<p>Ray192, I acknowledged that Cornell is a terrific school overall; I was merely concerned with it's BioE ranking</p>
<p>thethoughtprocess, 1570/1600 - does that mean Duke weighs CR & Math more than W or is it just from the old SAT?</p>
<p>Ray192, Cornell's grad programs being ranked higher than Duke's is not surprising, as it is an undergraduate focused school. However, OP is going into undergrad.</p>
<p>For undergrad, Duke is much stronger in terms of student strength and placement. This is well-known. </p>
<p>"Much" is subjective...the different between Duke and Cornell is the same between the difference between Harvard and Duke. In reality, both are good schools.</p>
<p>I didn't say the programs I mentioned were graduate programs. I can count on one hand, graduate or undergraduate, the majors that Duke is stronger than Cornell in. </p>
<p>And well-known that Duke is much stronger? You're the first person I've seen mention such thing. Cornell's engineering 75th percentile SAT is 1540. Hardly enough to warrant a "much stronger" commentary.</p>
<p>Ray192...first, I'm just comparing the overall undergrads, not just the engineering schools (though Duke's students in Engineering are stronger still). Also, I'm not sure why you think you know that much about undergrad programs at either school. Are you an academic in several undergraduate fields? </p>
<p>The students that attend Cornell are, on average, slightly weaker than Duke. This is reflected in SAT scores, number of National Merit Scholars in enrolling classes, high school class rank. These stats are empirical, unlike your assertions regarding Cornell's undergrad strength (which I find funny - if Cornell was that strong, why would stronger students choose Duke...hmmm).</p>
<p>Duke students place at a much higher rate into top professional schools than Cornell as well (Cornell has by far the worst placement out of the Ivies). This is of interest to the OP.</p>
<p>Regarding Duke's stronger strength in professional placement:
<a href="http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/pdfs/wsj_college_092503.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/pdfs/wsj_college_092503.pdf</a></p>
<p>Regarding Duke's much stronger performance in attracting top students such as those from National Merit:
<a href="http://www.nationalmerit.org/06_annual_report.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.nationalmerit.org/06_annual_report.pdf</a></p>
<p>In the interest of Full Disclosure, this is regarding Duke's international prestige (Cornell does well, as Duke is only slightly higher, but keep in mind this takes into account graduate programs as well):
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THES_-_QS_World_University_Rankings%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THES_-_QS_World_University_Rankings</a></p>
<p>Ray: "Simply put, Duke doesn't have nearly the same academic reputation as Cornell." It seems you have it backwards. You might have been right 2-3 decades ago though.</p>
<p>I figure since I already posted some helpful links above, I might as well keep going. I was also curious to see if Ray192's claims were verifiable, but instead I found more rankings that had similar findings as predicted. </p>
<p><a href="http://chronicle.com/stats/productivity/page.php?primary=5&secondary=46&bycat=Go%5B/url%5D">http://chronicle.com/stats/productivity/page.php?primary=5&secondary=46&bycat=Go</a>
Keep in mind this is not the quality of the program, just how active the faculty are (this translates into research opps for undergrads such as hydra).</p>
<p>Also, some more indicators of "academic reputation":</p>
<p>An overview and ranking of top research schools - compare Duke and Cornell. Again, both schools do very well.
<a href="http://mup.asu.edu/research2006.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://mup.asu.edu/research2006.pdf</a></p>
<p>This is the Newsweek global rankings, taking into things such as faculty citations, published articles, and student strength. Again, both Duke and Cornell do very well, but as with all other rankings, Duke is slightly better (this takes into account graduate programs as well).
<a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14321230/site/newsweek/%5B/url%5D">http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14321230/site/newsweek/</a>
^ I actually really dislike this one, if you look at the actual ranking you'll see small colleges such as Princeton get punished for its emphasis on undergrad.</p>