Duke vs. Berkeley

Make sure you check out the surrounding areas around Duke University. A colleague of mine was a UC Berkeley grad about 25+ years ago and was in the PhD program at Duke. He never felt comfortable with the surrounding areas. He said at that time, there were quite a few hillbillies around the Duke campus area and felt uneasy. Eventually, he dropped out of the PhD program. But that was 25+ years ago and maybe things have changed since then.

I was just there on a tour. Immediate surroundings were great. Amazing food on 9th street near east campus and known as a culinary incubator. Lots of creative chefs taking advantage of the research triangle. The city of Durham also had some great food ranging from tapas to oven gourmet pizza. Also home to the Durham Bulls.

The good news is with 6,000 kids on 8,000 plus acres of campus there is plenty of room for Duke students to spread out. By comparison UCB has 29,000 undergrads on 1,232 acres.

Lastly I was in Oakland 25 years ago and felt very unsafe. Has it changed and how did the riots several months ago effect the students experience. Just asking.

Crime generally was much higher in the US 25 years ago (close to the peak of the crime wave*) than it is now.

*That was probably caused by leaded gasoline and which we are still paying for (criminals in expensive prison, etc.).

“there were quite a few hillbillies around the Duke campus area and felt uneasy.”

Must we resort to nonsensical scare tactics?

@NoCreativity : No offense, but it’s clear that you were nitpicking ranking league tables. How about showing you league tables where Berkeley did not only outrank Duke, but smashed Duke to the ground:

US News & World Report Best Global Universities 2017:
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/rankings?int=a27a09

Berkeley - #4
Duke - #21

Academic Ranking Of World Universities 2017: http://www.shanghairanking.com/ARWU2017.html

Berkeley - #5
Duke - #26

Times World University Rankings 2017: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2017/reputation-ranking#!/page/0/length/25/sort_by/rank/sort_order/asc/cols/stats

Berkeley - #6
Duke - #28

Center For World University Rankings 2017: http://cwur.org/2017.php

Berkeley - #7
Duke - #29

You mentioned school prestige. For me Berkeley is MORE prestigious than Duke. And, I think there are way many, many more people who would agree with me. There’s even a ranking exclusively devoted to school prestige or school brand name: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2017/reputation-ranking#!/page/0/length/25/sort_by/rank/sort_order/asc/cols/stats

Berkeley - #7
Duke - #28

And, again, we’re talking about Berkeley EECS versus Duke mechanical engineering on here where Berkeley is regarded a solid top school for engineering while Duke isn’t even in the radar in this field. And if you’re talking about grads breaking into banking, here’s another data where Berkeley, again, outranked Duke.
The top 50 universities for getting a front office investment banking job. https://news.efinancialcareers.com/uk-en/199099/top-50-universities-getting-front-office-investment-banking-job

Berkeley - #9
Duke - #24

@JenniferClint : Duke is a good school. It’s engineering program is decent. A Duke engineering degree will open doors for you. But Berkeley is in a whole different league. Berkeley competes only with two other great schools in this regard – Stanford and MIT. Duke, sad to say, just isn’t in their league yet. So, let’s not try to confuse people on here and letting them believe Duke engineering degree carries much more clout and prestige than a Berkeley engineering degree. It is a complete reverse.

Ad hominem attack aside I just cited the 5 rankings I see most frequently referenced. I accept the ones you point out to be a fair counterpoint.

In terms of your Wall Street comment I have to disagree based on personal experience. I am a 30 year veteran banker and while there are several very successful UCB alumni I have crossed paths with Duke is represented to a far greater degree. Duke is a target school for every major USIB I am not aware of UCB being a target of any major.

@Nocreativity1 : Can you name a “major” company/firm/financial institution that doesn’t target UC Berkeley?

@Nocreativity1 : The reason why I asked is because all MAJOR surveys (which can be actually verified online) contradict your claims. But then again, you said it was only your personal experience.

Anyways, the ff links may help you get aware about how Berkeley isn’t inferior to Duke with regards to placing grads to banking/financial institutions:

Schools That Help Get The Job You Really Want
https://poetsandquantsforundergrads.com/2017/12/05/b-schools-help-get-job-really-want/

  1. UPenn Wharton
  2. UC Berkeley Haas

The top universities for working at Goldman Sachs in the U.S.
https://news.efinancialcareers.com/uk-en/240377/the-best-universities-for-getting-a-job-at-goldman-sachs-in-the-u-s-europe-and-asia-within-ma-trading-risk-and-ops

1. Columbia

13. UC Berkeley

  1. Duke

http://www.businessinsider.com/investment-banking-recruiting-report-biggest-takeaways-2018-2

Also I am a senior executive at a bulge bracket IB and have worked at two others. In all cases we did have UCB alumni on staff but it was never a target recruiting School for the IB analyst training programs. That is my experience.

