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I like how you make all of these claims and refuse to substantiate them. I’m still waiting on the cross-admit statistic.</p>
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Bull. ■■■■. Is this the kind of economics you’ve been taught? Or is this just your political inklings taking over?</p>
<p>He left office with a budget surplus. Tax cuts, deregulation, and war by his successor screwed it up.</p>
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<p>Oh, see, lesdiablesbleues, if <em>I’m</em> making the decision, then what <em>I</em> think is more important than what other people think. Unlike you, I trust my own opinions - I don’t have to look around to see if other people have the same opinion for me to trust it. And for <em>me</em>, the physical setting of Gtown >>>>> Duke. For other people, they see it the other way. That’s fine too. </p>
<p>I agree with the other poster - in the Northeast, Georgetown was a big deal and Duke is a “good school.” A very good school, but there’s a romance to Georgetown and its history that Duke doesn’t have, IMO. </p>
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<p>Of what concern are the preferences / beliefs of students from top prep schools? If I’m not one of them, then what do I care what they might think? Why would their opinion trump my own?</p>
<p>MW2isawesome,</p>
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<p>A better way to put it is that there are 10 schools which are more deserving. That’s just my opinion.</p>
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<p>I never asked you to. I’m just stating my opinion. You’re free to have yours.</p>
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<p>So we’re ignorant for having an opinion?</p>
<p>I’m no moderator but I know that the terms of service mandate courtesy. Please keep the discussion civil and instead of attacking, just respectfully disagree.</p>
<p>lesdiablesbleus,</p>
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<p>Why do you Duke people always go for the offensive? Methinks your basketball team is getting to your head. ;)</p>
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<p>I’m sorry but I don’t see the logical connection between “virtually identical in quality” and “SAT scores.” Quality is not defined by SAT scores. Of course, SAT scores are one of the few actual statistics that we have, but as everyone knows, they’re probably one of the last things considered in admissions (it gets your “foot in the door” but the rest is dependent on non-quantifiable factors like ECs, awards, essays, recs, etc.). </p>
<p>Duke is nowhere near the selectivity of Stanford, in my opinion. You are free to disagree (though I’ll ask that you do so respectfully).</p>
<p>I agree with BillyMC that Duke’s prestige is largely regional. It has national prestige, of course, but no more than Georgetown. Before you bite my head off, remember: This is my personal experience. I also asked my friend which one she sees as more prestigious (she grew up in the Midwest and the West), and she replied, “they’re equal.” I think this is probably the response of most people.</p>
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<p>Isn’t that what people say about Duke (that it’s for students who get rejected from HYPSM)?</p>
<p>Sorry, a cheap shot, but if you’re going to play that game… ;)</p>
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<p>Of course, but if US News took valid categories into consideration (esp. categories that aren’t so easily gamed by the university–WUSTL is a notable example that has been successful in this), I don’t think Duke would do as well. US News can and does alter its methodology–it changes with the wind practically, and the rankings often wildly change from year to year. In recent years, though, they seemed to have found a methodology that creates the ranking they want, so it’s more stable than before (but schools still jump or fall multiple spots in one year, which harms its credibility). But people who know about the college game know that the US News ranking is BS.</p>
<p>I also see no point in listing the 10 schools that I think are better than Duke, because you will undoubtedly go on a rampage saying how little I know, etc. and likely insult me many times in the process. Not falling for that one, lesdiablesbleus. :)</p>
<p>“Bill Clinton, on the other hand, received fellatio from an unattractive Jewish intern in the Oval Office.”</p>
<p>Come on, dude, it’s a low blow to mention her religion here. What difference does her religion or her level of attractiveness make?</p>
<p>Better than Duke:
All the Ivies except Cornell, Chicago, Stanford, CalTech, Stanford, MIT, Williams, Berkeley</p>
<p>raineytuesdays- After the shameful performance lesdiables has exhibted here, would you really want to go to a school surrounded by him and his ilk? I leave that for you to consider. Again, good luck.</p>
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Sure thing.</p>
<p>Duke enrolls between 75 and 90 percent of cross-admitted students from the third group of top competitors, which includes Cornell, Northwestern and Georgetown.
