Duke vs. Berkeley?

College Search & Selection
181

<p>kyledavid: Why do you always pretend there are no differences between Duke and Berkeley?</p>

<p>I am saying Duke is better than Berkeley objectively. It is not like Duke is "slightly" better than Berkeley. Its average SAT scores are more than 120 points higher, it has proportionally 6 times as many National Merit Scholars, and it sends 5 times as many students proportionally to top 15 professional law, business, and medical schools. It has many more Rhodes, Fullbright, and Goldwater scholars in the past decadae. "Ranked a bit higher" - please, Duke is much, much better for undergrad. If a poster asks what school is better, the answer is Duke for undergrad. Note that the question is not "what school is the better fit for me." </p>

<p>Chaoses: Duke is better because its students are more talented. Its basketball players and lacrosse players are more talented too. Not its football players. But the average non-athlete is more talented. Now, my assumption is that talent can be measured by SATs, feeding into top professional schools, prestigious scholarshipsm etc. etc. etc. Its a safe assumption that is central to most posters on this website. Just because Berkeley lags behind Duke where it matters for undergrads doesn't mean you have to skew the facts and bring up the Lacrosse scandal (which really isn't a scandal anymore).</p>

182

<p>thethoughtprincess:</p>

<p>All the information you "cite" indicates nothing about the quality of education, and so you can't make any conclusion as to which is better for undergrad. I could start busting out a whole slew of numbers in which Berkeley triumphs over Duke, but really, what would be the point? It doesn't prove anything. =)</p>

<p>As for this thread, I'm done. You cannot seem to support your claims effectively, nor can you hold back your disdain for "state school trolls." Further, this topic still--after all the debating--holds little substance, far from enough to convince me (and indeed many others) of anything.</p>

183

<p>I am saying Duke is better than Berkeley objectively.</p>

<p>I don't think you have proven that. On the contrary, it appears Berkeley is still better than Duke. </p>

<p>The only reason you provided is that Duke has a slighly higher SATs than Berkeley's which is obviously not a measure for saying it is better.</p>

184

<p>thethoughtprocess,</p>

<p>Cut is already. You're only making fun of yourself here. Berkeley is better than Duke and the world knows that it is. Your only proof to counter this fact is not even considered a proof. I'm amused I encountered a person like you. Your mentality is very shallow. No offense meant to you.</p>

185

<p>Vangie...its clear that Duke attracts much much stronger students than Berkeley...I mean, that in itself says something about its education - along with the fact that the students who graduate from Duke go onto better professional schools and win more prestigious scholarships...just to name a couple of important things.</p>

<p>Kyledavid...there are no numbers that exist that say, in any way, that Berkeley is comparable to Duke for undergrad, I'm sorry. You say my argument doesn't carry weight with many people...yet my argument is the reason why superior students choose Duke over Berkeley. Sorry again KyleDavid, that is just a fact. </p>

<p>I love the logic used by you guys: </p>

<p>"Just because Duke is better objectively doesn't mean its better subjectively!"</p>

186

<p>But Berkeley attracts as much bright students as Duke does. Though on the average, because of Duke's smaller class size, it appears Duke has a better stat. But you did not answer my question. How can you conclude that Duke is better than Berkeley solely because of that?</p>

<p>Say, my younger brother wants to major Chemistry. Where will he go if he was admitted at both schools and money was not a problem for him. Support your answer. Let's see if you make sense or not.</p>

187

<p>yes of course chem is better in berk...anyhow...overall quality...O.o i don;t even know why i'm doing this...since it doesn;t even personally affect me at all lol >< anyhow...
<a href="http://collegeadmissions.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/laissez-faire-1999-2000.txt%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://collegeadmissions.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/laissez-faire-1999-2000.txt&lt;/a>
<a href="http://www.collegejournal.com/special/top50feeder.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.collegejournal.com/special/top50feeder.pdf&lt;/a>
--i don;t even think we r actaully allowed to post sites up O.o</p>

188

<p>For the record, vangie, I wasn't even saying that Cal is better than Duke -- they're just different.</p>

189

<p>No offense TTP, and I appreciate the defense of Duke, but I really don't think you can objective "rank" colleges based on whom they admit (or who enrolls). That's like ranking hospital care according to the patients they admit.</p>

190

<p>
[quote]
Duke is better because its students are more talented. Its basketball players and lacrosse players are more talented too. Not its football players.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>thethoughtprocess: are you talking about maryland or berkeley? if it's maryland, i'm not sure any of it is true besides the last sentence. and don't go into sports, there are hundreds of websites stating WHY and HOW suck Duke sports are. Don't even go there.</p>