I no nothing about CS but without question Duke is preferred on Wall Street.

For full disclosure the exception to that comment is Blackstone which does heavily recruit at UCB. Great firm run largely by former DLJ alumni where I was a partner.

Yes, and Harvard only began engineering about 10 years ago. Yet, would you rather have Harvard or Berkeley behind your name for the next 50 years of your career? Case closed. Duke is the better name.

@Nocreativity1 : My point was – you’re not going to put yourself in a disadvantage position if you go to Berkeley instead of Duke, if you want to break into banking, or the financial industry, in general.

Now, the OP didn’t say he’s interested in banking. In fact, he clearly stated that he applied to, and got accepted onto, the engineering programs at both schools. Meaning to say, he’s interested in acquiring an engineering degree. If later he decides to head to banking/finance, both schools can serve him that well, as records have shown it. But, what if he decides to stick to the engineering field, or become a startup founder or wants to work in SV? Will attending Duke be better of for him in any of those regard? I don’t think so. In fact, I would politely argue that he will be putting himself in a disadvantage position given that that industry highly favors Cali schools, and Berkeley isn’t only a highly favored school in SV, but is also positioned in the heart of the Bay Area, the center of where the action in the tech industry is.

@JenniferClint those words were not meant as scare tactics. They were the exact term used and quoted from a former UC Berkeley graduate in the PhD program at Duke. That is why I said to visit the Duke campus and the outlining areas. My former colleague who made the comment is not even a minority or person of color.

In passing, I might ask another guy about the Duke area. He is on my floor and has a Duke MBA within the past 8 years.

@nollagam Duke doesn’t have an undergraduate business school… (the P&Q ranking is only looking at undergraduate business schools)

The investment banking ranking you posted has Harvard at 15. Let that sink in. Also, Duke was 24 and Berkeley was 9. You weren’t referencing the latest data.

I’d also like to point out that this appears to be self reported data from a website called “efinancialcareers”. You can’t compare that to rankings from the WSJ and the NY Times which clearly show that Duke graduates fair better.

As far as Goldman Sachs is concerned, your own link (“efinancialcareers” again) has Duke at 17 and Berkeley at 20.

The global league tables have schools like Minnesota, BU, Iowa and UC Davis above schools like Dartmouth, Brown, Vanderbilt, and Georgetown. Anybody who makes a decision based on those rankings will probably live to regret it.

@UCBUSCalum Durham is predominantly African American and overwhelming liberal. Your friend is clearly misinformed.

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Berkeley has faired better on a world class ranking stage. No one outside of East Coast has ever heard of Duke except maybe for basketball. And UCB has many more Nobel Laureates. Rhodes vs. Nobel Laureates, I think Berkeley wins.

But Duke is NOT Harvard. I’m sorry; but you are only deluding yourself if you’re thinking Duke = Harvard.

For school prestige and brand name recognition, Berkeley is much more closer to Harvard than Duke is to Harvard. Perhaps some students may be choosing private schools over Berkeley because they prefer the system – how almost everything is being handed out to them rather than them making an effort to get those same things. But that doesn’t have any bearing to school prestige, particularly in this case, and specially for engineering. The data I showed are full-proofs and true testaments to my arguments.

Duke may be able to offer a more caring environment with the kind of personal attention it gives to its students, but it doesn’t mean it’s automatically more prestigious. If we have to go by that logic, then it would appear all the LACs are more prestigious than Duke. But I don’t think there’s any LAC out there I can honestly consider to be more prestigious than Duke. So, that logic fails.

For many, many aspiring engineers, yes, they would rather have Berkeley (than Duke) behind their names. As a matter of fact, for those people, Duke is almost non-existent on their radar.

The Rhodes is an award that is (arguably) more relevant to undergraduates.

We’ve already established that global rankings can be pretty misleading. Refer to previous posts about Iowa, BU, and Minnesota being ranked over Dartmouth, Brown and Vanderbilt.

Berkeley is not in the same class as elite private universities when it comes to the overall quality of the student body. That is just a fact (look at the standardized test scores). I’m not trying to say that the best students are Berkeley are not excellent. The quality is just less uniform.

Also, as the UC system is becoming very reliant on international students who pay significantly more than in-state students. Many of these internationals are viewed as sources of funding. They do not necessarily have the credentials to be admitted to a school like Berkeley.

Duke is need-blind for all its applicants. That makes a tremendous difference.