Duke vs Brown for CS/Econ for predicted job in top tech or Wall Street companies, plus MBA from M7

Colleges and Universities A-Z Duke University
1

INTRODUCTION

I have never been more torn in my life…and I need all the help I can get on this matter. Bare with me, this post might be pretty long.

I have already received advice from many top posters in this forum, including @TopTier and @bluedog, and on the Brown forum @iwannabe_Brown @fireandrain @arwarw @ BrownParent individually considering Duke or Brown, but not necessarily in comparison to other schools and each other. So essentially it would be extremely helpful if this was an awesome discussion.

BACKGROUND

I know these are both great universities, and I cannot go wrong choosing either of them. For a little bit of background information, Duke exhibited a 9.4% acceptance rate during RD, versus the more selective Brown which had a 7.4% acceptance rate during RD. I have visited both of the institutions during their respective admit weekends, where there was Blue Devil Days (BDD) on the 20-21st of April, and immediately after, I flew to NY and drove to Providence for the second and third days of ADOCH on the 22nd and 23rd.

What I hope to evaluate thoroughly in this post are a few things:

POINT NUMBER ONE (ACADEMICS) - WHAT TO CONSIDER

I want some insight about the academic differences between Duke and Brown (I know the basics). I am mainly talking about regards to computer science and economics. I have heard that the computer science department at Brown is unmistakably more reputed, with superior job placements and internship opportunities in Google, Facebook, and Apple. If anyone has statistics providing placement in these technological companies, please cite here. On the other hand, I have heard that the economics program at Duke is unbeatable, and in fact, USAToday even ranked it first (although that is unlikely). So, not knowing much about Brown’s economics department, how is it?

A few different Academic Components to consider:
a) Internship availability
b) Closeness with professors, and quality of undergraduate teaching
c) Job placement and graduate school placement
d) Research positions

POINT NUMBER ONE (ACADEMICS) - MY OPINION

Internships
I will now highlight my experiences at BDD and ADOCH, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed. I ended up speaking to many Duke CS and Brown CS kids and faculty, and overall it just seemed to me that Brown’s was a tier above. There was a girl who was fervently describing how she had interned at Google twice, and is joining Pinterest after graduation. There was a student who had already interned at a top company as a freshman, and had done research for one of the most amazing CS professors to date, Andries Van Dam, and he is currently a sophomore. Whereas at Duke, although kids had done impressive things, it seemed to me that they didn’t land internships very easily, especially in freshman year where they said no one really interns there. I just got the feeling that Brown had a stronger more recognizable CS department that Duke’s, at least the way it was presented and orchestrated. But then again, they had an entire CS breakout session at Brown with at least 12-15 current students presenting their work and future plans, whereas the CS department students were noticeably absent, even in the departments fair. Brown had a department fair too, and there were 2 CS students present representing their department AND then they had a whole breakout session with 12-15 CS students, all of whom I was impressed by. Either this means that Duke’s CS department is smaller by a lot, the kids are less interested or were busy, or that it is not as nearly impressive. It is worth noting that Duke was in its final week or so, and it is possible that availability of students was less as a result.

Professors and Undergrad teaching
I also learned that professor relationships were very strong, as evidenced by the students who had landed research positions with their professors, but all things equal, I would say Duke has an edge in terms of getting to know professors, due to the definitively smaller CS department. The quality of undergraduate teaching I would say is mostly equal, although it is worth noting that Brown is primarily undergraduate with little focus on graduate education. It is not as undergraduate focused as Princeton, for example, but it does not have a MBA school or law school, yet has Alpert Medical School (which Princeton doesn’t have).

Job placement and graduate school
I mentioned job placements above, which I thought to be stronger at Brown, but please, any dissenting opinions, please comment. As for graduate school placement, I know Duke’s medical school culture is insanely strong, and it has very good medical school placement, but that is not something I am interested in. I also know Duke fares quite well in placing alumni into MBA programs (at least according to Poets and Quants analysis). Just look up “Top Feeder Schools to X Business School” at Poets and Quants, and you can see the results there. I was always under the impression that Brown graduates fared quite well at law school, about as well as Duke graduates. I think overall graduate school placement might be slightly better at Duke, but the difference is most likely negligible.