SOURCE: [Duke</a> still step below top schools | The Chronicle](<a href=“http://dukechronicle.com/article/duke-still-step-below-top-schools]Duke”>Duke still step below top schools - The Chronicle)</p>
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But who cares what you personally think? Offering your opinion without facts to back it up is virtually useless on these forums since the OP is looking for some substance regarding to what to base his college decision. If the majority of people think Duke is more prestigious or beautiful than Georgetown, then there must be a reason why this is case. Finding out that reason should be of much more importance than learning about what Pizzagirl thinks in her own little world about the Duke or Georgetown campus. What the majority thinks matters for most people.</p>
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Because your opinion isn’t necessarily the most informed or most important. All you do on every thread Pizzagirl is accuse every other poster of being a mindless follower while you insert your opinion as if it was some sort of universal fact. To be truthful, you’re the worst kind of elitist. You think that everyone should just be extremely independent and make decisions for themselves just because you’re sophisticated enough to do so and have been given the resources to do so for your whole life. Not everyone is that blessed and have access to the same sort of knowledge. That’s why people come on CC in the first place to get college selection advice. They want to know what multiple people think about the schools they have to choose between, not just what Pizzagirl thinks.</p>
<p>This is not to say that I think whatever you say is accurate because I think most of it is wrong. For instance, most credible websites, publications and individuals would rank Duke as being a much more aesthetically pleasing and traditionally beautiful college campus than Georgetown. And these sources are much more credible and sophisticated than you, so you would be part of the minority on this regard. So, inserting your opinion here without any basis skews the OP into thinking Georgetown is the more desirable campus if he has no real-world knowledge of the two schools in question. This is not what CC is all about.</p>
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Maybe in The World According to Schmaltz, but not Planet Earth. Berkeley isn’t even in the discussion if we are talking about undergraduate programs.</p>
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<p>Well I was calling your unsubstantiated “opinion” ignorant in my opinion.</p>
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<p>No you are ignorant for trying to state, yes state, something ridculous like it is a fact. There is literally no way you could possibly have a rational argument to keep Duke out of the top 12 or so let alone the top 20.</p>
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<p>Well actually saying “nowhere near” is quite disrespectful and practically begging for a heated retort. You sound pretentious and appear to have an inflated ego. You place Stanford on a pedestal just because you went there. Duke has a 12.6% acceptance rate where Stanford has ~7.1%. That is quite near. While I acknowledge that there are more factors than that in admissions and that Stanford is more selective, every single person that I know who was admitted to Stanford was either a legacy or a generous donor and I am not impressed with these quite unimpressive people being included over others whom I know are more deserving. Anecdotal evidence aside, I hope YOU realize that people that get into Stanford can and do get rejected from Duke–Georgetown too.</p>
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<p>Well if you’re going to cite anecdotal evidence I live in Washington and people around here have scarcely heard of Georgetown; Duke is often confused with Ivy League schools. This, in my opnion, is a more significant measure of prestige than your example. Take the opinions of an area removed from both schools and you will have an accurate measure of prestige.</p>
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<p>What evidence do you have of Duke “gaming” any category? What do you even know about Duke? You would be foolish to think that Duke utilizes any practice that Georgetown, or indeed Stanford, does not.</p>
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<p>And yet Duke has never been ranked out of the top 10? <em>gasp</em></p>
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<p>Well the reason that I’m calling you ignorant and “insulting” you is because I think that anyone who claims they know which 10 schools are the “best” is full of horse****. Unless you’ve worked at all 10 schools or have significant family members that attended you cannot substantiate these claims. You can’t have an “opinion” based off the limited information you know about each school. You could certainly pick your top 10 favorite schools but that would have no bearing on which are actually objectively the “best” overall. I offer that it is an impossible task to rank colleges as an individual. This is why we use companies that utilize comprehensive data to make rankings such as US News. This is exactly why my personal “top 10” are identical to those of US News. </p>
