<p>^^he’s not bashing Duke; he’s just saying Duke is no Stanford but then nobody is.</p>
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<p>Yeah, b/c finishing in the top 10-15 is the SAME as continually repeating at the no.1 spot (I guess right now, Houston or UGA is the same as LSU in CFB this season).</p>
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<p>Maybe you should try harder next time in actually trying to get my point; I brought up the Sears Cup b/c of the assertion made about Stanford & sports (among other things) - funny how you didn’t bash the Dukie on bringing up Stanford first (to which I was merely replying) in a comparison btwn UoC and Duke (word of advice - try to be more consistent on your positions).</p>
<p>There’s a reason why HYPSM is HYPSM and not HYPDM; let’s not try to weasel Duke into the same group by saying Duke is the same/better than Stanford.</p>
<p>Like I stated, this has been the modus operandi of a no. of Dukies over the years - globbing on to schools which are generally regarded as more “prestigious” or whatever, but at the same time debasing schools which are at the same level such as UoC (on a purely academic front, UoC is the more highly regarded school).</p>
<p>I dont see why everyone jumps onto the bandwagon to hate on Duke specially when their schools are not involved in the comparison, I guess no one wants to witness a change in the status quo, and that explains why so many of you are hating on Duke; you dont want us to rock the boat, and challenge the established order, but unfortunately for you we have the momentum and we will soon ascend to our rightful place at the pinnacle of the rankings. Our basketball team is hated because its phenomenal, we have no qualms about being hated because of our academic excellence as well, we’ll soldier on and continue Duke’s great tradition of excellence.</p>
<p>“Like I stated, this has been the modus operandi of a no. of Dukies over the years - globbing on to schools which are generally regarded as more “prestigious” or whatever, but at the same time debasing schools which are at the same level such as UoC (on a purely academic front, UoC is the more highly regarded school).”</p>
<p>I agree.</p>
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<p>I’d never before paid any attention to the NM numbers as a quality indicator. It does seem to me that in comparing Chicago to Duke, the right number to use for Chicago is 65, not 268. Or, find the number of finalists for each school and compare that. If you care.</p>
<p>It looks like about 4.6% of Chicago’s ~1400 entering students receive the NM $2500 scholarships, compared to about 5.6% of Duke’s ~1800 entering students. That’s not a big difference. I don’t know how much more remarkable the average Scholar really is than the average Finalist. The NM selection committee designates winners in every state. So I suppose some Finalists in state X who don’t get the money (and the “Scholar” distinction) may in fact be more highly qualified than Finalists in state Y who do. Of course, that would be as true for Duke as it is for Chicago.</p>
<p>Intangibles of atmosphere and “fit” will fairly overwhelm these distinctions when you hit the ground at Duke or Chicago. The numbers get filtered through differently-cut lenses of “holistic” selection and self-selection. Chicago’s off-the-wall essays, for example, may cull out personality distinctions that matter to you (positively or negatively), and to a classroom discussion, much more than the distinction between NM “Finalist” and “Scholar”.</p>
<p>Choose for fit. Thats the bottom line. I personally believe a person interested in Duke would be more likely to prefer Northwestern to Chicago. I know I would.</p>
<p>Yes, it is about fit. Chicago might have all these great academics, but when you go to the overnight visit and have to put up with roommates who are gamers half the night . . . well, you start to question the vaunted “academics.” There are, on balance FAR more flat-out weird people who go to Chicago than go to Duke. Then, for some, weird is the “fit.” In the critical passenger-in-seat-next-to-you-on-airplane-test, Chicago loses every time. No one has heard of it. In terms of public recognition, at least in the United States, Duke is easily in the HYPMS class. And, if that is due primarily to basketball, then, so? Before the Silicon Valley era, most people had hardly heard of Stanford, at least on the East Coast.</p>