191

<p>Chaoses - I'm talking about both Berkeley and Maryland - Duke is better for academics, maybe Lax, and definetely basketball (but not football)</p>

<p>If you are seriously saying UMD is as good academically as either Berkeley or Duke that is laughable - both Duke and Berkeley are on a completely different level. UMD is a safety school for kids who go to Duke. Sorry. </p>

<p>Vangie - Duke sends more kids to top professional schools, win more undergrad scholarships, the kids are just more talented and choose to come to Duke in the first place because its better - things like that. I mean, you just keep ignoring all that stuff so I shouldn't even bother responding to you.</p>

<p>Warblersrule...of course you can say a school is better because it attracts better students...the fact that stronger students choose one school over another shows that they see more opportunity at those schools. Is that not a safe assumption? If not, there's still other stats such as feeding into top professional schools and scholarship awards (like Fullbright, Goldwater, Truman, Rhodes).</p>

192

<p>argggg...i'm sorry...i forgot to clarify my link...basically of the 15 top schools sent they include business, med, and law schools evenly...therefore if you know that duke does not send anyone to any of the top buisness programs you can conclude that the reason it ranks so high is because it sends alot of grad to top med/law schools...i'm not even sure if that is how duke is but just giving a hypothetical example</p>

193

<p>
[quote]
Chaoses - I'm talking about both Berkeley and Maryland - Duke is better for academics, maybe Lax, and definetely basketball (but not football)</p>

<p>If you are seriously saying UMD is as good academically as either Berkeley or Duke that is laughable - both Duke and Berkeley are on a completely different level. UMD is a safety school for kids who go to Duke. Sorry.

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<p>Let me clarify the sports thing a little bit. Duke WAS traditionally a better basketball team because they recruit all-american from high school every year (regardless of how stupid those athlethes are compare to their regular student admission), and of course they were overrated by the media. But, the last time I see Maryland (both men & women) basketball teams won the national championships Duke had not since then until now. For lacrosse I think you have not heard one of the greatest things to do before you graduate from college is to watch Maryland vs. Johns Hopkins lacrosse. For now, with the Duke lacrosse team condition, I don't think we need to argue. Maryland didn't even accept 2 Lax players transfering from Duke last year. We don't need to talk about football as everybody knows. You would think Duke is better than maryland in sports? If you need stats from other sports I'm more than happy to give you (soccer? hockey? blah blah)</p>

<p>For academic, Duke is better than Maryland overall but it's not necessary true that they are better than berkeley. If you pick the top students from each school from berkeley or maryland, I don't think they're that much different from Duke's students. Just because public school has more students, they are more diverse. At Maryland there are scholars program, honors, and gemstone. I don't think you can argue that gemstone people from maryland is dumber than Duke's since they need at least 1470/1600 (old SAT score) and GPA of 4.3 to be considered.</p>

194

<p>


</p>

<p>So Duke isn't better than Berkeley and Berkeley is better and the "world" knows it. Wow. </p>

<p>My opinion: It depends on certain factors.</p>

195

<p>***So Duke isn't better than Berkeley and Berkeley is better and the "world" knows it. Wow. </p>

<p>My opinion: It depends on certain factors.***</p>

<p>Like what factors for example?</p>

<p>Forgive me, I meant, Berkeley has a better brand name than Duke. And the reason why I said that was because, except for that weird USNews’ undergrad ranking, I have yet to see a GLOBAL ranking survey where it ranked Duke ahead of Berkeley. I also haven’t seen any ranking of specific program where Duke was ranked ahead of Berkeley. From the physical sciences to social sciences, engineering to IT, languages to law, Berkeley was ranked ahead of Duke. In engineering, IT and physical sciences, Berkeley is considered within the super elite 5 in the world, or in the same breathe as those of Cambridge, MIT, Stanford and Caltech. This is the fact which thethoughtprocess has ignored. </p>

<p>Thethoghtprocess’ argument was pretty shallow, not to mention downright stupid. He based his argument on SAT score averages alone and made a sudden conclusion from there. He undermined the most important thing in gauging schools – the strength of the program! He knows that both schools attract bright students. In fact, he confirmed that there are many bright students at Berkeley. (How can they be wrong for going there?) The only difference which is agreeable to everyone was that Berkeley has students with slightly lower SAT scores, and that was due to Berkeley’s pretty large student body (and some factors dictated by its mission as a state university). But even the lowest score bunch was still considered very high compared to those of the brightest bunch at most schools in America. Nevertheless that was not the thing here. The thing here is that he neglected the fact that 100% of Berkeley’s students were in the top 10 of their high schools. So, are they dumber because they scored a few points lower? Of course not! </p>