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<p>I would have actually been able to take this list seriously if you hadn’t included Berkeley (they literally admit soley on GPA, 6 4.0’s from my crappy public high school all with less than 1900 SAT’s applied and 6 got in). At best you could, tenuously, call it "peer"at the undergrad level. Also Williams is a LAC and cannot be compared to National Universities. Furthermore, Duke is more selective than UChicago and has much stronger sciences and premed but Chicago is stronger in the humanities hence the reason they are tied in rank.</p>
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<p>Actually I think you’ll find that every single “shameful” exchange here has been initiated by a non Duke affiliated person, most notably Schmaltz’s mention of the utterly irrelvant lacrosse scandel.</p>
<p>OP: When people come and defend their own school it is indicative of how much they love it. The slang that has been used to describe those who come on the internet and deride somebody else’s school is “hater”, “flamer”, “■■■■■”, etc. Is there anyone affliated with Georgetown even on this thread?</p>
<p>If people hate you, you know you’re doing something right.</p>
<p><a href=“http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/papers/1287.pdf[/url]”>http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/papers/1287.pdf</a></p>
<p>And in this independent survey, Georgetown beats Duke. So what?</p>
<p>In this thread, don’t you feel like you are a spectator to the courtroom scene in the Caine Muntiy where Captain Queeg in the person of lesdiables is just going on and on without any idea how he is insulting everyone and everything about him? And now he is joined by a second nut case. </p>
<p>raineytuesdays-I know my deicsion would be made by now. So sad.</p>
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How am I a nutcase? Because I use evidence to back up my claims? It’s telling when you can’t respond to any of my claims without trying to insult me in some obscure manner. Duke is better than Georgetown in virtually every measure and has been for some time. It’s just that Duke has become a lot more desirable over the past 5 years just like UChicago.</p>
<p>If you conducted that study now in 2011, you would arrive at a much different conclusion. Lets wait patiently for the most up-to-date yield figures. Georgetown has been lagging in yield behind Duke for some time now and that distance is only widening because of Duke’s rising star, superior academic offerings and generous financial aid. That’s incontrovertible evidence that tells us where these two schools really stand when it comes to selectivity.</p>
<p>I would love to have the little metal balls concession at the Duke bookstore.</p>
<p>MW2isawesome,</p>
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<p>Please tell me you see the irony of these two statements taken together.</p>
<p>(For the record, I was keeping Duke out of the top 10.)</p>
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<p>If you’re easily offended by such statements, sure. You’ve gotta learn to let this stuff roll of your back. I’m just a random person on the internet, as you said.</p>
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<p>Again, you Duke people can’t seem to resist insulting other people.</p>
<p>Please, pick apart my arguments, not me. You know nothing about me, and by making such statements, all you do is stifle a civil discussion.</p>
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<p>I don’t think that selectivity has much to do with acceptance rate.</p>
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<p>That’s fine. I’ll point out that Duke is as guilty of legacy/donor admissions as Stanford is. Your anecdotal experience just hasn’t encountered such cases (or maybe it has and you aren’t sharing it to prove a point). My own anecdotal evidence: most people I know got into Stanford without any such factors. (I think I have a larger sampling than you, also. ;))</p>
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<p>I’m sure it does happen. I think that says more about Duke than Stanford, though, if you get what I mean.</p>
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<p>All the elite schools are confused with Ivies, because “Ivy League” has come to mean “elite school.” I remember back in high school, my sister had actually thought Berkeley was an Ivy. People often mistake Stanford for an Ivy, even though it’s thousands of miles away. I’m sure Georgetown is mistaken for one as well.</p>
<p>Of course, this is all pretty inconsequential, since this “mistake” on the part of the public is out of ignorance, not any real knowledge of quality.</p>
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<p>I didn’t say that Duke per se gamed it, but rather, I think a lot of schools who care about the rankings intentionally try to improve in areas they know will confer a higher ranking, even if it doesn’t add real quality to the school. In the end, it doesn’t matter to me, because the measurements that US News uses for its rankings are absurd for ranking schools, and so whatever Duke does (whether it games or not) doesn’t matter. Duke is not a top 10 school in my opinion. In my opinion.</p>
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<p>But aren’t you implicitly claiming that knowledge by asserting that Duke is a top 10 school? In saying that Duke is deservedly in the top 10, you are implying that you know that there are at most 9 schools which are better than it.</p>
