<p>No. WSJ seemed pretty straightforward...though it might be slightly biased against Duke (most of the grad schools were in the Northeast, none of Duke's grad programs were, while one of Chicago's was)</p>
<p>Tour guide</p>
<p>I think you hit the issue square re the "feel" or culture of LAC vs Big State U. The top students at Michigan are every bit the equal of "Ivy' type schools. Yet their experience would be night and day b/c they are surrounded by literally thousands of kids that didnt do nearly as well in high school as they.</p>
<p>My personal pref would be between the 8-10,000 range for enrollment. Anything beyond that, numerically, lends itself to more of a Party/sports/frat scene vs intellectual focus. Just compare Stanford/Berkely, Duke/UNC, Rice/Texas, W&M/Virginia, Michigan/Northwestern and this becomes more evident.</p>
<p>Thousands vs dozens; size does matter.</p>
<p>I don't know how employable Chicago grads are but Duke's stats were not impressive. According to this website only 45% had jobs six months after graduation, which I found to be surprising. The stats for Chicago weren't listed. </p>
<p>Also, back in 2003 Chicago bested Duke in the WSJ placement rankings. It seems like every year the numbers will change considerably, so I don't know how reliable the WSJ placements rankings are. </p>
<p>Smart Guy has posted that stat about Duke employment in a few threads. Smart guy may not be so smart after all. What he/she fails to highlight is that the kids that did not go directly to work after graduation were VERY successful in graduate and professional school placement. They probably chose to go to graduate or professional school rather than seek employemnt immediately after graduate school. That doesn't seem like such a difficult concept to grasp!<br>
:D</p>
<p>Um, 45% after 6 months is completely normal considering so many go to top professional schools and don't work until 3-4 years after graduation. I'm pretty sure that percentage is the same for all schools that have similar success in sending kids to top grad schools.</p>
<p>So yeah. Anyways, just logically, think about it - Duke students come into Duke as or more talented than Chicago students, so they'll leave Duke with jobs and stints at professional schools that are for similarly talented students.</p>
<p>thoughtprocess, u r completely overestimating the value of a duke degree or any top degree</p>
<p>to get into law school, it is simply #s</p>
<p>face it, this is a FACt</p>
<p>a 3.8, 170 LSAT will get into any law school over a Duke w. 3.8 167, i am sorry too tell u that</p>
<p>I guess you are right, but that doesn't make my point not valid - that Duke grads aren't all working right away because many go to professional schools. And my point is that more Duke grads go to top law schools than Chicago grads, I guess if its because they score higher on the LSATs then more power to the Duke curriculum for producing kids who know how to score well on the LSATs.</p>
<p>again, ur wrong, Duke kids scoring high on the lsats has far less to do with Duke than it does to do with the innate brightness and intelligence of Duke students.</p>
<p>I am willing to bet that lsat performance correlates very highly with SAT performance rather than a particular college curriculum or instruction. It is the student that takes the test, not the school.</p>
<p>Come back to us in 3 yrs and when you get ur 170+, u will realize that u got that, not Duke. If you get a lower score, u will realize that u got that score, and not your Duke education.</p>
<p>Honestly, this is the most absurd conversation in the world. My cousin went to the flagship state school in Maryland, 1580 on his SATs, full ride. He passed up Duke and UVA half ride to go there for a full ride and to be close to his family. UMaryland is not that prestigious. However, it did not impair his law school options. He had his choice, between NYU, UVA half ride, UChicago, and Penn. He chose UVA again.</p>
<p>The point of my argument is that Duke sends more students to top law schools than Chicago. Looks like I win that one. I mean, people go to Harvard, Princeton, Yale, etc. for a reason - which is to be surrounded by bright people. I'm sure students who go to Duke and get into top law school afterwards feel Duke was good for something...I mean, otherwise everyone going to top law schools would just go to lower end state schools for free. But instead you see these people going to top privates like HYPSM, Duke, Columbia, Penn etc.</p>
<p>For everyone 1 student that passes up Ivies, Duke, Stanford, etc. for a lower end state school, there's hundreds who do the opposite - and I'm sure most of the students who end up going to the elite schools and end up with top jobs and admittances into top professional school believe their choice of a top private school over a state school played some role.</p>
<p>i would hope so, b/c Duke is about 1.5 x the size of Chicago</p>
<p>and who ru kidding, Duke is no Harvard or Yale or Stanford</p>
<p>it is a phenomenal school, but u make it out to be a harvard, and it is not. In fact, most of the kids that go there are Harvard REJECTS and you are probably one as well. I would make the argument that harvard sends more kids to top law schools than does Duke. </p>
<p>This is my argument: Chicago is closer to Duke than Duke is closer to Harvard</p>
<p>Yeah, morestudents choose Havard over Duke...and more choose Duke over Chicago...and Harvard does send more students to top law schools than Duke, why would anyone ever say otherwise?</p>
<p>% of students going to one of top 15 professional schools:</p>
<p>Harvard - 21.5%
Duke - 8.6%
Chicag - 6.2%</p>
<p>looks like you are right. Harvard is better than Duke, Duke is better than Chicago. Keep in mind Chicag's law and business are both used in the top 15 professional schools used in the survey, and none of Duke's are used. Not sure if that would skew this at all.</p>
<p>ye, i was correct, chicago closer to duke than duke is to harvard</p>
<p>Overrated: All the big football state schools (Penn State, Texas, OSU)
So many people go to these schools simply because they've been hearing about them all of their lives on ESPN</p>
<p>Underrated: Chicago, Pitt, James Madison, Penn (underrated by Ivy applicants,) UNC, Carnegie Mellon</p>
<p>"All the big football state schools (Penn State, Texas, OSU)
So many people go to these schools simply because they've been hearing about them all of their lives on ESPN"
You have no idea what you talking about....</p>
<p>UT and PSU get lots of students from being the biggest state schools in the state...not because of their football.</p>
<p>Getting back to the Duke/ UChicago debate I would think that just on a broader perspective, the academic focus of the schools is just innately different. UChicago is just more geared to produce high-powered people in research and development fields than Duke, and as such it is stronger in the analytical fields and hard sciences. After posting this I will find a source, and I am sure I will succeed, that verifies that Chicago produces more Ph.D's and sends more students to top GRADUATE schools than Duke. Getting an M.B.A or M.D is one thing, but in my opinion, getting a Ph.D from a top university is another whole realm of academic rigor.</p>
<p>By all means, post your citation. I would love to see a source for a claim that Chicago sends its students to better grad schools than Duke does. Note that I said "better" rather than "more." More PhDs doesn't mean diddly squat.</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>Oh, and by the way, these kind of topics really don't amount to much. As most of you can see (and I just painfully did by reviewing some of the previous pages), this ends up being subject to some very preferential comments. </p>
<p>Saying a college is underrated is one thing if you give proof, but saying another college is overrated is very assuming. There is no ideal college or university, and each college has its strengths, its quirks, and its weaknesses. This is why people do research on these things. Unfortunately, most of the quirks and weaknesses end up being things that you could not even begin to imagine when applying for college.</p>
<p>"More PhDs doesn't mean diddly squat."</p>
<p>I agree. But, those could be fightin' words on this board. :)</p>