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<p>Actually, I think people are more open-minded than you may think. While some numbers seem to put Duke at the same level as Stanford (like SAT scores…but then quite a few others like Vanderbilt have similar scores too; WashU has even higher numbers), other measures like the following explain why many people are turned off when Dukies try to weasle Duke into the same sentence as Stanford while claiming their school is better than other peers:</p>
<h1>NAE (national academy of engineers) members:</h1>
<p>Stanford 90
…
Duke 3</p>
<p>If anything, UChicago may be in better position to challenge that established order anyway.</p>
<p>"In the critical passenger-in-seat-next-to-you-on-airplane-test, Chicago loses every time. No one has heard of it…In terms of public recognition, at least in the United States, Duke is easily in the HYPMS class. And, if that is due primarily to basketball, then, so? Before the Silicon Valley era, most people had hardly heard of Stanford, at least on the East Coast.</p>
<p>Once again:</p>
<p>"Like I stated, this has been the modus operandi of a no. of Dukies over the years - globbing on to schools which are generally regarded as more “prestigious” or whatever, but at the same time debasing schools which are at the same level such as UoC…</p>
<p>Many schools are “easily” recognized because of sports. You’d be surprised how many people think of Duke as a great bb school rather than as an academic one. That’s where HYP etc. leave it in the dust.</p>
<p>Sam Lee I cant speak for anyone else but I don’t think that i have been trying to ‘weasel’ Duke into the category of HYPS, I believe we have to make a substantial amount of progress before we can truly be regarded as the creme de la creme, but on the flip side, I do believe that we are getting there faster than anyone else. However, I definitely don’t believe that we are inferior to schools like Chicago in any way mean or form, and the fact that some people on this forum make unsubstantiated statements regarding Duke is very irksome. We don’t need to be HYP or S, we are Duke and we are proud of being true to our selves and to our school.</p>
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UChicago doesn’t even have engineering so the number of NAE members affiliated with the school would be 0. To be fair, Duke’s engineering program is a lot smaller than Stanford in terms of the variety of disciplines offered. In order to have a lot of faculty members recognized as leaders in their field, you need to have a lot of faculty members in the first place.</p>
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There’s no question HYP (I’m assuming that’s Harvard, Yale and Princeton) as well as Stanford and MIT are more highly regarded than Duke but every American I’ve met knows that Duke is a top school academically. It’s considered to be better than every school besides HYP in the South and is even considered a top 10 school in the New York and DC area where no one’s heard of Caltech or UChicago. There’s no area in the country where if you randomly polled the locals what they thought the top 15 schools in the country were that Duke wouldn’t be on the list. I guarantee it.</p>
<p>Chicago, on the other hand, is only known by the well educated academics and now USNWR obsessed high schoolers. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, Duke and Notre Dame-these are the household college names in the United States and are known by folks in all walks of society. U of Chicago is a long way in being included in this rarefied group.</p>
<p>“Chicago, on the other hand, is only known by the well educated academics and now USNWR obsessed high schoolers. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, Duke and Notre Dame-these are the household college names in the United States and are known by folks in all walks of society. U of Chicago is a long way in being included in this rarefied group.”</p>
<p>Once again:</p>
<p>“Like I stated, this has been the modus operandi of a no. of Dukies over the years - globbing on to schools which are generally regarded as more “prestigious” or whatever, but at the same time debasing schools which are at the same level such as UoC…”</p>
<p>Duke is first an foremost known for basketball. ND is first and foremost known for football. Nice try.</p>
<p>“New York and DC area where no one’s heard of Caltech or UChicago.”
