<p>Wow. I don’t have much time for this, but I guess I’ll address several points.</p>
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<p>I am consistent in my responses. No one is saying that Duke is better than or equal to Stanford at athletics. By bringing up the point about the Sears Cup rankings, I was merely giving the idea that although Stanford is better than Duke at athletics, Duke and Stanford are both excellent in this area, and are fairly comparable in this regard. To say that Stanford is good at athletics and Duke isn’t is akin to saying that Harvard is a top school and Cornell isn’t, because Harvard is ranked #1 while Cornell is ranked #15. </p>
<p>I didn’t bash on par72 because I don’t see what’s so wrong about it. The point that he’s trying to make is that Duke offers “academics, alumni network, beautiful campus, athletics and social life”, qualities that make Duke well-rounded. Of course, Stanford offers these at a much higher level, but the fact that both schools are well-rounded in these regards makes them comparable; hence why par72 brought Stanford up, in comparison to others schools which tend to simply focus on a particular area, such as only academics.</p>
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<p>If anything, most people on this thread are giving the pros/cons of each school, and arguing for their merits, and only one person has latched Duke to Stanford. I have no problems with comparing Duke to Vandy, and I’m sure many of my friends and classmates here wouldn’t either, given they are both excellent schools in the South. It seems like only you are the one getting worked up just because one person associated Duke with Stanford, and that suddenly angers you, because you feel the need to have a clear cut of the divide between which school is better than another. This is further evidenced by your numerous posts on various other universities’ threads, and the fact that you wish to further discuss the differences between Duke and Stanford, calling it “fair game”.</p>
<p>1). UChicago is higher ranked than Duke by U.S. News, Forbes, and the National Research Council.
2) ALL of the major world university rankings place UChicago significantly higher than Duke.
3) UChicago has produced more Nobel prize winners and Rhodes Scholars.
4) UChicago has a higher ranked graduate Business School and Law School and the world’s leading economics program. U.S. News ranks UChicago in top 5 in Business and Law; Duke does not make the top 10. (In addition, Businessweek ranks UChicago #1 in business. And Malcolm Gladwell ranks UChicago Law #1.)
5) Forbes called UChicago a billionaire university, ranking it #6 in number of billionaires who’ve gone to the school. Duke did not make the list.
[Billionaire</a> Universities - Forbes.com](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/2010/08/11/harvard-stanford-columbia-business-billionaires-universities.html]Billionaire”>Billionaire Universities)</p>
<p>truth123, I do not think school affiliation to Nobel Prize winners, Rhodes scholars, billionaires, CEOs etc… are an indicator of undergraduate academic excellence. They are noteworthy from a school pride point of view, but the fact is, they number at fewer than 1 in 1,000 (except perhaps for Harvard), a number too insignificant to effectively draw any conclusion. A far more accurate indicator of academic efficacity is what the remaining 999 students go on to do with their lives. In the regard, I doubt Chicago would edge Duke…or vice versa. Although Chicago is admittedly one of a handful of non-HYPSM universities that are better than Duke in pure academic terms (the others being Cal, Caltech and Columbia), it is hard to make a case that it is better than Duke as a undergraduate institution. In terms of undergraduate education, I would say both are roughly equal.</p>
<p>By the way, Forbes’ numbers are definitely incorrect…as they usually are. Nothing published by Forbes is quote-worthy, especially not their university/MBA rankings. For example, there are at least 12 living University of Michigan alumni that are billionaires:</p>
<p>John Robert Beyster: $1.5 billion
Bharat Desai: $2 billion
Bradley Keywell: $1 billion
Eric Paul Leftofsky: $1.5 billion
Charles Thomas Munger: $1 billion
Larry Page: $20 billion
Jorge M. Perez: $1 billion
Stephen Ross: $3 billion
Kavitark Ram Shriram: $1.5 billion
Joan Tisch: $3 billion
Samuel Wyly: $1 billion
Samuel Zell: $5 billion</p>
<p>According to the link you provided, Michigan should be #7 and yet, it is not mentioned among the 14 universities listed.</p>
<p>By the way, I do not include unconfirmed billionaires or billionaires that attended but did not receive an actual degree like:</p>
<p>Stanley Druckenmiller (never graduasted: $2.5 billion
Thomas Stephen Monaghan (never graduated): $3 billion
Adolf Alfred Taubman (never graduated): $2.5 billion
Niklas Zennstrom (1-year exchange student): $2 billion</p>
<p>This is just an illustration. I am sure the billionaire count at other universities was also faulty.</p>
