<p>Ugh.</p>
<p>“Besides, no one wants to hear a state school grad whose alma mater isn’t even a top 25 school anymore parse the differences between two Top 10 elite schools like Duke and Princeton.”</p>
<p>Why are Dukies so insecure about their school? Most people on the Duke forum are actually pretty helpful but there are always a couple of obnoxious ones.</p>
<p>Btw, just because USNEWS says Michigan isn’t a top 25 school doesn’t make it true.</p>
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<p>Spoken like a college freshman who hasn’t even had a job but who thinks he knows how the world works. This isn’t how it works in the real world. No interviewer is going to inquire about how the student paid for his education and whether he had a scholarship and what scholarship he had. This Robertson Scholarship may indeed be quite impressive and worth taking for many reasons, but impressing future employers isn’t going to be one of them.</p>
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<p>How many interviews have you gone on again, lesdiablesbleus? Why don’t you actually listen to real-life adults who have both interviewed for and gotten jobs as well as have interviewed for their firms?</p>
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<p>That’s so pretentious, disgusting and icky it makes me feel ill reading it.</p>
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<p>Exactly, and once you get outside of the Research Triangle, employers will think it quite pretentious to even list Roberston on your resume. (Hint: a Robertson is a high school award.)</p>
<p>Seriously, just go with Princeton… you’re “nearly” getting a full-ride. One CAN make the argument that Princeton is the best undergrad university in the world. Same argument cannot be made for Duke.</p>
<p>Go where you think you’ll have a better time IN COLLEGE. Even though Princeton may be more prestigious, the difference in prestige between the two schools is not as significant as people are chalking it up to be. You’d have great job prospects coming out of either of these places. What’s more important to you… a slightly better chance of being in a top top job, or having fun in college? If you like Princeton better, go there. But if you like Duke’s environment, go there. It boils down to fit. To choose Princeton over Duke, whether for Mechanical Engineering or not, because it’s more prestigious is ridiculous.</p>
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<p>It’s also unfortuantely for you the truth. I’m not saying that the sentiment is necessarily one I like, but it definitely exists.</p>
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<p>Based on what data?</p>
<p>Here are the average SAT scores from each school:</p>
<p>Princeton:
Math 745
CR 740</p>
<p>Duke:
Math 730
CR 710</p>
<p>SAT scores are purported to correlate with success in college. Looking at the data, the “average” students at these schools seem to be comparable.</p>
<p>BTW, all Duke undergraduates have excellent access to professors, through office hours and independent study opportunities.</p>
<p>Princeton… you are so lucky to get into such a competitive school…</p>
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<p>And that’s why the OP should go with Duke.</p>
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<p>Because of perceptions that employers have about students? That’s like saying that the OP should not live in country X because country Y perceives it as intelligent.</p>
<p>It doesn’t speak well when graduates of either of these top rated schools engage in bashing one another. It just makes them look small.</p>
<p>bluebayou…there you go…</p>
<p>real life</p>
<p>ain’t it the truth</p>
<p><a href=“Hint:%20a%20Robertson%20is%20a%20high%20school%20award.”>quote</a>
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<p>quomodo, huh?</p>
<p>since when did Duke become a more fun undergraduate experience?</p>
<p>as the top undergraduate college in the country, by definition, Princeton is truly a great fun experience</p>
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<p>How you people can’t figure out that there is no one “better” experience is beyond me. Some people will prefer the Princeton experience. Others will prefer the Duke experience. To try to argue that one is uniformly better is stupid. It’s like arguing that ski vacations are better than beach vacations. Different personal styles.</p>
<p>dionte, so now you are saying that the OP should go to Duke because the Princeton identity stays on with the alumni decades after graduation?</p>
<p>do you know how silly you sound here?</p>
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<p>Certainly, but one experience might be preferred by a majority of people.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, what we can conclude after all this posting, however, is that the** Robinson Duke Scholar **experience would be better than the **regular Duke undergraduate **experience…at least that is what I am observing from all the Dukies that are posting here…</p>
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<p>Yeah, well, so what? If 60% of people prefer chocolate over vanilla, what difference does that make to me if I’m one of the 40% who prefer vanilla over chocolate? This is one of the dumbest things that gets reiterated on CC – the constant overvaluing of other people’s opinions as if they should override one’s own opinion.</p>
<p>Look, I don’t know if the OP will prefer Duke’s atmosphere or Princeton’s atmosphere. But it would have been more useful to give him concrete specifics about those two atmospheres so he can decide. “I really like it!!” is meaningless.</p>