<p>To Dreaming, I was accepted to Chicago, Northwestern, Cornell, Hopkins, Brown, and Rice. I am still undecided.</p>
<p>LOL Dog87. We meet again. DUDE, I did not mention usnews once in my analysis. However, why is Duke not in Stanford's "league?" LOL, u are almost saying one cannot mention Duke in the same breath as Stanford. Since people's feelings get hurt when I pull out usnews out of my trunk, what rankings would you prefer? WSJ? That's Duke again. </p>
<p>Moreover, peer assesment will NOT give you any vantage point in this debate. You are reading the analysis of people who spent thousands of dollars at these schools. So, of course they are going to say that there choice school is best. YES, DUKE IS IN STANFORD'S LEAGUE. Our new prez is the Dean from Yale and he's awesome. </p>
<p>CORNELL DOES NOT COMPETE WITH DUKE IN TERMS OF PRESTIGE OVERALL. In engineering, i stand defeated. However, in any medicine, economics, public policy, and poltical science Duke wins IMO. </p>
<p>One more thing: Alexandre is obsessed with Umich. He might be slightly biased considering as how he said it competes with some ivies. Tell me one good reason why Cornell is more prestigious than Duke. Why?</p>
<p>The US News rankings are very flawed. As a previous poster noted, just a few years ago (1999) Cornell was as high as #6 and WashU was probably in the 20-30 range. As it's weighting of categories change (and they are continually changing the criteria by which they rank), schools are going to go up and down. Cal Tech was #1 in the country only a couple of years ago and now they're #8? Upenn at #4? WashU at #11?</p>
<p>PRECISELY! However, there is not a single current ranking that validates Cornell over Duke. If there is, lemme see it.</p>
<p>Actually, if you want to get technical here. World Rankings buddy!!!! It puts Cornell at #6 and Duke at #31. Proof!! ;)</p>
<p>Here is the US News' current ranking criteria. The fact that Cornell is rigorous penalizes it in several areas:
1) Lower retention rate-there's bound to be people who come here and screw around, earning a 1.4 GPA and must transfer.
2) Lower graduation rate-more requirements and harder to achieve the grades needed for graduation
3) Acceptance rate-Obviously, there is a number of students who do not apply to Cornell in fear that they may actually have to earn their grades.</p>
<p>So essentially, the US News rewards grade inflation. How about adding a component that takes the rigor of a school's cirriculum into account? That might boost the rankings of schools like MIT, Cornell, and Cal Tech.</p>
<p>Peer assessment (weighted by 25 percent). The U.S. News ranking formula gives greatest weight to the opinions of those in a position to judge a school's academic excellence. The peer assessment survey allows the top academics we contact--presidents, provosts, and deans of admission--to account for intangibles such as faculty dedication to teaching. Each individual is asked to rate peer schools' academic programs on a scale from 1 (marginal) to 5 (distinguished). Those who don't know enough about a school to evaluate it fairly are asked to mark "don't know." Synovate, an opinion-research firm based near Chicago, collected the data; 60 percent of the 4,095 people who were sent questionnaires responded.</p>
<p>Retention (20 percent in national universities and liberal arts colleges and 25 percent in master's and comprehensive colleges). The higher the proportion of freshmen who return to campus the following year and eventually graduate, the better a school is apt to be at offering the classes and services students need to succeed. This measure has two components: six-year graduation rate (80 percent of the retention score) and freshman retention rate (20 percent). The graduation rate indicates the average proportion of a graduating class who earn a degree in six years or less; we consider freshman classes that started from 1994 through 1997. Freshman retention indicates the average proportion of freshmen entering from 1999 through 2002 who returned the following fall.</p>
<p>Faculty resources (20 percent). Research shows that the more satisfied students are about their contact with professors, the more they will learn and the more likely it is they will graduate. We use six factors from the 2003-04 academic year to assess a school's commitment to instruction. Class size has two components: the proportion of classes with fewer than 20 students (30 percent of the faculty resources score) and the proportion with 50 or more students (10 percent of the score). Faculty salary (35 percent) is the average faculty pay, plus benefits, during the 2002-03 and 2003-04 academic years, adjusted for regional differences in the cost of living (using indexes from the consulting firm Runzheimer International). We also weigh the proportion of professors with the highest degree in their fields (15 percent), the student-faculty ratio (5 percent), and the proportion of faculty who are full time (5 percent). </p>
<p>Student selectivity (15 percent). A school's academic atmosphere is determined in part by the abilities and ambitions of the student body. We therefore factor in test scores of enrollees on the sat or act tests (50 percent of the selectivity score); the proportion of enrolled freshmen who graduated in the top 10 percent of their high school classes for all national universities and liberal arts colleges, and the top 25 percent for institutions in the master's and comprehensive colleges categories (40 percent); the acceptance rate, or the ratio of students admitted to applicants (10 percent). The data are for the fall 2003 entering class.</p>