<p>If you are not claiming this knowledge, then the only conclusion to be made is that you are claiming Duke is top 10 no matter what, with no support for it, other than an erroneous ranking.</p>
<p>I would argue more that there’s an inherent fallacy of ranking schools period (for a discussion of this, you can search the forums), but if we have to rank them, I can say that, in my own knowledge of schools (not just this-or-that but concrete knowledge I’ve gained about schools over the years), there are (at least) 10 that I would place above Duke.</p>
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<p>That can’t be true. An individual could easily come up with the rankings methodology of US News. It’s not impossible to do, and indeed many posters on this site have come up with rankings far more complex than US News’ (really, the complexity of some of their rankings is mind-boggling).</p>
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<p>Please realize that others have different measures of quality. To others SAT scores have nothing to do with the quality of the university. (This, I think, is something that a university can game, by the way–by just accepting students who have high SAT scores, regardless of how strong a candidate they are for the university.)</p>
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<p>I think the point is that you seem incapable of carrying on a civil discussion and immediately jump to the offensive, assuming the worst intentions of other posters, calling them ignorant, etc. rather than respectfully disagreeing. That, my friend, is a bad representation.</p>
<p>I’ve been on this site longer than my join date will say, and to be frank there is not one single school on here that has supporters anywhere near as rabid as Duke’s, though obviously there are many nice Duke posters as well. But these specific Duke people are continually the most rude, the most unwilling to accept anything that doesn’t praise Duke absolutely, and definitely the most willing to attack others simply for stating their opinion. It smacks of an inferiority complex (and makes me think that they themselves are insecure about Duke’s placement in the top 10). I’ve wondered how many of them are different incarnations of the same poster. I hope that’s the case, because if all these Duke posters are representative at all of the Duke student body, then I fear for Duke.</p>
<p>DC is a lot more fun than Durham, providing you have the money as an undergrad that allows you to enjoy it.</p>
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<p>Well if you insult or otherwise lessen the name of my school then you ipso facto insult me as an individual for choosing said school. Don’t expect me to take that lying down.</p>
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<p>Oh please, I can literally hear the pretension in your voice. “You Duke people”? Come on. Also your argument for why exactly Duke is not in fact a top 10 school is nonexistant. You merely stated your “opinion” and did not even supply evidence. The only reason I myself am not supplying evidence is because I am debating the ridiculous sureity with which you make your claims more so than the claims themselves.</p>
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<p>I stated as much.</p>
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<p>As it so happens I have a double legacy at Stanford (and obviously still know less admits than you but nontheless know the school very well) and my parent know people within the admissions office. Apparently the admission rate for non legacy/donor/urm/athelte is 1%. That is a problem as it does not imply selectivity but rather a desire to fill quotas.</p>
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<p>I never said that Stanford was not a more prestigous and overall objectively better university. What I am saying is that you sound pretentious because you seem to separate Stanford from all other schools and call the rest below your lofty pedestal “equal”.</p>
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<p>How on earth would you rank schools without measuring things like strength of student body, selectivity, prestige, alumni loyalty, etc?</p>
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<p>I’m not claiming anything. I’m deferring to the experts who rank colleges for a living. You should too. I would be interested in seeing any evidence you have that places 10 schools above Duke.</p>
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<p>Again, this is your opinion. How can they possibly, on their own and free of charge, come up with rankings superior to those paid to research and create public rankings?</p>
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<p>Well in the case of this anecdote it is extremely easy to get a 4.0 at my school. 3 of the 6 admitted had literally no EC’s to speak of and the other 3 had only sports EC’s. In my opinion Berekely “games the system” to a far greater extent than Duke in terms of objective stats like GPA; I have never heard an admission result from there that surprised me. In terms of your implicit accusation of Duke only accepting those with high test scores I’ll have you know that I myself was a 3-sport varsity athelete, 2-sport All-League selection, had over 250 service hours, researched at a cancer center, held officer positions in 2 clubs, published a novel, and am Native American in addition to scoring in the 99.8th percentile on the SAT and ACT. I am by no means an outlier here and I was definitely not accepted for my test scores.</p>
