Duke v. Cornell

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Dear all,</p>

<p>I'm currently considering between an undergraduate education at Duke or Cornell. I am looking to study either Economics or Public Policy at Duke. At Cornell, I'm considering the AEM program.</p>

<p>Below are some of factors important to me, which I hope will aid in your assessment:</p>

<p>Strength of the programs by their respective schools.</p>

<p>Career opportunities and job placement: As with everyone else, I am keen on entering the banking/finance/consultancy industry.</p>

<p>Academics: I'd prefer if the school did not practice grade deflation, where it is possible for most students to do well without spending all their time studying.</p>

<p>Students: I understand that competition exists in every school. However, I'd prefer collaborative, compete-with-myself competition rather than cutthroat competition. I'd also like to be around students who know how to play and enjoy themselves.</p>

<p>Cohesiveness: I'd like it if the school was not segregated along any lines. I have also heard of negative comments in some schools of the divide between students in fraternities/sororities and those that are not. </p>

<p>Mobility: I wish to have the choice to work and be employed in different parts of the country and possibly overseas.</p>

<p>Much thanks to those who have provided me with advice previously. I would appreciate any additional comments or insights. </p>

<p>Thank you.</p>

2

<p>Why are you not considering econ/public policy at Cornell and business at Duke?</p>

<p>They are both great schools. Pretty evenly matched on most of your criteria.</p>

<p>At Cornell, students work pretty hard and have a little fun when they can. Most students get pretty good grades at Cornell but you have to work hard to get good grades.</p>

<p>I imagine students work hard at Duke, too.</p>

<p>You can't go wrong at either school. You should be prepared for a lot of work wherever you go.</p>

3

<p>Duke has better weather and basketball.</p>

4

<p>So? Cornell has more winter activities and hockey!</p>

5

<p>Cornell is notorious for its grade deflation to supposedly make up for being the "easiest" ivy to get into...</p>

<p>If you want to work on the east coast..maybe still go to Cornell..south=Duke obviously..</p>

<p>Cornell is prob. more nationally recognized for its academics than Duke which many people only know of b/c of basketball (if you are a sports junkie go to Duke)</p>

<p>Also, Cornell's got a larger undergrad population. Is the # of students important to you?</p>

<p>Also, is weather important? Ithaca can have some harsh winters, and the campus is huge so you'll be walking a ton. Both campuses are gorgeous and have strong campus communities b/c the towns leave much to be desired...</p>

<p>Hope this helps.</p>

6

<p>"I am keen on entering the banking/finance/consultancy industry."</p>

<p>Go to Duke, I did BB IB last year and MC this year, Duke > Cornell.</p>

7

<p>I say go to Cornell because they really INFLATE their grades! You will have a higher GPA.
Grade</a> Inflation at Cornell » Outside The Beltway | OTB</p>

8

<p>
[quote]
Cornell is notorious for its grade deflation to supposedly make up for being the "easiest" ivy to get into...

[/quote]
</p>

<p>average gpa at cornell is around 3.3. it certainly doesn't have grade deflation.</p>

9

<p>
[quote]
Go to Duke, I did BB IB last year and MC this year, Duke > Cornell.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>this opinion is really useless to consider for anyone in this situation. every top school does well in job placement, and you would need to be a top student from either place to have the best shot at getting the job at Wall. usually, if you are from Harvard or Princeton, there may be a bit of noticeable advantage going on for your resume to obtain the job interview compared to a Cornell grad. any differences btwn cornell and duke, cornell and northwestern, cornell and gtown, etc, are negligible and any data that shows contrary to my claims, I suspect, are not scientific but just meaningless statistics with many flaws. After getting 3.7+ gpa, good ecs, and good work experience, it is totally up to you to obtain your job. it will come down to your ability to impress employers through interview, social skills, integrity, and other subjective factors.</p>

<p>so, this means that you should choose where u like better. visit and do some research on both schools, and see where you like better. then focus on becoming a well rounded, strong student with good work experience, and you will be fine.</p>