<p>Financial resources (10 percent). Generous per-student spending indicates that a college can offer a wide variety of programs and services. U.S. News measures the average spending per student on instruction, research, student services, and related educational expenditures in the 2002 and 2003 fiscal years. </p>
<p>Graduation rate performance (5 percent; only in national universities and liberal arts colleges). This indicator of "added value" shows the effect of the college's programs and policies on the graduation rate of students after controlling for spending and student aptitude. We measure the difference between a school's six-year graduation rate for the class that entered in 1997 and the predicted rate for the class. </p>
<p>Alumni giving rate (5 percent). The average percentage of alumni who gave to their school during 2001-02 and 2002-03.</p>
<p>One more thing, Dog. How the hell is Duke and Chicago the same in terms of prestige? Duke has one of the most advanced hospitals on campus for research, has the 3rd best grad medical school in the country, is ranked in the top 5 for econ, and has the best grad school placement out of any of those schools u just listed. This includes Cornell. The 99 Duke students sitting at Yale law school will vouch for me.</p>
<p>Dog, let's not get ridiculous. World rankings are not acknowledged by ANYONE!!!!! However, usnews is ironically accepted by harvard professors and not by cornell ones. Hmmm, wonder why?</p>
<p>Edit: I wish incollege88 was here. BTW, norcalguy...what are the top 10 then IYO?</p>
<p>Devil, well, you mentioned US News and grad school rankings. The only grad school that Duke ranks in the top 10 man is Med school. What about Law School and Business School. Both Northwestern and U of Chicago have both law schools and business schools in the top 10, but Duke doesn't. Therefore, Duke is clearly not at the level that you claim it is at. A top 5 school not only has a top undergrad program but has grad programs that are highly recognized, which is not the case for Duke.</p>
<p>The London Times rankings is equally flawed. But their peer assessment score does give indication as to the world-wide prestige of certain institutions. </p>
<p>It puts Duke at #61 in the world with a peer review score of 61. Cornell is at #23 with a peer review score of 202.</p>
<p>Again, these rankings are flawed also since international prestige does not necessarily reflect US prestige.</p>
<p>And who cares about prestige in general? The fact is Cornell is superior to all Ivies in engineering so for engineering it is the top Ivy.</p>
<p>Dog87, May 1st is approaching really fast, how are you going to decide??</p>
<p>DMC-I was about to say the same thing. You acknowledge only the rankings that fit your thinking.</p>
<p>Considering, 90% of the world is going to use the London Times Rankings, it would say that it carries considerable weight.</p>
<p>I have no clue. At the moment, I am leaning towards Cornell, NW, or Brown. At least, I narrowed it down lol ;)</p>
<p>If we are talking about overall prestige, I would say that Cornell has an edge over Duke.</p>
<p>WOAH! Duke is 11th in business, Cornell is 15th.,Cornell and DUke are tied for law, 6th in medical research..Cornell is 14th. Touche. Also, I have a serious problem with how you justify a school's grad school with its overall education. Dartmouth does not place very well for grad programs, but it is still one of the best in undergraduate education. You are not going to cornell for grad school, so leave that out of the equation. By your analysis, Princeton should be ranked 1242352352534th on usnews. Ridiculous.</p>
<p>Furthermore, You want to compare NW to Duke. Let's do a little comparison. </p>
<p>For Engineering, NW Wins except for biomedical
For Business, NW killllllssss Duke
For Law, NW beats Duke
Med, Duke wins hands down</p>
<p>Sorry for the double post. Do you really believe London times? Isnt UCBerkeley like 2nd?!?!?!?! LOL...OMFG! At least usnews has some sense of intelligence in its rankings.</p>
<p>DMC: Now you're getting somewhere. You have been the prestige whore all along and now you realize where the fallacy in using prestige to choose a school lies. Prestige most of the time is based on grad school quality (which is why Harvard is regarded as the #1 university in the world and yet many of its undergrads are dissatisfied with its education). </p>
<p>The most important consideration should be the engineering programs of Duke vs. Cornell, not prestige.</p>
<p>Devil, another side note, none of these other schools minus Rice i think gives out merit scholarships to attract top kids. As you can see, Cornell, Brown, and NW do not have to use this strategy to get top kids.</p>
<p>What? ARE U TRYING TO SAY THAT NORTHWESTERN IS BETTER THAN DUKE? I THINK I NEED TO LEAVE.....IMMEDIATELY.</p>
<p>You want to factor in grad school which alone is absurd. Then, you bring in Londontimes, then you say NW is more prestigious than a school than a school that consistently refered to as an IVY plus. </p>
<p>How about we factor in grad placement. Duke is 6th, Cornell is what...25th?</p>
<p>BTW, look at Harvard and Yale law school's class last year.</p>
<p>Harvard University 294
Yale University 170
Princeton University 99
<<<duke university="" 90="">>>
Stanford University 86
Columbia University 74
Brown University 70
University of California - Berkeley 60
University of California - Los Angeles 57
Cornell University 56
University of Pennsylvania 51
University of Texas - Austin 50
Georgetown University 38
Dartmouth College 33
Brigham Young University 33
University of Michigan - Ann Arbor 30
University of Virginia 28
Williams College 26
Amherst College 23
Rice University 23
University of Chicago 21
Northwestern University 21
<<<emory university="" 20="">>></emory></duke></p>