<p>To summarize, here are the points where the thethoughtprocess miserably failed: </p>

<ol>
<li> He failed to support his argument that the average SAT scores is the ULTIMATE measure of a school.</li>
<li> He did not take into account the percentages of high school honor students attending at both schools</li>
<li> He did NOT take into account the STRENGTH of the program.</li>
<li> He did NOT take into account the strength of the faculty of each program</li>
<li> He did NOT take into account the physical resources of the school</li>
<li> He CANNOT CONCLUDE nor say that a student would learn more at Duke that he would at Berkeley.</li>
</ol>

<p>In other words, there was no sign whatsoever other than the stat he provided that – ON AVERAGE – Duke Students have higher SAT scores than Berkeley’s. Therefore, I find all his Blah-blahs useless and should NOT be taken seriously. </p>

<p>Overall, if there is such a thing as overall, I think Berkeley has a better brand name than Duke. All ranking surveys which rank schools around the world have said so. And I trust them more than I do trust this thethoughprocess guy. I’m sorry, I do not mean to be mean. I’m just stating a fact. And if you don’t believe facts, then it’s his problem.</p>

196

<p>repeating again: berk for working after undergrad, duke for grad studies after undergrad</p>

197

<p>vangie, I have several comments to your post. Let it first be understood that I am not arguing for or against either school.</p>

<p>1) I, if not TTP, specifically addressed points 3,4, and 5 in my previous posts on this thread. The OP was specifically interested in biology for undergrad and medical school afterwards. Berkeley's rankings are, for this discussion, largely irrelevant because Duke's biology program is in no way whatsoever inferior to Berkeley's. </p>

<p>2) If we do resort to US News (which I'd really rather not), take a look at the ranking I think is most useful- the ranking</a> of best values. Duke is #10; UC Berkeley is #47. </p>

<p>3) In response to your "global ranking" comment, have you actually looked at the THES ranking? Maybe it's just me, but I really don't see much difference in #8 (Berkeley) and #11 (Duke). </p>

<p>4) Finally, please be civil even if you do disagree strongly with others' views. I'd rather not see this thread locked.


</p>

198

<p>Let me chime in as a Cal alumnus who like the OP, also applied from overseas (France.)</p>

<p>-As a young European, I had never even HEARD of a school called Duke while Berkeley's name was second to none. Berkeley's international reputation dwarfs that of Duke, in any part of the world.</p>

<p>-And particularly in Asia. For an applicant from there, this is a no-brainer. Cal is at the vey least one of the best connected universities with Asia, Duke suffers there in comparison. </p>

<p>I think the links and arguments made about Duke's supposed superiority are quite telling. When a Duke pundit pulls up one academic ranking which shows Duke ahead in "ecology/evolution", you can bet it is because Berkeley is ranked well ahead of Duke in just about every other of the dozen plus biological science sub-discipline...</p>

<p>
[quote]
Vangie...its clear that Duke attracts much much stronger students than Berkeley...

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</p>

<p>No, it isn't. Berkeley's acceptance rate is in the same league as Duke, despite the fact that it is a much larger school. The top 6,000 undergrad students at Berkeley have stronger credentials than the top 6,000 undergrads at Duke. </p>

<p>Furthermore, there are a lot of misconceptions about Berkeley, like class size, which statistics show aren't much larger than those of the top privates. Comparing class sizes at Cal vs Stanford, from the common data set of both schools:</p>

<p>74% of undergrad classes at Berkeley are under 30 students
78% of undergrad classes at Stanford are under 30 students</p>

<p>7% of undergrad classes at Berkeley have 100+ students
5% of undergrad classes at Stanford have 100+ students</p>

<p>Finally, consider the fact that Berkeley's environment is far more cosmopolitan than Duke's, which feels like a southern boarding school while Berkeley is right across arguably the most beautiful big city in the USA, with world-class cuisine, gorgeous scenery and top-notch urban natural attractions. If you want decent dim sum at Duke, you'd have to fly to New York...</p>

199

<p>
[quote]
-As a young European, I had never even HEARD of a school called Duke while Berkeley's name was second to none. Berkeley's international reputation dwarfs that of Duke, in any part of the world.</p>

<p>-And particularly in Asia. For an applicant from there, this is a no-brainer. Cal is at the vey least one of the best connected universities with Asia, Duke suffers there in comparison.

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</p>

<p>Thanks that's exactly what I tried to point out that berkeley is more famouse than Duke in asia and euroupe, just couldn't find one person here as an example.</p>

200

<p>CalX:</p>

<p>Could you give the link where you found those stats on class sizes for Berkeley and Stanford?</p>