10

<p>Duke sounds like a better fit for you. You are giving me the vibe that when it comes to school you study hard, but when it's time to party you want to have a good time.
Duke is the right choice.</p>

11

<p>


</p>

<p>Thats funny. Quick question than, you think for sure that say Dartmouth and Georgetown have the same placement in lets say business, I will hazard a guess no. And before you respond remember any data that shows contrary to my claims, I suspect, is not scientific but meaningless statistics with many flaws.</p>

<p>Sorry I couldn't help myself.</p>

12

<p>Probably the only notable difference is going to be the student bodies and surrounding area. </p>

<p>Cornell's student body is a lot more diverse in background/interests due to a number of reasons, including its partial land grant colleges and its plethora of unique programs that self select a lot of specialized interests.</p>

<p>In contrast to coffeeaddict's assertion, Ithaca does not leave a lot to be desired. It's isolated, but is a very interesting, sophisticated little city surrounded by gorges and wineries in a beautiful landscape. People always say Cornell's campus is huge, but I guess I never noticed walking around. Then again, I like walking around.</p>

<p>From what I've heard, they're both work hard/party hard cultures.</p>

<p>But - between the two figure out which one feels better for you. The other differences are neglible.</p>

13

<p>
[quote]
Thats funny. Quick question than, you think for sure that say Dartmouth and Georgetown have the same placement in lets say business, I will hazard a guess no. And before you respond remember any data that shows contrary to my claims, I suspect, is not scientific but meaningless statistics with many flaws.</p>

<p>Sorry I couldn't help myself.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Actually, Georgetown places very well into the Wall street, not lagging behind Dartmouth necessarily. There are more Gtown alums in many NYC finance industries than Stanford, Brown, or Yale alums. However, this does not indicate that Gtown is a better school than those schools. Remember, just by looking at raw data and drawing a conclusion, not accounting for several variables such as the different student body, culture, etc. at each institution is a meaningless statistic with many flaws. </p>

<p>One example of this is that the student body at Cornell is a lot more diverse than Duke. Cornell has architecture students, agricultural students, hotel students, industrial and labor relations students, as well as CAS students. It is likely to have far greater range of career interests compared to Duke, which has only CAS and engineering. So, even if they may be a bit more Duke alums in XYZ finance firms at NYC, would you have really sufficient data to reach a conclusion that employers at Wall street firms will give you an edge when you go to Duke, not Cornell? One meaningful data, however, would be the one showing the percentage of Duke graduates who get the IB jobs out of all Duke grads who applied for that specific job within CAS or Engineering, and by comparing that percentage to Cornell's, if it is indeed higher, than that would suggest two possible implications: 1) Employers do indeed think more higly of Duke than Cornell and thus give much advantage. 2) Duke grads are more qualified than Cornell grads to obtain IB jobs on average. However, I am not seeing any of this kind of data. </p>

<p>I happened to take several Stats courses at college. Really, drawing conclusions like this based on raw data without proper studies done on it by the experts is very misleading and insignificant. You would be spitting at the face of Stats profs if you make an assertion such as,

[quote]
Go to Duke, I did BB IB last year and MC this year, Duke > Cornell.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>And finally, Bescraze, I don't know what is wrong with your highly offensive nature of language. If you question my views or opinions, feel free to debate, preferrably without unnecessary use of offensive tone.</p>

<p>Also, to OP, in the case you obtain a job at IB firm several years from now, I can gurantee that your choice to go to Cornell over Duke or Duke over Cornell will not be the reason why you got that job or did not get that job.</p>

14

<p>The only reason i posted that was because your post was so hilarious. Who actually makes a point and then says anyone with evidence proving me wrong is wrong? My post was clearly a joke..it seemed quite clear. Ok so here is my question do you think Cornell's architecture , agricultural , hotel , industrial and labor relations schools provide a easy back door in admissions and thus lowers the schools standards?</p>