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<p>Berekely, U Mich, Princeton… </p>
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<p>Hahahahhaha I think you are confusing “inferiority complex” with pride. Why on earth would I feel inferior to anyone if I’m going to a top 10 school? You do know there are about 3,000 colleges right?</p>
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<p>If you call me calling you ignorant for making unsubstantiated claims as ‘attacking’ then you have issues my friend. </p>
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<p>Here’s an attack for you: the only reason I’m on this website is because I’m a second semester high school senior with nothing to do. You’ve graduated from Stanford yet you spend large amounts of time on a college admissions website, perhaps clinging to your most significant accomplishment (being admitted to Stanford). If I was a successful adult I would not spend my time here. You have the nerve to diagnose me and my classmates with inferiority complexes? This and your claim that Duke “games the system” speaks volumes about your textbook liberal agenda as I have heard both of these insults before. You haven’t formed these opinions independently, you hear them and you conform to the norm because in the liberal media Duke is hated.</p>
<p>^This would be me insulting you, not simply calling you ignorant. Anyways I’m about done with this website for ever.</p>
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<p>Again, don’t take it personally. I’m not demeaning Duke and saying it’s a bad school. Like I said: you seem to take any claim that isn’t direct praise of Duke as nothing less than an attack on it.</p>
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<p>And you think that jumping down my throat and insulting me is incentive to give evidence? If you just asked for it without ad hominem attacks, I would have provided it. But at this point, it’s pretty obvious that no matter what I did, you’d have gone on the offensive and just attacked me.</p>
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<p>Right. You know this… because your parents are alums. :rolleyes:</p>
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<p>That’s not what I was implying, but nevermind at this point (you won’t like it either way).</p>
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<p>When did I put Stanford above all other schools?</p>
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<p>This, I think, shows where we disagree the most. You can’t fathom ranking schools without those measures. I also had similar ideas when I was a senior in high school, but have come to realize there’s much more to look at (like, departmental strength, access to facilities, % who do research, undergraduate research funding, etc.).</p>
<p>Another point that I don’t think you realize: even if those factors were legitimate, US News uses poor proxies to estimate them (like alumni giving rate).</p>
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<p>That’s an appeal to authority… a textbook fallacy.</p>
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<p>Yes! Now we’re getting somewhere. ;)</p>
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<p>Why not ask me for evidence? You didn’t though. You just went straight to name-calling.</p>
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<p>And from there you make more assumptions and attacks. I’m actually in my last term at Stanford.</p>
<p>(For the record, I’m finishing up two honors theses and this site’s a great way to procrastinate spectacularly ;)… until certain posters come in and ruin it.)</p>
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<p>That’s an important element of the Duke brand character right there, and something that potential students need to be aware of. Do you want to be part of a campus where that is the prevailing ethos? Do you want to be part of an academic elite that prides itself on inclusiveness (“hey, we’re a great school – but there are plenty of other great schools out there, too, it’s all good”) or an academic elite that prides itself on superiority (“hey, we’re a great school, and we’re better than YOU and YOU and YOU and you over there, you suck”)? </p>
<p>What was the thread some time back talking about how Duke students were seriously trashing others in the stadium stands, including someone from the opposing side who was in a wheelchair? There’s a difference between school pride and arrogance.</p>
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I don’t think any Duke poster on this site has “trashed” any other school including Georgetown, which I have already said is a great school in an earlier thread. You, on the other hand, are making generalizations about the ethos of an entire university and the attitude of an entire student body based on what you read on the internet. Also, what you’re saying here is irrelevant as usual to the discussion at hand as you don’t directly address any of the points me or anybody else has made earlier.</p>