Again, these are MY opinions I was able to formulate, and they were heavily swayed by minor factors like who I happened to speak with, things that are simply not controllable. So I encourage everyone to weigh in on their more supported and knowledgable views.

Other
As @TopTier once told me in a private post, trying to plan out your entire life ahead of you is pointless, since so many undergraduates change their major and interests upon interactions with classmates, professors, faculty, advisors, and anyone who makes a considerable impact during one’s time at a university. So, it is very hard to decide based on what will happen. And while that is a valid point, I would like to assert here, that precisely because of that invariable fact that my interests and life aspirations may deviate unpredictably, I have to make my decisions using the most predictable means I have.

In other words, I have to make my decision based on the computer science and economics program, with the intent of getting a job at prestigious firms in technology and investment banking and eventually pursuing my MBA. Who knows this may change drastically, but that is the best I can do right now. I am fairly sure of computer science since I have been coding since I was literally 8 years old, and loved every moment of it, including mathematics which my father taught me every night for 6 years starting from when I was 6, until I picked up enough speed to complete a lot of mathematics preparation on my own. My blood is math and computer science, and I really hope my goals do not change. But back to my point, social impact, climate or environment, although important, just overall means less to me. I am simply looking for the institution where I will meet diverse people with powerful connections, with the best possible faculty and academics in the respective field.

So, yes, comparing the academic components of these two stellar institutions may seem trivial, but I still think it is important.

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POINT NUMBER TWO (CAMPUS ENVIRONMENT) - WHAT TO CONSIDER
I know the entire campus environment is still important in considering which school to choose. ’

A few different Campus Environment Components to consider:
a) Social life
b) Location
c) Weather
d) Use of substance
e) Political philosophy

POINT NUMBER TWO (CAMPUS ENVIRONMENT) - MY OPINION

Social life
In regards to the social life, I think the community based life at Duke is definitively more present. There is a greater sense of community, as fostered by the Focus programs and of course the all unifying force of Duke basketball. And I think that is awesome. The campus of Duke is absolutely beautiful and unbeatable, and I love how all the freshman have an opportunity to bond on East Campus. Brown is in the city, and although having a nice campus, is definitely less communal or school-spirit oriented. Although there are freshman-only dorms, the same sense of community is simply not there. I think school spirit is important, and I love rocking my gear, but I never cared for basketball much. I am pretty social, although do not like the entire fraternity and sorority culture, which is much more present at Duke than Brown, so this is still very much a tossup. I had students tell me that it was almost crucial to not live independently in order to maintain a vibrant social life, and as part of a SLG or fraternity.

Location
Brown is closer to home. I live in NY. It is about a 3.5 hour bus ride and 45 min train ride to NYC. Duke is about 2 hours by flight, plus 30 min by train, and also need to factor in airport commute time and moving through security. It is probably a total of 4 hours, but that involves a flight. If I take a bus or train home, it could take about 10 hours. Basically, I will be able to commute from Brown to home much more often than from Duke. Brown’s location is kind of a plus for me.

In terms of academic location, Brown is close to Boston and NYC, but its proximity to them pales in comparison to the awesome research triangle of UNC-Duke-NC State. It is legitimately right there, and Providence does not have nearly as much impact as the research triangle.

Weather
I do not mind the cold at all. I lived in UK and NY my entire life, and in fact I kind of even like it. The sunny weather isn’t bad either, but it isn’t a plus. Basically weather is insignificant to me.

Use of substance
There is partying at both, and I know Brown has a tendency for using certain substances. I personally do not intend to drink heavily (or ever get drunk, just a little bit here and there), and never do those substances. But I know the social scene at Duke and fraternities involve much partying, but I am sure it is present at Brown too.

Political philosophy
Duke and Brown are both liberal, but Brown is much more far left than Duke. Duke is much more liberal than the rest of North Carolina, but it definitely has its roots in conservatism, and I know sometimes minorities feel a little uncomfortable there, at least until they find their niche. I am not super liberal or conservative (I believe in gay rights, abortion, mostly secular). But I don’t want like drugs to be legalized, or some of the extremely weird things liberals come up with. I know Brown has a very active political culture, and it is sometimes overwhelming as they once shouted out a speaker because they disagreed. Its activism can be unfair and unsettling at times, whereas they just found a noose on Duke’s campus. Go figure.