15

<p>
[quote]
The only reason i posted that was because your post was so hilarious. Who actually makes a point and then says anyone with evidence proving me wrong is wrong? My post was clearly a joke..it seemed quite clear. Ok so here is my question do you think Cornell's architecture , agricultural , hotel , industrial and labor relations schools provide a easy back door in admissions and thus lowers the schools standards?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Simple answer is no. Each college at Cornell looks for different things. Also, schools like hotel and others are pretty selective, just not as highly competitive as other ivies in terms of admissions due to its specialization and thus specilized, narrow group of applicants, thus resulting in fewer applicants. For the record, Harvard school of Education, Harvard school of Divinity, etc, have higher acceptance rate compared to rest of all Harvard colleges. Penn's nursing school has higher acceptance rate than other colleges at Penn. Do you think these schools are just there, just like these Cornell schools, to have an "easy" door in admissions, too? I could go on further, but I am afraid you aren't the type of person who will take in what I say, rather insisting on producing facetious statements on every single thread.</p>

16

<p>I did IB and MC - I had access to resume books, went through the entire recruiting process, and will be actively involved in recruitment this year (am applying to be an interviewer though most likely won't be able to recruit at Duke). Since IB and MC are the two exact professions the original poster is considering, it should be pretty telling that I can vouch that Duke has more students in summer classes and rising alma matter in the field. While it is likely the result of the fact that people at Duke want to do this more in the first place, it just means banks recruit Duke people more as a result. </p>

<p>While Cornell is a really good school, Duke is better in terms of absolute numbers. I'm thinking that a few banks DO prefer Cornell people (for example, Credit Suisse's research department doesn't consider Duke a target, but recruits at Cornell, and UBS's Fixed Income program took only a handful from Duke this year). However, its not hard for someone who spent 2 summers in NYC to give you a broad view of Wall Street and IB - and I can tell you that Duke is extremely strong in this area. </p>

<p>Both Duke and Cornell > Brown and Yale in IB and MC (at least in my region) too though...go figure.</p>

17

<p>
[quote]
Both Duke and Cornell > Brown and Yale in IB and MC (at least in my region) too though...go figure.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Shhhh... don't tell bescraze. His whole world view might get turned upside down.</p>

<p>The problem with this anecdotal evidence (anecdotal evidence that I would largely agree to) is that it fails to control for a) the number of students interested in a profession, and b) the quality of students applying to a profession. So Yale might actually do better than Duke and Cornell and after controlling for these two factors.</p>

<p>More broadly, there exists a whole universe of careers outside of investment banking and management consulting. And quite frankly, in my experience Cornell students are less interested in these tracks relative to their peers at other schools. Penn and Duke jump immediately to mind.</p>

<p>But the really exhilarating thing about Cornell is that it educates all types of students for all types of study. I don't think you go to Duke if you want to be a farmer specializing in crop disease management. Nor do I think many aspiring architects attend Princeton. And most kids who are serious about engineering attend Cornell over all but maybe one or two schools.</p>

18

<p>@CoffeeAddict9716, </p>

<p>No, the number of students is not a factor to me. More/fewer students can both be a bonus/plus.</p>

<p>Neither is weather a factor to me. Some complain that Cornell is terribly cold, while some say Duke can be very hot. So in that sense, I think this negates weather as a factor.</p>

19

<p>"More broadly, there exists a whole universe of careers outside of investment banking and management consulting."</p>

<p>Right, but since OP is interested in these two specifically, I would recommend he attend a school with a really strong relationship with these industries, no?</p>

<p>Also, the thing about Cornell is that even though its really cold, it probably has heating in the winters - in contrast, some Duke students have to do without air conditioning in the heat (not a problem unless we sweat excessively like I do).</p>

20

<p>@tomslawsky and CoffeeAddict9716, </p>

<p>I don't necessarily agree that Cornell is the easiest Ivy to get into but I have heard many CCers champion the statement that "Cornell is the easiest Ivy to get into, but the hardest to survive in."</p>