<p>Gotta give that round to Sam Lee (& GQ) over happyman2. @ Happy, the kids and parents are trying to figure out a tough, no-lose, but tough decision. Let’s keep it on the informative. Thanks!</p>
<p>I guess it’s their job (maybe???) but I am starting to feel sorry for people like goldenboy and happyman…</p>
<p>Goldenboy - post 27 - for the last 20 years, almost every single major show on TV or every major movie has featured an NU alum, either as an actor, writer or director. Seriously. Including two of my sorority sisters, other friends /acquaintances or people whom we saw in student productions. A fraternity brother of my husband’s wrote the screenplay for the Hunger Games. Duke is a fine school, but NU theater is world-class. Seriously, you embarrassed yourself on that one. Have the graciousness to admit that other schools have strengths Duke doesn’t. It’s that arrogance that tends to be such a hallmark of Duke’s on CC.</p>
<p>Duke is more prestigious than Northwestern. Period. Please stop arguing this. Just take a look at the placement into Law, Business, and Medicine from Duke undergrads. Duke has also been consistently ranked top 10 (in some years top 5) by USNWR (and theres a reason for that). I’m not saying rankings are everything but being ranked top 10 year after year is no fluke. Northwestern is a fine school but it does not match Duke’s history and academic achievements. </p>
<p>[U.S</a>. News Rankings Through the Years](<a href=“http://web.archive.org/web/20070908142457/http://chronicle.com/stats/usnews/]U.S”>U.S. News Rankings Through the Years)</p>
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<p>How would a college junior “know” what’s prestigious in the real world? </p>
<p>NU has entire schools of students who aren’t seeking to go into law, business or medicine - the theater / comm students, the Medill students, the music students, the education students, and many of the engineers. That’s what makes NU so interesting … that you have so many different types of people excelling at different things. It’s a really poor conclusion to then claim that Duke is “better” if more students go onto the same handful of schools - it just means they attract a homogenous pool who all want to go do the same things (yawn). I’m glad my NU alumni magazine isn’t all just about law-business-and-medical-school accomplishments; it’s fun to read about those who went to divinity school, or who are producing a play on Broadway, etc.</p>
<p>A classic example of counting the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin. This mostly just represents the insecurity of many high achieving students but at least they have the excuse of youth. The adult “professional” posters involved in this discussion should be ashamed and need to re-enter the real world where no one gives a rats behind whether you went to Duke or NU as an undergraduate. In the adult working world what you did last year far, far, far outweighs anything that happened in the distant past. Being smart does matter but all the top 20-25 schools are filled with bright high achieving students. This constant endless focus an exact rankings and prestige is precisely the tool the college bureaucrats use to inflate the cost of college tuition far beyond it’s real value.</p>
<p>A silly augment. Have employed and interviewed zillions. Both schools deserve high-prestige levels. But, I would never, ever, make a decision on a prospective, young, employee based no one of these two institutions being “more” prestigious than the other…because they both deserve their top reputations. That being said, I can promise you the following: after your first job, nobody cares where you went to college!</p>
<p>Well said and absolutely true mtldad. It is just amazing how many adults waste time involved in the most inane silly discussions rather than telling college students useful information about the real world after college.</p>
<p>In my work experience I have supervised hundreds of bright professionals from all the top schools and never once in a single instance did the managing directors ever decide anything based on what undergraduate school an employee went to. In truth almost all of our employees have professional degrees and as such they could have gone to community college for all we cared about their undergraduate schools.</p>
<p>Duke is harder to get in. I’ve seen several Duke rejects going to Northwestern. Go to Duke if you are a prestige whore. I am a Wildcat.</p>
<p>Sam I’m not addressing this to anyone specific but only pointing out how silly so many of these discussions can get. I’ve seen numerous threads where posters seriously argue about whether 30-50 SAT points show a significant difference in academic achievement. As adults in the working world I think we should point out that a college admission evaluation is quite different from how an employer looks at a job applicant.</p>