POINT NUMBER THREE (ALUMNI NETWORK) - WHAT TO CONSIDER
I do not know much about this, but I think they are both strong. Feel free to add in.

POINT NUMBER FOUR (FINANCIAL AID) - WHAT TO CONSIDER
Brown will cost me about 7000 more than Duke per year. I am currently appealing and hope it is successful.

POINT NUMBER FIVE (RANKINGS) - WHAT TO CONSIDER
I know rankings can be trivial but there are a few rankings that I think it is worth speculating on. I will summarize these rankings now as this post is really long already and I have to go, but if anyone wants sources just comment and I can provide.

LinkedIn rankings Duke like fourth for iBanking, Brown like 12th. It ranks Brown 3rd for startup culture, and I think Duke like 8th-10th.

Brown’s CS and Duke’s CS do not make rankings. I have no idea why. If you have insights, please let me know.

I did a comprehensive LinkedIn analysis by myself normalizing how many people went to Google, MS, Apple, or IBM with the number of alumni, and formed rankings as such.

  1. CMU
  2. Stanford
  3. Caltech
  4. MIT
  5. Berkeley
  6. Princeton
  7. Brown
  8. Dartmouth
  9. Cornell
  10. Duke
  11. Harvard

As you can see, basically everything is a tossup for me.

CONCLUSION
Both great schools, and based off my analysis, what are your conclusions?

And I would like to make a final disclaimer, although this thread is asking for opinions primarily, I also think it is a VERY informative thread for prospective students who are considering the differences between Duke or Brown, whether to apply or not, or what they want out of their college experience.

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You seem to be a very quantitative person. Black or white. 0 or 1. Yes or no. Although it is tempting to reduce this important decision to a simple formula or number, DON’T.

The two schools are basically a toss-up. You will get to where you want to go in life at either Duke or Brown. It is not easy to quantify all of this.

What does your gut tell you?

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Here’s what Brown CompSci/Econ concentrators from the classes of 2012 and 2013 reported they were doing in their first year after graduation.

Employment

2013
Business Analyst, McKinsey & Company
Pre-doctoral Research Assistant, Harvard University
Software Engineer, Google
Software Engineer, Square

2012
Application Developer, Goldman Sachs
Fixed Income Analyst, Bracebridge Capital
Owner, Pelin
Software Engineer, Google, Inc.
Software Engineer, HotPads

Source: http://www.brown.edu/campus-life/support/careerlab/post_grad_data/concentration/CSEC

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@lb43823 I applaud your analysis. Good Job.

I would also ask what does your gut tell you?

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@sgopal2 Quantitative? If that analysis was quantitative, I urge you to look it up in a dictionary :stuck_out_tongue: It was anything but, I mentioned a lot of factors and opinions that I had formulated, and I know there is no clear cut answer. I know that there is no wrong choice, or no right choice. That is the nature of college decisions, it’s just what you can formulate. I do not know what my gut tells me…I am so very torn…

7

I agree with the original poster that the CS department was noticeably absent from Blue Devil Days. The single professor who was available during the department fair portion at Cameron shared a table with another major and I did not see any visitors other than us while other majors such as biology and engineering were swamped. Conversely we visited the University of Maryland on Maryland Day yesterday and an outstanding presentation was made by two professors, two administrator/advisers and four current students. I’ve posted on our options previously between UMD and Duke, and I am allowing my son to decide but have encouraged Maryland as I’ve not gotten the feeling that Duke is prioritizing CS while Maryland is breaking ground on a new $150M CS center funded by Brendan Iribe. On the other hand I acknowledge that Duke is a phenomenal university and to a student, they were all obviously incredibly bright, motivated and engaged. As an aside, my son is also waitlisted at Brown so the original posters comments are appreciated in case he is offered admission and this incredibly difficult choice is made even more complicated.

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FYI, Duke’s undergraduate Economics Department was recently ranked #1 by USA Today (I mention this only because it may be relevant to the OP and is new information in this thread).

