<p>city…you obviously do not even know the definition of “peer”! It apparently bothers you that VU is thought of by everyone as a peer to Duke. Well, relax, and learn some facts. VU admits students even more stellar than Duke as defined by test scores, and many students now turn Duke down to go to VU. What era are (like the palindromic effect there?) you from, exactly? Here you are being outraged by this comparison, and pretending that Duke is some sort of Oxford U! LOLLLLL. Did you happen to know that Duke has only a 33% yield in their regular decision admissions??? Get down off your high horse. VU is EXACTLY Duke’s peer. Get over it. By the way, I hold an MD from Duke, so I am no Duke basher. Just trying to be fair.</p>
<p>A 33% yield means that students are running from Duke’s offer of admission…in DROVES. How does that feel? VU has similar yield in RD, so is indeed Duke’s peer by that metric. My point here is that it is quite pathetic for people to get so “chip on the shoulder” about such comparisons. I do not disrespect Duke in any way. I have always disputed arrogant claims of its superiority here by people who really should be more secure. VU and Duke are both great, and they ARE peers. I did not go to either of these as an undergrad (attended Yale), but have family connections to VU, and attended Med School at Duke.</p>
<p>By the way, here are some more Duke peers for you to savour: Wash U, JHU, Rice, Northwestern, Notre Dame…etc etc. People mesmerized by marginal differences in a school’s “prestige” vis a vis its peers probably have successfully evaded a fundamental aim of acquiring an “elite” education; valuing substance over veneer…and persist in “reducing quality to empty quantity” (in the words of Kenneth Rexroth).</p>
<p>RD Yield isn’t the best measure. Duke could have 100% yield if they accepted kids with 30 ACT scores in drones. Look at admission stats and stop trolling.</p>
<p>In “drones”??? I just stated a simple fact, ■■■■■. Deal with it.</p>
<p>No need for such a combative tone. I agree that Vanderbilt is a “peer” institution of Duke, although most would consider Duke slightly more “prestigious.” I think most would agree schools like Penn, Dartmouth, and Brown are also peers of Duke. Penn and Duke, for instance, evenly split students that have a choice between the two, so that seems to be the closest analog to Duke when it comes to high school student preferences. </p>
<p>Parchment lists Duke as the #5 most preferred school in the country based on student enrollment decisions with its top three peer schools as Penn, Princeton, and Cornell. The next top peer schools of Duke listed are Yale, Stanford, Brown, Dartmouth, Columbia, Harvard, and JHU. Seems reasonable enough to me although I realize you wouldn’t consider your esteemed Yale to be a peer of Duke. According to the site, incidentally, about 72% choose Duke over Vanderbilt. Their methodolgy isn’t perfect, but should give a general sense of revealed preferences.
<a href=“http://www.parchment.com/c/college/college-rankings.php?page=1&perPage=25&thisYear=2013”>http://www.parchment.com/c/college/college-rankings.php?page=1&perPage=25&thisYear=2013</a></p>
<p>^ ^ ^ ^
bluedog is – again – absolutely correct. </p>
<p>Oliver has a chip on his shoulder re Yale. Like most who attend Yale, he was rejected by Harvard.</p>
<p>College choice is very subjective and I certainly cannot comment on where your daughter will be most happy, but I can can offer my perspective. My daughter is currently a first year student who was accepted to both Duke and Vanderbilt with plans of going to medical school. She values academics, of course, but also wants to be engaged in a vibrant social life. She would have chosen Vanderbilt over Duke for that reason and I would have been happy to send her, but when she received a full tuition scholarship at USC, the decision to become a Trojan was easy. My perspective is that college is what you make of it, particularly for a premed, as the GPA and MCAT scores are given far more weight to the admissions decision than the pedigree of the particular undergraduate institution. In terms of prestige alone, Chancellor’s Scholar at VU > Duke in my estimation. Be a good father and guide your daughter toward the right decision to attend Vanderbilt on full scholarship. It really is an easy decision.</p>
<p>BadParent, good luck to your daughter at USC! I will say that your daughter was misinformed if she thought that Duke didn’t have a vibrant social life. It has numerous SLGs, fraternities, sororities, and independent organizations that throw parties on any given weekend and Duke has top-ranked college teams to cheer on (basketball, football, and lacrosse).</p>