<p>I mean, have you even been reading what me and MW2isawesome have been saying in this thread? I think that Duke is a better university, but by no means do I think Georgetown “sucks” as its clearly better than 99% of the schools out there. Of course, you can misinterpret my words as you feel to fit your agenda.</p>
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<p>If I personally prefer modern architecture to a red-brick Colonial, what difference would it make to me that the majority of people would rather live in a red-brick Colonial? You, on the other hand, wouldn’t actually have a preference. You’d see what “most people” like and then make that your preference.</p>
<p>“If people hate you, you know you’re doing something right.” </p>
<p>I think Hitler and Stalin had those words posted in their offices.</p>
<p>Has the OP made a decision yet? In case not, I’ll jump back in. </p>
<p>Duke is a stronger research university in most fields, including Political Science and English. This is evident from the NRC rankings. The latest ones are data-driven assessments, not opinion polls. Although they are graduate department rankings, they may be relevant to the quality of instruction you are likely to get. True, many excellent teachers don’t publish much, and in the NRC rankings publication counts for a lot. However, we do not have any reliable measurements to directly compare instructional quality. To judge faculty strength we can only compare factors like publication volume, bibliographic citations, awards, academy memberships, and salaries. These factors favor Duke (see the NRC, the Washington Monthly “research” rankings, and the stateuniversity.com salary data).</p>
<p>Duke ranks 12th and Georgetown 30th for Bachelors-to-PhD rank among natonal universities (again, see the Washington Monthly “research” figures.) This may reflect self-selection to some degree. </p>
<p>Duke is a richer school. Its endowment is about 5x larger (although the student body is about the same size). Duke annually spends about 5X more than Georgetown on research. Duke has one of the country’s largest library systems and its own 7,000 acre forest for research in forestry and life sciences. Duke’s average class sizes are significantly smaller than Georgetown’s (<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/708190-avg-class-size-4.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/708190-avg-class-size-4.html</a>).</p>
<p>These are the kinds of objective factors that lend weight to claims that Duke is a stronger school, though they are both about equally selective (close enough, anyway.)</p>
<p>On the other hand, the Jesuits have a good reputation as teachers. Georgetown’s location gives it great advantages. It seems to offer excellent internships. It can hire part time, intermittent and temporary faculty from government-related organizations. The Georgetown neighborhood is beautiful. Shopping and nightlife are an easy walk away from campus. The DC museums and monuments are not far away. Anyone making a choice like this should definitely visit because subjective factors (atmosphere, “fit”) may move you a lot more than the numbers.</p>
<p>Georgetown does not have a political science major, so comparing it to Duke’s political science department is difficult. Georgetown does have a government major and a link to the government undergrad program website is attached.</p>
<p>[Undergraduate</a> Program - Department of Government - Georgetown College](<a href=“http://government.georgetown.edu/undergraduate/]Undergraduate”>Undergraduate Program | Department of Government | Georgetown University)</p>
<p>So the question may really be should you study political science at Duke or Government at Georgetown.</p>
<p>FWIW. A very large percentage of students in the college of arts and sciences study government and come to Georgetown because it is in Washington, DC and because a lot of the learning takes place outside of the classroom. You can eat, sleep and breath government if you like. These intangibles never show up in rankings like US News or cross admit preference data.</p>
<p>On the other hand it is not uncommon for students to have government related internships during the semester, freeing up student’s summers to explore other areas of interest outside of DC, say in NYC, London or Chicago. With Duke you may have three summers at most to explore the different areas of government. Also, in the last two years president Obama has spoken on campus twice. Not to mention that other current and former governement officials, not only from the US but from around the world regularly visit campus to lecture. Some like it so much they decide to teach a course or two (Albrigh, Tenet, Lake). If someone you’d like to hear from doesn’t visit Georgetown, more likely than not they may visit GW or American to speak. They are just down the road from each other.</p>
<p>Bottom line is that Washington, DC is the place to study government. Unless you really feel a strong fit with Duke, I would strongly consider studying Government at Georgetown in Washington, DC, it just seems to make more sense than studying Political Science at Duke in Durham.</p>
<p>Please try to visit both campuses and to speak with as many government/poli sci students as possible. The differences will be obvious and your decision making process will be easier.</p>
<p>Best of Luck with your decision.</p>