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@TopTier I mentioned that in the post actually. But it probably got lost in all the words :smiley: I do not know how accurate that ranking is.

Just food for though http://college.usatoday.com/2015/04/06/the-10-best-private-colleges-in-the-u-s/#slideIdslide-2. Duke ranks above Harvard, Stanford, MIT, and Princeton. There is something not right with that ranking, especially if Penn is deemed the best private university in the country. Don’t get me wrong, all great schools, but rankings are flawed by USA Today.

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@TerpDad888 I also got a general kind of “yeah, CS is good here, but the internship scene isn’t too hot”. What did you make of it? I mean at Brown, they legitimately had one career fair, and then created a whole another career fair for JUST CS majors. So now there is a career fair for CS and one for everyone else. That is ridiculously awesome.

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My feeling is the same as yours - small and good but not necessarily a major school focus. I don’t know much about internship opportunities other than the single professor we spoke with indicated they have good outcomes. Duke CS seems the opposite of Maryland CS - Duke is small and focused. Maryland is huge with tons of resources and many students starting out in CS but unable to compete and complete but those who do have outstanding opportunities. My son is far more interested in his declared major than most 18 year-olds, and that’s part of the reason I think he was admitted to Duke and offered a full ride to Maryland. I also am confident in his ability to succeed without the more intimate setting after 12 years of public school. But you have really piqued my interest in Brown if he somehow gets in. We will need to visit with the department if offered admission. But in the end it’s not what I make of it, but what my son decides and he could not have been more impressed with Duke and the students he met - I see why the Duke community is so proud. It will be an interesting next few days. And thank you for TopTier’s post on econ, given that’s my son’s considered minor at this time.

12

Duke, too, has a career fair dedicated to CS and Engineering students. Check out TechConnect: http://www.cs.duke.edu/induke/techconnect/2015/index.php

http://www.cs.duke.edu/induke/techconnect/2014/companies/

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Brown is definitely not “rah rah yay brown” in the way duke is and there usually isn’t a singular activity that the entire campus is partaking in (save things like SPG and Spring Weekend) but once you get beyond those shallow things, the Brown community is extremely strong and there is a lot of school spirit - as was written about in posts on the Brown forum - the thing that unites the Brown community is our curriculum and thus our courses and course selection/shopping period. No other school has the same campus buzz when it comes to picking courses.

Particularly as I look on the other side, the Brown alumni community is intense. Duke is the only school that comes close to it - but it does appear to mainly revolve around the athletics. In my medical school class there were numerous Brown and Duke alumni - most of whom did not know each other as undergrads. The Brown alumni were unquestionably more connected to each other than the Duke ones (except during basketball season). The Brown alumni in my class even lobbied together to get permission to take one of our finals early so we could leave in time for Brown graduation/reunion weekend. I really don’t mean to take away anything from Duke - like I said, they (along with us) are on a different level when it comes to school spirit - no other elite school is even close to us.

Since you mentioned never really being into basketball (do you mean “not into it” or “dislike it?”), I’ll share the following: a good friend of mine went to Michigan and ended up transferring out after freshman year because she visited the school after getting in as a high school senior in the spring and thought “oh wow, this place is so cool” but then when she arrived on campus for freshman fall she said it was like an entirely different school because it was football 24/7 and not being a football fan - she simply couldn’t tolerate how essentially nothing else existed in the world of Ann Arbor from august-december. I’ll let the Duke students talk about what it’s like to be a non basketball fan since I have no experience with it (and I don’t bring this up to be negative - honestly I was always jealous of it - but I do think it’s something to think about).

This just makes me kind of roll my eyes. Don’t even know what to do with the first bolded part, and the second bolded part - whether or not you agree with what happened with Ray Kelly - is an extreme simplification of the situation (one that is still being discussed in the BDH over a year later) and in fact only 13% of students support the fact that the talk was shut down the way it was(http://www.browndailyherald.com/2013/11/06/poll-shows-mixed-opinions-ray-kelly-coal-divestment/)

one piece of concrete advice i’ll give you is to look through the course catalogues of each school and develop a few 4 year plans at each. Which school has the most courses that appeal to you? Which one lets you chart the most appealing paths?