Duke is ranked higher by The Center for Measuring University Performance, The Wall Street Journal and The 50 Best Colleges website. What’s your point?</p>
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The world research rankings have nothing to do with undergraduate quality and include bogus factors such as percentage of International Faculty. They are solely focused on research productivity in graduate departments.</p>
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Duke has more Marshall, Churchill and Goldwater Scholars than Chicago. What’s your point?</p>
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Duke has a higher ranked Medical School, Public Policy School Divinity School and Nursing School as well as perhaps the world’s leading Classics and Spanish programs. What’s your point?</p>
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More Duke undergraduates have become billionaires than Chicago undergraduates and this forum deals with undergraduate education</p>
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That doesn’t even make sense because Chicago doesn’t have an engineering department. The NAE Membership directory is flawed and inaccurate.</p>
<p>^The site probably only includes active full-time faculty members and exclude people like emeritus/adjunct profs…etc, which is the correct way to do. </p>
<p>Also, faculty in sciences department, esp. with research in applied chemistry or physics, can be elected to to NAE. UChicago has close tie with Argonne National Lab; so it’s not surprising it has NAE members even without an engineering school.</p>
Which five? I can only count four (including one with Emeritus status so there are basically three):</p>
<p>Earl H. Dowell - Chair, William Holland Hall Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Henry Petroski - Professor of Civil Engineering and Professor of History
Rober Plonsey - Pfizer-Pratt University Professor Emeritus of Engineering</p>
<p>Robert Calderbank - Dean of Natural Science, joined Duke in 2010 from Princeton</p>
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You don’t know much about the science and engineering fields, do you? Go read that article again.</p>
It would benefit them to know that 19 others who have graduated from the same engineering program that they’re enrolled in have gone on to achieve the greatest form of recognition in the field. What exactly are you trying to argue? The success of a program or a university is inherently tied to the success of its graduates. If Princeton grads weren’t distinguishing themselves in the fields of medicine, law, engineering, etc. despite having access to the brightest faculty in the world, then that would put a serious dent in the school’s undergraduate reputation. That’s a random example but my point is that the purpose of a university is to educate after all and the best ones will have the most successful graduates in every area.</p>
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I’m afraid I don’t know much about the science and engineering fields but Sam Lee’s explanation makes sense to me. I think the discussion of faculty awards is useless to undergraduates and they should be concerned about how successful the program they are looking at is with regards to graduate school placement and job placement as well as what current and recent alums have to say about the quality of teaching at the place.</p>
<p>Maybe this has been said before, but I think choosing an undergraduate college based on brand recognition in a niche is misguided, for several reasons:</p>
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<li><p>Your niche is not really a niche. Every college offers econ and poli sci; Chicago’s public policy major is somewhat more unusual but it’s not exceptional (as in, you could replicate most of the public policy major at another college if you took econ, sociology, and poli sci.) If you instead said you wanted to do biomedical engineering or Egyptology, this conversation would be different, but you’re not saying that.</p></li>
<li><p>Your niche could change. I came into college wanting to do religious studies (another area in which Chicago is particularly strong, but not my primary reason for choosing the school) with the hopes of going into academia, and n years later I’m in education management. This is not an unusual trajectory for any college student anywhere.</p></li>
<li><p>The college is not going to “give” you a job. You are going to “get” a job by using the resources around you wisely. These resources include but are not limited to your friends, alumni, the career office, your pluck and ingenuity, your research, your initiative, your friends, your friends, your friends. Did I mention that your friends from college will play a significant role in your personal and professional future. You bet I pay more attention when a friend or a friend of a friend asks me for a career-related favor. And a resume of somebody from a no-name school that comes recommended by a friend means a lot more to me-- an alum and generous donor-- than somebody with “UChicago” stamped on their resume.</p></li>