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<p>Thanks, @SAY…same for your posts…look, they’re both great, great schools…but there are differences in fit…with today’s crazy admissions process, I can ensure you that the same kid that didn’t get into any of the top schools…well, two months later, they might have gotten in…who knows what the adcom was thinking that day. I always told both my kids that your credentials entitle you to apply to a “band” of schools…some you’ll get into and some you won’t, so don’t get too attached until the acceptances come in and you’re in charge of the decision, not some faceless adcom. @Sam Lee, keep posting, you are very, very informative and we appreciate it.</p>
<p>SAY,
Point taken before seeing your post. That’s why I edited my post.</p>
<p>Well said. It just seems we got a couple students/alums from Duke that actively ■■■■■ around different threads and throw around the prestige card to lure prospies away from other schools despite the fact that those other schools pvovide much better fit academically.</p>
<p>nolwenn’s post is a perfect example. I’m guessing this person is a student and therefore I would never criticize the poster since I have children that age. On the other hand the comment is coming from a person who has probably never had a real job, paid any taxes, or had any experience in the real world. If going to a school with an acceptance rate of 13% versus 15% matters to them so be it but the post certainly doesn’t deserve a serious response from any adult who has real workplace experience.</p>
<p>According to your argument, going to Harvard, Yale, Princeton or going to Emory, Vanderbilt, UCLA will make no difference in someone’s future, since they are all top-30 schools. As much as you would like to deny it, we can’t ignore there are certain tiers and Northwestern is a tier below Duke, just like Duke is a tier below other ivies, and other ivies are below HYP.</p>
<p>LOL…you’re misconstruing my point…that being said, I’ve had the pleasure of having two board members that were Harvard MBA’s…and one of them was also a Wharton undergrad…I don’t know, I always thought that the guy who didn’t finish college and was a self-made, hugely-successful, entrepreneur always gave me a lot better advice than those guys…but, that’s just my opinion on those people and not on the institutions they went to or that they chose. Prospective students, do yourself a favor, go to the school that fits best for you…a happy student will do better than an unhappy one.</p>
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<p>Uhh, according to USNWR - Duke is ranked 10th and NU is ranked 12th; hardly a diff. to warrant being in a “tier below Duke.”</p>
<p>And according to the Times World rankings, Duke is ranked 22nd and NU ranked 26th w/ both being ranked behind schools like JHU, CMU, Cornell, UoM, UChicago, UCB, UCLA.</p>
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<p>Funny how the USNWR peer assessment scores have remained pretty much the same over the years w/ not much differentiating NU and Duke and w/ schools like Cornell, JHU and UoC having an edge in that dept. </p>
<p>NU has been ranked ahead of Brown and Cornell pretty much every year and sometimes ahead of Dartmouth in the USNWR rankings - I guess that is proof positive that NU is “more prestigious” than those schools.</p>
<p>A perfect example of my point and very sad indeed. Why would adults legitimize this type of juvenile post? nolwenn is speaking with the certainty of youth about a subject he/she knows absolutely nothing about. But why should we care if an 18 year loves Duke and thinks going there is somehow significantly different from any of the top 20 schools. Many of these young people also believe that capitalism is unfair and that oil is evil. So what! Over time most people grow up and realize just how little they really knew at 20.</p>
<p>Nolwhen said:</p>
<p>According to your argument, going to Harvard, Yale, Princeton or going to Emory, Vanderbilt, UCLA will make no difference in someone’s future, since they are all top-30 schools. </p>
<p>(aside, can you believe that after 1500+ posts I’ve never bothered to learn how to use the quote box).</p>
<p>… ummmmmm, I think I would make that argument, actually. My basis would be a study performed by Princeton professors which (if memory serves) tracked the career earnings of Ivy League Students vs those of students who were admitted to Ivy League Schools but went elsewhere, for whatever reason. They did not find a statistically significant difference between the two groups.</p>
<p>Nolwenn - actually, your statement is correct. There is little meaningful difference at this level. I have consistently said that if my kids were to get into every single top 20 uni and LAC and have to pick one, the decision at that point would be purely on personal preference. There just aren’t the silly “tiers,” that Hs students seem to think exist. What’s the difference between schools that offer 6,000,000 opportunities and 6,100,000, when any given student can’t take advantage of more than 3 or 4?</p>