None of us can do this for you. This is part of growing up - you can get our thoughts and we can help provide you with more data and info to work with but ultimately every one of us has our own preferences and biases and such and it would be doing yourself a disservice to use someone else’s conclusions instead of yours - certainly to use the conclusions of internet strangers over your own and the people whom you trust and who know you.

14

It’s really not a big deal if you’re not into basketball and attend Duke. They are PLENTY of people who don’t go to games, never talk about it, and still have a great social experience. Honestly, basketball comes to the forefront more AFTER graduating since it reconnects you with alumni at watch parties, gives you a common bond, etc. The student section in Cameron is max capacity of 1,800 and for most games there are significantly fewer than that. Given that there are 6,500 undergrads, that means only about a 1/4 of the entire undergraduate student body even attends games! Let alone thinks about bball 24/7. I personally enjoyed basketball and thought it enriched the Duke experience, providing a fun outlet, and was almost an “extra-curricular” but it by no means defined my Duke experience. I was friends with several people who never attended a game their entire four years and it was not a big deal at all. If you want to partake, you have the option. If you don’t, you don’t. (But if we win a national championship or defeat UNC, you will WANT to participate in the celebratory bonfire, I assure you!).

CEO of the top corporations of the world placed Duke students as 13th in the world and 9th in the country and Brown 16th in the world and 11th in the country according to the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/10/20/education/20iht-SReducEmploy20-graphic.html

Wall Street Journal ranked schools at feeding into what they consider the top 5 law, business, and medical schools and ranked Duke 6th and Brown 12th (with the Northeast/Ivy League grad programs dominating the list, giving what you’d think a disadvantage to Duke):
http://www.inpathways.net/top50feeder.pdf

You are really analyzing this point-by-point, trying to come up with a verifiable conclusion when, in fact, there is no obvious choice. The differences in job prospects, graduate school placement, research opps, and even political affiliation of the student body, is trivial and you should go to where you think you’d be HAPPIEST. I’d caution against putting too much stock into a few people you happened to speak with during visiting – certainly, that’s all you have to go off of and gives you a sense of the students and opportunities the universities afford, but the student bodies are so diverse (even within a given major), that it’s not really accurate to extrapolate a standard experience based on conversations with a few. Both Brown and Duke have world-class facilities, professors, and great job prospects. Go with your gut, both are excellent choices. Unless $28k is a significant sum of money to your family (and it would be that way to many), then it’s a clear Duke choice. :wink:

Good luck with your decision.

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@iwannabe_Brown I am not stereotyping. It doesn’t have to be a majority. It’s a few extremely zealous people that kind of can ruin an experience. Even if I am not shouting out this speaker, because everyone deserves a chance to talk, I would be shameful that my peers would do something like that. It’s not about an oversimplification; no matter how you spin it, the political attitude at Brown, ESPECIALLY by a few extremely opinionated people can be overwhelming and sometimes annoying. I want people to be passionate, not opinionated or judgmental.

16

@bluedog Actually Duke is cheaper by 28k (over 4 years), so Brown would be more money financially.

17

@bluedog I assume you graduated from Duke. In all honesty, please be honest, how easy is it to get jobs at top companies? Duke doesn’t publish ANYTHING on this, and it is very unsettling. Brown is literally an open book.

http://www.brown.edu/campus-life/support/careerlab/post_grad_data/list

And if I look at CS specifically:

Backend Developer, Chartbeat, Inc.
CIS Applications Specialist, Brown University
Developer, Clever
Senior Software Engineer, Vertica Systems
Software Developer Intern, Formlabs
Software Developer, Self-employed
Software Developer, Vistaprint
Software Engineer, 10gen (MongoDB)
Software Engineer, Delphix

Software Engineer, Etsy, Inc.

Software Engineer, KAYAK Software Corporation
Software Engineer, Pure Storage

Software Engineer, ticktme
Software engineer, NetApp
Technical Analyst, Citrix Systems, Inc.
Technical Consultant, Arcadia Solutions

4 Microsoft, 4 TripAdvisor, 5 Google, 3 Dropbox, 6 Facebook, 2 Amazon, 2 Fanium

1 at each of Twitter, Palantir, Jane Street Capital, IBM, Booz Allen Hamilton, New York Times, Mozilla, Chartbeat. Brown University, Clever, Vertica Systems, Formlabs, Vistaprint, MongoDB, Delphix, Etsy, KAYAK, Pure Storage, NetApp, Citrix Systems, and Arcadia Solutions

I mean the job placement is phenomenal…

Anything similar for Duke?