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<p>That said, I recommend you read both the University of Chicago Maroon and the Duke Chronicle on a semi-regular basis. I think the relative strengths and weaknesses of both schools will become clearer to you and more helpful as you think about what schools you’d like to attend.</p>
<p>Duke, Stanford, Dartmouth, HYP are multi-dimensional schools-academics, athletics, social life, and strong alumni connections. UChicago is strong in academcs…The same contrast exists among top LAC’s. Williams, Bowdoin, Davidson, Holy Cross, Colgate vs Swarthmore, Haverford, Wesleyan, Wellesley… Latest College Cup women’s soccer championship Stanford1 Duke0. Duke has many strong athletic teams, Stanford is a Sears Cup Power but at least the Cardinal realized a Dukie would bring their basketball program back.</p>
<p>^ If spectator sports are central to your idea of a multi-dimensional college life, then yes, that’s a valid distinction. If you think the dinner table conversation at Swarthmore is richer than it is at Holy Cross, and that dimension matters to you more, then maybe not. Every college has a social life. Each has some dimensions more developed than others. Such is “fit”. </p>
<p>Chicago does seem to do less “class crafting” than other peer schools. Your grades, scores, and approach to the off-the-wall essays are all important. Unless things have changed lately, how you might help prop up a particular team or club is not. Admissions seems to assume that smart, creative people will figure out ways to entertain each other. Which they do (this is a feature not a bug). However, the resulting dynamic is different than it is at some other schools (and not equally to everyone’s liking). </p>
<p>As for strong alumni connections (or “network”), I don’t know exactly what that means. I’ve asked this question before and never received a satisfying answer. We get several alumni magazines at my house. Chicago’s (the only one I even open) has good articles by faculty and alumni, but I always turn first to the class news section. It describes all sorts of connections among alumni including who is marrying whom, who is god-parent to whose child, book collaborations, visits, “sightings”, etc. Chicago people (and, I’m sure, Wesleyan or Haverford people) are multi-dimensional characters with a wide range of interests and personal connections. I would say though that “who you know is more important than what you know” is not the prevailing mind-set (not from a career perspective, anyway).</p>
<p>Anyone considering pre-professional careers (medicine, law, business) would be doing themselves a disservice if they did not go to Duke. Amongst the medical community in particular, Duke is known to be one of the most (if not the most) represented undergraduate in medicine. Not a surprise when you consider almost a third of each class eventually go to medical school</p>
<p>@ AtlanticCoastDoc: While I understand that you have a lot of fondness as a Duke alumnus for the preparation and support you received for the MTSP program, I would not go as far as saying that prospective students interested in pre-professional careers are doing “themselves a disservice if they did not go to Duke.” I am also a Dukie who spent my first year at Rice, and I would argue Rice is just as strong for medical school preparation, especially with the opportunities associated with the Texas Medical Center, the world’s largest medical center (much larger than Duke’s Medical Center) a 10 min walk way from the edge of campus. In fact, 90%+ of med school applicants from Rice get into a medical school. If I didn’t have a strong interest in environmental sciences and ecology in addition to my medical interests, I would have stayed. Med schools know UChicago is among the toughest schools in the country, and I bet UChicago has excellent advising as well. I’m sure UChicago students do well in law school and Wall St. placement as well. Grad and preprofessional schools know that UChicago students receive very rigorous intellectual training. I agree that Duke does offer excellent preparation for pre-professional careers, but it is a disservice to imply that Duke provides “better” pre-professional preparation than Chicago or other top LACs/universities to prospective students/parents on CC. There is no need to put down other colleges/universities in order to put Duke on a pedestal; I wish some of my fellow Blue Devils would stop doing that.</p>
<p>A toss-up as the Sanford School of Public policy ranks with the best of them for public policy and same for Chicago’s famous economics department. If I was advising my child (hope to get the chance as he has applied to both), I would suggest basing your decision on a few clear differences between the schools such as: (1) weather, (2) big or small city, and (3) liberal arts classes (then pick Chicago) vs a more flexible distribution requirement (Duke).</p>