Princeton is among the top 5. The quality of the faculty, department strength, depth of curriculum, resources availlable to undergrads (Princeton is half the size of Duke, does not have a Medical School and has an endowment three times the size of Duke’s) etc… will be better at Princeton than at Duke. I am not sure I understand why a top student at Duke would have more opportunities than a top student at Princeton. If any thing, my experience in the corporate world would suggest that Princeton is second only to Harvard and maybe Wharton when it comes to corporate recruitment. And Princeton’s placement into top graduate schools is second only to Harvard. Or are we still assuming that the OP would be a top student at Duke but only average at Princeton?</p>
<p>Finally, reputationally, I am sure that the Robertson Scholarship is very prestigious among Duke students and people familiar with Duke, but to the vas majority of people, the Robertson Scholraship would not ring a bell. The OP would not be viewed as a Roberston Scholar from Duke as opposed to a Princeton alum, he would be viewed as a Duke alum as opposed to a Princeton alum. Of the two, I would chose the latter over the former any day.</p>
The average Princeton student is more likely to be unemployed at graduation than win the Rhodes; only 45% of Princeton students aiming for the workforce have a job lined up at graduation. Of course, this is more due to them being picky about job offers than actual unemployment rates (hopefully McD’s would hire them!).</p>
<p>That said, I am not sure I follow or agree with lesdiablesbleus’s logic. </p>
<p>
Here it should be noted that a Robertson’s resources are not limited to Duke - the entire premise of the scholarship is that it opens the full resources of both Duke and UNC up to the scholars (something I, probably more than anyone else on CC, fully appreciate). </p>
<p>I add this not to dispute your point, as Princeton is obviously great at what it does, but to merely point out that this is not simply a Princeton vs. Duke issue. That debate would be more relevant to, say, an AB Duke vs. Princeton debate. There is a regrettable tendency among Duke students to view UNC as useless, because apparently since Duke is ranked higher, Carolina offers nothing of value to Duke students. That view is arrogant and embarrassingly foolish.</p>
<p>The OP would be fine wherever he chooses to go. Virtually all AB Duke, BN Duke, and Robertson scholars have turned down at least one of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or Stanford, and I doubt most (if any) regret it. This contingent includes, as was mentioned earlier, a hefty number from New Zealand and Australia (amusingly, I actually do know of a Duke Robertson from NZ studying engineering). </p>
<p>On the flip side, one of my good friends from high school turned down the AB Duke for Princeton because he felt it was a better fit and hasn’t at all regretted turning it down (though he did transfer to Penn). </p>
<p>This “flourish where you’re planted” is especially true for a field like engineering where employment prospects and salaries are really not all that variable from university to university.</p>
<p>“Here it should be noted that a Robertson’s resources are not limited to Duke - the entire premise of the scholarship is that it opens the full resources of both Duke and UNC up to the scholars”</p>
<p>Wonderful. One school is medicore in mechanical engineering and the other doesn’t even offer it at all. So meaningful to the OP.</p>
<p>i think that rjkofnovi has made an important point. UNC-Chapel Hill, at which a Robertson scholar spends a semester, does not even offer Mechanical Engineering. I’m not sure what courses the OP would be taking then or whether he’d have to commute to Duke for some of his courses.</p>
<p>To the OP: I’m a little confused because while the finalists’ weekend for the Robertson scholarship is this upcoming weekend, recipients from New Zealand and Australia are selected through a separate process and I thought they had already confirmed enrollment?</p>
<p>Anyways, I agree that the Robertson program isn’t necessarily the best fit for students interested in only engineering – the program is designed to shape emerging leaders in a interdisciplinary, humanistic, and international fashion. It funds summers that are fantastic opportunities, but not always a good fit if a student wants to study engineering and only engineering.</p>
<p>That said, I think the OP would be a top student at either school. At Duke, though, he probably would be better able to take advantage of top faculty. Obviously faculty at both institutions work closely with top students, but the Robertson provides direct paths to faculty interaction and mentorship, funds student projects and initiatives, funds travel to conferences related to student interests, funds summer research and travel, and supports students after graduation with Robertson-only scholarships and fellowships.</p>
<p>While I do not doubt these things exist in some way at Princeton, the difference is that at Princeton he’d likely have to compete with other students for each of these funding opportunities and might not actually receive them, whereas at Duke he’d be guaranteed them. There are also 11 Robertson staff members dedicated to supporting the 140 scholars - a great ratio considering they also get all of the resources of Duke and UNC.</p>
<p>Alexandre, I don’t think that endowment comparisons are always actually relevant, because a large portion of endowments often go to programs that students never see, but if you want to use that as a metric note that the [url=<a href=“http://www.robertsonfoundation.org/]Robertson”>http://www.robertsonfoundation.org/]Robertson</a> Foundation<a href=“$1%20billion+%20in%20assets,%20140%20scholars”>/url</a> has an endowment per scholar of more than $7 million, compared to Princeton’s $1.9 million. It’s silly to claim that Princeton’s larger endowment per student is a plus factor over the Duke Robertson.</p>