18

Well duke students were threatening to rape and murder belle Knox if you really want to weigh small minority opinions at these institutions. You want to be associated with that instead?

I say it’s an oversimplification because the very idea that was being discussed was the violation of the rights of others. Which is what NYS courts had determined stop and frisk was. Ray Kelly was also famous for his illegal investigations of Muslims post 9/11. Brown canceled the talk - they could have had the protestors removed if they wanted. When what’s her face who argues rape culture is a myth (something a large proportion of students disagree with) no similar protest inside the event happened.

19

“Well duke students were threatening to rape and murder belle Knox if you really want to weigh small minority opinions at these institutions. You want to be associated with that instead?”

That was truly uncalled for.

I think 28k over 4 years is a good enough reason to choose Duke tbh.

20

@lb43823

Yes, I understood that. Sorry, I worded my last couple sentences very poorly:
“Go with your gut, both are excellent choices. Unless $28k is a significant sum of money to your family (and it would be that way to many), then it’s a clear Duke choice.”

…was intended to mean “go with your gut UNLESS $28k is significant. Then, don’t go with your gut because Duke is the clear choice.” (Somewhat tongue in cheek). Not “it’s a clear choice for Duke unless $28k is a significant sum of money” because I do NOT think it’s a clear choice either way if money isn’t a consideration. They’re basically the same and you should go where you think you’d be happier. You have to decide by May 1 (two days), right? I’m sure you’ve made up your mind by now – something a few anonymous posters on an internet message board shouldn’t be the deciding factor.

That is very nice of Brown to give a sampling of where its graduates go, but I’m there’s also self-selection bias. When they send out the survey, only the graduates who feel they’ve “made it,” reply. I don’t see a reply rate noted anywhere, but maybe it’s close to everybody…how many CS bachelor degrees does Brown confer? It would be nice if Duke provided something similar, I admit, but they appear to not. Some departments do provide more detailed information, but I can’t find anything for CS.

Having said that, Duke grads are VERY well represented by top technology firms and CS majors are heavily recruited. As mentioned previously, there is a separate career fair/networking opportunity just for engineering and CS majors called TechConnect:
http://www.cs.duke.edu/techconnect/

Companies that participated in 2014 and thus actively recruit Duke students included:
http://www.cs.duke.edu/induke/techconnect/2014/companies/
*Cisco
*Google
*LinkedIn
*Microsoft
*Oracle
*Red Hat
*Yahoo

You’ll notice a lot of science/engineering/consulting companies on that list too. And that’s just a list for a very small career fair that a lot of the big players don’t bother going to. Apple isn’t listed, but guess where the CEO (Tim Cook) is an alumnus of? Duke!! Melinda Gates of Microsoft? Duke CS grad. (I realize getting married to Bill has upper her profile significantly, but he only met her because she was already a very high position tech person at the company).

Check out the list of the Top 5 employers of ALL Duke undergrads (meaning a lot of positions are being filled – only 2008-2010 have released data and that was in the midst of the financial crisis; hiring conditions have improved CONSIDERABLY since then and tech has gotten much hotter):
2008: Cisco and Microsoft were both the #5 employer of Duke undergrads
2009: Microsoft #5
2010: Google #4

https://studentaffairs.duke.edu/career/statistics-reports/career-center-senior-survey/class-2008-statistics
https://studentaffairs.duke.edu/career/statistics-reports/career-center-senior-survey/class-2009-statistics
https://studentaffairs.duke.edu/career/statistics-reports/career-center-senior-survey/class-2010-statistics

Hope that helps! I would stop analyzing and just choose with your gut! They are both excellent schools. I did graduate from Duke, but was on Brown’s campus yesterday and have been to Providence 30+ times, so I have a feel for the area at least. I prefer North Carolina weather considerably. :wink: