Is Duke going to be a casualty of Brown/Penn/Chicago's rise?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Duke University
61

<p>When I was a student at Harvard Business School a strategy for shutting people down was to make demeaning comments. I found it distasteful then, and even more-so now. Age and education have never been prerequisites for wisdom. Curvyteen, has initiated an interesting and informative dialogue that has attracted a substantial number of comments and substantially more readers. While I may not fully agreed with all of the concerns and conclusions, the synthesis of the fact pattern is credible and deserves to be treated respectfully. I am delighted to have seen Curvyteen return to the forum un-cowed, and look forward to her continuing contributions to this and other threads. </p>

<p>With regard to the original topic, although Duke was derailed in the short term from becoming one of the group of most elite universities in the US by the lacrosse scandal, I expect over the medium to long term each region will be represented and the group will include HYPS, Chicago and, almost certainly, Duke.</p>

62

<p>I am new to this; so, what is the yield and how is it a barometer?</p>

63

<p>The primary factor in Duke’s yield is not prestige or the lacrosse hiccup. It’s the economy and cost of a college education. Each April students and their parents sit at the kitchen table and talk about which college to attend. Duke and U. Penn will cost 58K/yr, Wash StL and Rice offered a 1/2 merit package and will cost 30K/yr and the state flagship’s honors program offered a full ride. Grad school will cost another 200K.<br>
What happens is the low and high income kids can afford Duke and U. Penn and the middle to upper-mid class can’t make it work. 20 years ago the mid to upper middle income kids could afford elite private universities and they were the target group for these private universities. Today these students fill up the honors program at the state flagship (their 3rd or 4th choice) due to cost.</p>

64

<p>There is no question affordability has become a crucial issue, but for the very top schools the yield is actually increasing this year. Harvard increased to 82% from roughly 80.8%, Princeton is up 2% to 68.7%, Stanford is up 3.7% to 76.7%, and although Yale has yet to report it is likely to be 68%+. None of the above offer merit aid (except Stanford for premier athletes). The key issue is whether the degree is perceived as being worth the economic sacrifice. The challenge for Duke is to have sufficient perceived value vs. the Wash StLs, Rices and state flagships of the world to overcome the cost differential. Clearly HYPS do.</p>

65

<p>but the economy has not affected the yield at other top schools - HYPSM… and they don’t offer ED either - yields have been rising for most of the ivy league even given the downturn in economy</p>

66

<p>sorry am61517 - I was posting same point as you were at the same time - to add to the list is UChicago’s dramatic yield increase from 39% to 46% to 55% this year.
Even with ED, Duke has not been able to break the 45% threshold</p>

67

<p>Yale has released its yield. It fell 3% to 65%. Duke will undoubtedly break the 45% barrier in this cycle. It has only recently begun to emphasize ED while peers like Penn have been cultivating a strong ED pool for decades. Chicago’s yield is undoubtedly impressive, but personally, I’m not a fan of the excessive marketing. The allegations of yield protection are also quite perturbing.</p>

68

<p>Warblers, it looks like Duke’s yield will hit 47% this year. I think that 55% is a good place to be considering the fact that we have to compete with UNC in state and HYPSM. Duke definitely should increase its marketing budget and build up its brand presence (specially abroad). I remember reading somewhere that Chicago started hosting lavish send off parties for Asian students in 2009. They may well be reaping the benefits of that gesture and others like it (the T-shirts and scarves for example). As an alum, why don’t you write to the admissions office and bring these issues to their cognizance? It would also be prudent to advice them to send a college admissions representative to this website. That could make a world of difference. A 5% increase in the proportion of students admitted ED should lead to a 5-6% increase in yield. Duke can still accept an even greater proportion of the class of 2018 in the ED round. That should put the yield rate at approximately 55% which is respectable but not outstanding. More sustainable increases can only be achieved the hard way, by convincing outstanding students to matriculate at Duke over HYPSM. How can we go about doing this? By improving financial aid for the middle class, enhancing faculty reputation by hiring more Nobel laureates (I actually admire Duke’s policy of recruiting young up and comers with a penchant for teaching, but Nobel prizes add lustre to a university), by gradually making the campus culture more intellectual whilst preserving the sense of community that makes Duke unique, and by focusing on attracting a more global applicant pool. The stipulation that Duke must accept at least 14% of its admitted class from the state of NC itself is doing immeasurable harm to the university. In fact, during its best years, the school actually admitted as little as 8% of its class from NC (this is before Mary Duke Biddle stepped in and instituted the BN Duke scholarship). I know this sounds sacrilegious, but I believe that coach K’s retirement will actually lead to an increase in the yield rate. Once he is gone, prospective students will start associating Duke with world class teaching and research instead of college sports. This will undoubtedly turn some people off, but those people are not the students Duke wants anyway if it sees itself as the next Harvard or Stanford or Princeton or whatever. Duke has an exemplary foundation upon which it can build a truly great global university. All the fundamental pieces are in place. We already have an exceptional teaching faculty, a phenomenal research infrastructure, an enviable and unique geographical location (in close proximity to RTP), an emphasis on undergraduate education, stellar professional programs, phenomenal name recognition, a loyal and well connected alumni base, and a distinctive campus culture. What we need is a more ambitious, prudent and assertive administration. Brodhead is dead set on transforming Duke into Yale. We need someone who is willing to break the mold and let Duke retain its distinctiveness while still managing to curb the more raucous and undesirable elements of its campus culture. To be fair, Brodhead and his team have tried to innovate in some places. However, their efforts haven’t yet come to fruition. The jury is still out on DKU (it could be either a stroke of genius or an unmitigated disaster), 2U was a horrendous move in my opinion (what were they thinking when they decided to team up with schools like Brandeis and Wake Forest?) but thankfully the faculty put a stop to that madness and Coursera was a success (although only time will tell for certain). In summary, Duke can regain its position of eminence at the highest echelon of American education provided that the administration is willing to take calculated risks and pander to its target audience (high school seniors). I personally would not bet against a school that rose from 54th to 11th in the world rankings in the span of one year.</p>

69

<p>This post is absolutely absurd. The impression you are trying to convey is that Duke already beats out the Ivies (other than HYPSM) for cross admits, but that is simply not the case. Duke is a fine school, but I think this post is going overboard in assuming that Duke can make just a couple of changes and get their yield up to 55 percent. Takes time.</p>

70

<p>Clearly your reading comprehension needs work. I said that Duke can easily get its yield up to 55% by admitting 50% of its class (the same proportion as Penn) in the ED round. Duke already wins cross admits with Dartmouth, Cornell and Chicago according to Parchment.com and is almost dead even with Penn, Brown and Columbia. As someone who was admitted to Princeton, I think I am better qualified to comment on Duke vs the Ivies than you are.
Getting the yield up to approximately 55% would not require an increase in the RD yield rate. It is just a question of mathematical manipulation. Increasing the RD rate is where things get tricky.</p>

71

<p>

</p>

<p>I agree that this is probably one of the key factors in improving yield; however, an institution can’t just say “let’s increase financial aid.” It costs money - lots of money. Duke’s fundraising efforts have been solid and people like the Karsh’s have contributed significantly (they gave $50M I believe, although to international financial aid), but Duke still lags schools like Harvard and Stanford who basically have unlimited funds. It’s hard for Duke to compete for upper-middle class students with the richest institutions, but it’s still doing relatively well (particularly after the improved financial aid in 2007).</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>There is no such stipulation - that’s a myth. James B Duke did say he wanted the Duke Endowment and Trinity College to serve people of the Carolinas, so the admissions office does give some extra consideration of residents of the state, but there is no percentage or quota that must be met.</p>

<p>Overall, though, I agree with your general post - I just wanted to highlight a couple points.</p>

72

<p>Bluedog, your opinions are always appreciated. Just to clarify, I was making a rather controversial statement when I said that Duke should improve financial aid for the middle class. I know it sounds bad, but I feel like Duke should target some of its merit scholarships etc. towards middle class students even at the expense of the most disadvantaged. I made this admittedly radical suggestion because the poorest applicants are effectively the richest at schools like Harvard, Yale and Princeton. They don’t need to pay a dime to attend and therefore cost is not a consideration for them. A scholarship for someone who doesn’t ‘need’ one is absolutely redundant. Why not target the people who could actually use the money instead?</p>

73

<p>@curvyteen

</p>

<p>Here are Chicago’s rankings (incl those before it started to “game” them):</p>

<p>USNews (National) Starting '83
6, 5, 8, 10, 9, 11, 10, 9, 9, 10, 11, 12… tied for 9th in '07
It’s recent “precipitous” rise on USNews is mostly due to their correcting hitherto flawed data. For instance, it used to bunch up several core classes as one class, thereby affecting their average class size, etc.</p>

<p>QS (worldwide), starting '07 (probably before it started “gaming” the rankings, since it was still 9th on USNews at that point in time)
7, 8, 7, 8, 8</p>

<p>ARWU (worldwide), starting '03
11, 10, 9, 8, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9</p>

<p>In the 80s it was top 5 on USNews, in the 90s it was often top 10, and in the early 2000s, it was frequently ranked among the top 10 worldwide. “obscurity for decades”?</p>

<p>@manyloyalties

Duke was established in 1838 and moved to Durham in 1892. UChicago and Stanford were established in 1892 and 1891 respectively, and MIT was established in 1865 but moved to its current campus only in 1916.</p>

<p>

I honestly think these discrepancies arise because the cross-admit data they have between any two schools is paltry. Chicago splits about 45-55 with Princeton and Princeton splits about 75-25 with Duke, yet Duke wins the Chicago cross-admit battles? Granted these statistics do not have to be perfectly transitive, but this a far cry from acceptable incongruity. The overall parchment ranking, with its substantially larger sample size, is far more indicative:</p>

<p>[Parchment</a> Student Choice College Rankings 2013 | Parchment - College admissions predictions.](<a href=“http://www.parchment.com/c/college/college-rankings.php]Parchment”>http://www.parchment.com/c/college/college-rankings.php)</p>

<p>The rankings go HSYMP, UChicago, Brown, Caltech, Amherst… Duke is 12th</p>

74

<p>I am glad that edwitten believes he (or she) is more qualified than I am on Duke vs other Ivies based on his (or her) own matriculation decision and based on Parchemnt stats!! I feel better now the edwitten has weighed in based on such a sweeping set of data. Duke is a fine school, but faces several challenges in increasing its yield against very top schools: (1) Durham/North Carolina is a big negative vs location of other top universities- it adds nothing to the school; (2) Duke does not have a repuation as having an “intellectual” atmosphere an the undergarduate level-- it still carries a bit of the southern frat boy reputation; (3) you can only take so much of your class from the ED pool (which includes lots of athletes and upper class admits), but at some point Duke has to compete better in the RD pool if it wants to raise its yield but maintain a diverse and high quality student body. In my experience, Duke does not attract the top students from the top private and public high schools in sufficient numbers to increase its RD yield. Frankly spoken, it has the same problem as Dartmouth to a degree.</p>

75

<p>I agree with much of your post, particularly the need to increase the RD yield. I disagree with this, however:

Raleigh is one of the fastest growing parts of the country. In fact, Forbes recently ranked the Raleigh metro area (which includes Durham, Chapel Hill, Cary, etc.) as the #1 fastest growing city in the US.</p>

<p>[No</a>. 1: Raleigh, NC, Metropolitan Statistical Area - The Fastest-Growing Cities In The U.S. - Forbes](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/pictures/edgl45emig/no-1-raleigh-nc-metropolitan-statistical-area/]No”>http://www.forbes.com/pictures/edgl45emig/no-1-raleigh-nc-metropolitan-statistical-area/)</p>

<p>As a member of the Research Triangle, Durham benefits from research institutes such as the National Humanities Center and many life science institutes. Courtesy of Wikipedia:</p>

<p>*Anchored by leading technology firms, government and world-class universities and medical centers, the area’s economy has performed exceptionally well. Significant increases in employment, earnings, personal income and retail sales are projected over the next 15 years.</p>

<p>The region’s growing high-technology community includes such companies as IBM, SAS Institute, Cisco Systems, NetApp, Red Hat and Credit Suisse First Boston. In addition to high-tech, the region is consistently ranked in the top three in the U.S. with concentration in life science companies. Some of these companies include GlaxoSmithKline, Biogen Idec, BASF, Merck & Co., Novo Nordisk, Novozymes, and Wyeth. Research Triangle Park and North Carolina State University’s Centennial Campus in Raleigh support innovation through R&D and technology transfer among the region’s companies and research universities (including Duke University and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).</p>

<p>The area has fared relatively well during the late-2000s recession, ranked as the strongest region in North Carolina by the Brookings Institution and among the top 40 in the country. *</p>

<p><a href=“https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Triangle[/url]”>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Triangle&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Crime has many prospective students concerned, but violent crime rates are roughly on par with Dallas or San Fran, at a 20+ year low, and continuing to fall. The violent crime rate is currently less than half that of New Haven (Yale), Baltimore (Hopkins), Atlanta (Emory), and St. Louis (WUStL), and about 60% that of Philly (Penn) and DC (Georgetown). </p>

<p>Conservatism is also a concern for many, but they are unaware of how liberal the Triangle area is, primarily due to the high degree of education in the area. I once dug up stats for another thread that indicated that the area compares quite favorably to Ann Arbor, considered one of the most liberal centers in the US, in voting record and Democrat registration. To pick LGBT rights as a sample issue, Durham is home to the NC LGBT film festival and the NC Pride parade, and like its neighboring towns of Carrboro and Chapel Hill, it passed a resolution in favor of gay marriage. </p>

<p>Durham has received many awards over the years. It scores highly on rankings of affordability, mobility for young professionals, dining and food options, environmental friendliness, entertainment, etc. It’s certainly no New York, but it has enough to keep an undergrad happily occupied for four years. </p>

