<p>LOL at Lollerskates with admiration.</p>
<p>As for Smoke&Mirrors, clearly your opinions have been corrupted by the writings of Emmanuel Goldstein.</p>
<p>Smoke&Mirrors had a lot of argument to back up his opinion.</p>
<p>Smoke&Mirrors: "Yes, some may find Duke to be a "better" school, but Stanford is, statistically and in the majority of other factors, the "better" school". </p>
<p>So Stanford is now statistically better too? Take a look at the US News rankings-they're both tied at number 5, which takes into account things that you mentioned, such as the alumni giving rate, endowment, etc.</p>
<p>USNews is sketchy</p>
<p>Yeah, Stanford IS as selective as Harvard in terms of student body, and Duke as selective as Columbia and Dartmouth, and Harvard is more selective than Dartmouth or Columbia...I think thats just a good comparison to the Ivies which everyones slightly more familiar with (Though maybe not since Duke and Stanford are popular too)</p>
<p>So, I think Smoke and Mirrors might appreciate my use of the transitive property or whatnot</p>
<p>how are even comparing these two?</p>
<p>Duke's yield this year was 41% USING an ED Program</p>
<p>Stanford's yield was 69% WITHOUT an ED Program</p>
<p>Cmon now</p>
<p>Since you want to play by numbers, Duke's SAT and ACT average is higher than Stanford's.</p>
<p>Duke: SAT Reasoning Verbal: 690 - 770
SAT Reasoning Math: 690 - 780
ACT Composite: 29 - 34 </p>
<p>Stanford: SAT Reasoning Verbal: 670 - 770
SAT Reasoning Math: 690 - 780
ACT Composite: 26 - 31</p>
<p>Stanford is a much better school than Duke and I think most people understand that.</p>
<p>...if you want to work on the west coast.</p>
<p>The average at Stanford and Duke for SATs is nearly the same--the only difference is the cutoff for 25%, which only reflects a wider range of scores on Stanford's part.</p>
<p>You also have to go in deeper than numbers--do more or less applicants at Stanford/Duke submit ACT scores?</p>
<p>Pure number examination without looking at factors behind them makes for bad assumptions unless there's no comparison, and these schools' numbers are too close to assume that a 25% cuttoff in the SAT verbal at 690 rather than 670 means overall better students.</p>
<p>On top of that, if you want to compare numbers, compare all available numbers, not just SAT scores, as those don't tell the full story.</p>
<p>If you look at Stanford's acceptance rate, you can tell that they could easily increase the range of SAT scores for those accepted--but that range is the place it is for a reason. Duke could do the same thing, probably, which is why standardized test numbers are a crappy and narrow method of evalutating two schools so close in that regard.</p>
<p>Haha, ultimatefrisbee, youre really disingenuous.</p>
<p>The SAT scores he posted for Duke were those of the "accepted students" for class of 2009.</p>
<p>And everyone with common sense, knowing Duke's yield which hovers around 43% knows that this is not near what the "actual" SAT range for the enrolling students.</p>
<p>If y'all want to see the "actual" SAT range, look at usnews, don't fall for lies.</p>
<p>Stanford students get plenty of work on the East coast if they want it, heck, even around the world, and as for reputation, it's far better in the world than Duke, which also has a generally good reputation.</p>
<p>Stanford does use single choice early action, so saying "no ED program" is disingenuous as well.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Why wouldn't a Californian, particularly a Northern Californian, who wants a different atmosphere for college leave the state (and say, go to Duke?)
[/quote]
I'm from Southern California, and I absolutely love it here. I've stayed at Stanford over 2 of my summers and Northern California is ok too, although it has nothing on SoCal! I'm sure I'll be back to Southern California (to live in) sometime in the future. So no, that had nothing to do with my decision. I applied and got into Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA, and USC. It really isn't that hard to believe that I fell in love with Duke more so than Stanford...</p>
<p>When I applied to Duke for the graduating class of 2008 only 6 people from California were accepted. I'm sure Stanford accepted a lot more people from California.</p>
<p>I would imagine californians would be less inclined to apply to Duke than Stanford and more likely to enroll at Stanford than Duke. Stanford's undergraduates are about 40% or 45% from CA.</p>
<p>Diamong T - those scores are from collegeboard.com...not very disingenuous...</p>
<p>"When I applied to Duke for the graduating class of 2008 only 6 people from California were accepted."</p>
<p>Cali is usually in the top 5,6 states represented at Duke. It typically goes NY, NC, FL, NJ, TX, CA...</p>
<p>6 people is way off.</p>
<p>I thought Duke's own state of North Carolina, New York, California, and Florida were the biggest states, in line with the actual state sizes, I may b e wrong</p>
<p>North Carolina does make up the largest percentage from a single state as far as i know... and duke works hard to keep it up. About 15% of the student body hails from NC.</p>
<p>id go Stanford.</p>