“U of Chicago is a long way in being included in this rarefied group.”</p>
<p>I feel so bad. I want my tuition money back.</p>
<p>There are many Dick Vitales on this site.</p>
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<p>UMich is first and foremost known for football as well. I don’t see that as a bad thing as it increases its profile among the population.</p>
<p>Can we end this discussion now? It’s just a rampant back and forth that’s not productive. For undergraduates, there is no way anybody can reasonably say that Duke is clearly superior to UChicago or that UChicago is clearly superior to Duke. THEY ARE PEERS. CHOOSE BASED ON FIT. It’s hard to get in, so the admissions office might make that decision for you. Thank you.</p>
<p>I also don’t think anybody equated Duke to Stanford. People are just saying Duke is more similar to the Stanford vibe of good sports, academics, weather, social life, etc. Of course, Stanford is more selective and prestigious than Duke. Chicago, on the other hand, is not known for its sports, weather, or social life, so you could easily say that somebody interested in Stanford would probably be a better fit at Duke (unless there’s another factor they place highly like intellectualism or quirkiness wherein UChicago might be a better fit). Along the same token, I’d say somebody interested in the qualities of MIT would probably be a better fit for Chicago than Duke (unless they’re interested in engineering since UChicago doesn’t have an engineering program). That doesn’t mean Chicago and MIT are the same. That’s all.</p>
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<p>Not yet, anyway.</p>
<p>[Chicago</a> Sun-Times article](<a href=“http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/4188530-418/university-of-chicago-launches-new-engineering-program.html]Chicago”>http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/4188530-418/university-of-chicago-launches-new-engineering-program.html)
[Molecular</a> Engineering names founding director | The University of Chicago](<a href=“Page Not Found | University of Chicago”>Page Not Found | University of Chicago)</p>
<p>Connecting, introducing, and reinventing disciplines is a Chicago tradition, though I bet a few old guard alumni are not thrilled about this initiative. Chicago has always been strictly, self-consciously about liberal arts and sciences at the undergraduate level. Even this engineering program seems to have a strongly theoretical bent.</p>
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On the contrary, their schools were involved. K&S is bent out of shape because several people asserted Duke as being more prestigious than Northwestern earlier. Admittedly, he’s never been overly fond of Duke. Sam Lee is both a Northwestern and Stanford alum and clarified his posts, though as usual with a very reasonable attitude. Perhaps the better question is why Northwestern was dragged in at all.</p>
<p>The person quoted as lumping Duke with Stanford (“perhaps only Stanford is a peer”) in this thread is par72, who is a Holy Cross alum with no connection with Duke other than peculiar favoritism he also extends to Davidson, Bucknell, and a few other institutions. </p>
<p>As for rjkofnovi, he never lets an opportunity to make a snide comment about Duke pass - or, indeed, a snide comment in general. I’ve yet to see a helpful post from that poster, though perhaps he is more informative on the Michigan boards. I am a huge fan of Michigan and Alexandre’s insightful posts, however, so I do not choose to blemish a school based on the actions of one or two individuals.</p>
<p>People here need to grow up (that includes some of the Duke posters). Why get bent out of shape over what people say about schools on a message board? Who cares? Good lord, if someone from Wake Forest wants to claim that they give as good an education as Duke, I’m not going to pop up and brandish rankings and bludgeon them into submission. It’s really not that big of a deal. A constant need to assert one’s own school and put down others reeks of insecurity - something that reflects on an individual more than his/her school, I think, and something solved for some people only by attending Harvard. </p>
<p>Duke and Chicago are both fine schools. Both are in the set of 17 schools (Berkeley, Caltech, Chicago, Duke, Johns Hopkins, the Ivies, Michigan, MIT, Northwestern, Stanford) that I would say have a claim to top 15 status. Chicago is stronger in most areas; there’s no doubt about that. At the undergraduate level, however, either would be perfectly suitable. In the fields of interest for the OP, Chicago is stronger in econ, and Duke is stronger in public policy. The differences in academics are absolutely dwarfed by other differences, which I see people have failed to address. I will, therefore, briefly outline them:</p>
<p>[ul][li]Focus - Duke is more pre-professional than Chicago. Twice as many students at Duke apply to medical school, and given the high rate of weeding out, Duke undoubtedly had many more pre-meds to begin with. Law and business are also extremely popular; the most popular employers last year were (aside from Teach for America) Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, Accenture, Google, and Deutsche Bank, which says something about the interests of the student body. Chicago is known as the “teacher of teachers,” on the other hand, and has a high PhD production rate. </p>[/li]