<p>For nature enthusiasts, access to 7000 acres of preserved forest, much of it directly adjacent to campus, is relatively rare among elite universities, as is Duke’s marine lab on the coast. </p>

<p>[Duke</a> and Durham Rank Among the Best in the World | Duke & Durham](<a href=“Durham, Our Hometown - Duke Undergraduate Admissions”>Durham, Our Hometown - Duke Undergraduate Admissions)</p>

<p>I recently visited Duke after not having done so in four years. I was rather blas</p>

76

<p>Jak, I don’t know how to break this to you, but let’s just say you’re very,very naive (and perhaps a little disillusioned) if you truly believe that Chicago (which until 2 years ago had a 36% yield) splits cross admits with Princeton evenly. As far as the world rankings are concerned, everybody and their aunt knows that they focus primarily on education at the graduate level. I do not think that anyone is disputing the fact that Chicago is one of the best schools in the world at the graduate level. However, having said that, can you really say with a straight face that the world rankings have any semblance of credibility? Because if you believe they are credible, you should attend the University of Colorado at Boulder over Duke, Brown and Dartmouth. Look it up.</p>

77

<p>Warble…Come on it’s Durham. 4 longgggg years stuck in Durham. There’s not much going on for young adults outside the university.</p>

78

<p>

Tone down the ad hominem…</p>

<p>Two things.

  1. this data is from the period where Chicago had a 46% yield. Princeton had a 55-58% yield until they instated SCEA.

</p>

<p>I’m pretty much on your side. I’m using this data to show how ludicrous some of the college comparisons on Parchment are. The overall ranking (and I only allude to its relative “accuracy” by virtue of having a much larger sample size) does place Princeton ahead of Chicago, but not by much:</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>

Irrelavent. I was merely responding to your previous comment:</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>

Their methodologies are reasonably transparent, and they only measure a colleges successes in certain (weighted) criteria. While I question the importance of most of their criteria (and it is this that leads to your UC at B vs Duke, Brown and Dartmouth discrepancy), they are not bogus. </p>

<p>And even if they were, that would not take away from my point.

</p>

<p>Regardless, I was just responding to your comment, which made it sound like Chicago was nowhere (as far as rankings go) until it decided to cheat a few years ago. That’s palpably false. It has featured prominently in most rankings for almost a century now, and, as I mentioned, it never really “gamed” its rankings, just corrected some flawed data it was sending, remnants of its hitherto apathy towards rankings.</p>

79

<p>To put things in context, Chicago was ranked lower by US News (whose ranking focuses solely on undergraduate education) until its administrators apparently decided to meet with the editors of the publication and implement the ‘suggestions’ they received. Fair enough? Also, I find your assertion that Princeton had a 58% yield before it implemented an SCEA program quite irrelevant to the issue at hand. What is Chicago’s yield without its EA program? What’s Penn’s yield without ED? How can you compare Chicago’s overall yield (inclusive of EA) to Princeton’s RD yield? Shouldn’t there be a level playing field?
Also, just to play devil’s advocate, what do you mean by ‘correcting flawed data’? Does instituting a comprehensive (and admittedly commendable) marketing campaign constitute ‘correcting flawed data’? What about waiving the application fee for an entire city?
I’m not saying any of this is wrong or immoral. In fact, I commend Chicago’s administration for doing a brilliant job of pandering to its target audience. It just doesn’t seem like the school shot up in the rankings by correcting for minor anomalies. A concerted effort went into making Chicago a hot school. In fact, according to a thread on the UofC forum, the school almost bankrupted itself in the process. I actually admire what Chicago has managed to do in a short span of time. What I can’t stand however is listening to the sanctimonious imbeciles on the U of C forum go on about how ED policies are the scourge of their existence whilst simultaneously turning a blind eye towards their school’s own extensive and unprecedented effort to artificially improve its own yield and consequent ranking.</p>

80

<p>@edwitten

Did Chicago also meet up with Forbes, ARWU, QS, Thomson Reuters et al? Only you can make implementing suggestions seem like a nefarious deed. As I mentioned, a lot of the changes Chicago made were just correcting some of their self-inflicted wounds, such as unnecessarily bunching together certain classes and increasing their average class size. They were leveling the playing field, something which you obviously approve of.</p>

<p>

Fair enough. I think it seemed pretty relevant. Curvyteen used Chicago’s RD yield from 2 years back, so I used the data from when Princeton didn’t have SCEA (2 years ago)… I don’t see how comparing Chicago’s 2 year old (EA+RD) yield to Princeton’s current (SCEA+RD) yield constitutes a level playing field, but w/e… Oh, and maybe you failed to read my second point.</p>