<p>[li]Curriculum - While Chicago and Duke both require students to take courses in a wide variety of areas (humanities, sciences, math, language, etc.), Chicago’s Core restricts the options to a few designated courses, whereas Duke students have a much broader array of courses to select for their distribution requirements. </p>[/li]
<p>[li]Freshman housing - Chicago mingles its freshmen with upperclassmen; Duke places them on a separate campus.</p>[/li]
<p>[li]Weather - Duke rarely dips below freezing for long, and more than 1-2" of snow at a time is highly unusual. It gets significantly colder in Chicago. Summer and autumn weather in Chicago is significantly more pleasant, however; the South gets disgustingly hot and humid.</p>[/li]
<p>[li]Location - While Durham gets a bad rap, it is certainly not the most pleasant setting. Hyde Park is lovely, with lots of coffee shops and bookstores, and Chicago itself is a very nice city probably exceeded only by NYC. (If that…Chicago is both friendlier and cheaper than NYC.)</p>[/li]
<p>[li]Athletics - Athletics are huge at Duke. Basketball and lacrosse are the most popular sports, with people mustering up considerably more enthusiasm for tailgating than actual football games. Traditions like tenting indicate the importance of athletics to many students. While students at Chicago are at least as likely to participate in club or intramural sports as those at Duke, the intercollegiate teams are not as popular, and its DIII conference is more known for academics than athletic prowess. </p>[/li]
<p>[li]Greek life - Greek life at Duke is huge and often plays a significant role in the social lives of those not involved in Greek life. Themed housing (Selective Living Groups) somewhat minimizes this effect, as does the wide range of other activities and organizations, but frat/sorority life is nevertheless evident. Greek life at Chicago is much more low key. </p>[/li]
<p>[li]Party focus - Duke has more of a focus on partying than Chicago. Feel free to interpret partying as alcohol. Duke’s most popular event during the year is LDOC (Last Day of Classes), which combines popular music groups with copious amounts of alcohol. Chicago’s events are quirkier, like Scav Hunt, Kuviasungnerk, etc. </p>[/li]
<p>[*]Campus - Duke’s campus is huge and sprawling. With belts of trees around campus, it feels rather more secluded and rural than it is. Chicago’s campus is leafy as well, but it is more compact and feels more urban. Both have lovely collegiate Gothic architecture, though both schools have other styles as well (e.g. Max P and the Reg at Chicago and east campus at Duke).[/ul]</p>
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And UChicago is first and foremost known for . . .what?</p>
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<p>Oh, please - when did I ever take issue w/ that assertion?</p>
<p>There have been many a time when people have made assertions about whatever school compared to NU and I have stayed out of it b/c it’s a position in which credible arguments can be made.</p>
<p>I have largely stayed out of such silly arguments b/c they are pretty much argumentative in which one can make a case for and vice versa.</p>
<p>However, the few times in which I have made posts re such assertions, it’s b/c the claims are over-reaching and/or there is hyprocrisy involved.</p>
<p>For example, one of the few times I have inserted myself in such a discussion is about Georgetown - a very good small university, but one in which people get overly blinded by its admit rate (partially due to its great location in the NE); when it comes to strength of academic depts. and strength of student body, Georgetown lags a bit behind schools which certain posters have grouped it with.</p>
<p>And in this case, there’s both over-reaching (not only placing Duke on the level w/ Stanford, but w/ a hint of undertone that Duke is actually superior - lol) and hypocrisy.</p>
<p>There have been many, many posts on CC trying to latch Duke w/ schools like Stanford or Princeton, while at the same time bashing equitable schools like UoC (nevermind the equitable schools, but the same people who try to link Duke w/ schools like Stanford are the same ones who would be aghast at someone comparing Vandy w/ Duke - even tho, that would be doing the exact same thing). </p>
<p>And look who is all bent out of shape b/c I have no issue calling out the over-reaching claim that Duke = Stanford? (Funny, how you just attack the messenger and have nothing to say about the claims in itself; the fact that you are silent on such an over-reaching claim says everything about your credibility).</p>
<p>I think the thread is about Duke v. UChicago, not Duke v. Stanford. The latter would make interesting reading, but the reading would be short. Because of the vastly different experience and character of Duke v. UChicago, the debate must necessarily devolve to fit. Duke is overly characterized as a fratty bb school, while UChicago is overly characterized as a nerdy, funless drudgy freezing clot. Make your choice. By the way, Northwestern always begs the question in its name, “where” as in Northwestern Missouri State or something. Good luck with that . . .</p>
<p>^ Another poster (a Dukie) brought up Stanford so it’s fair game.</p>