<p>The fiske guide mentioned that Duke was sort of an Esat coast version of stanford. Since my parents aren't keen on the idea of me going all the way to the west coast, I figured I might look into Duke as well as Stanford. So, can anyone supprt the Fiske Guide's claim?</p>
<p>This claim has some validity. Supposedly, Stanford is in a league with Harvard, Princeton, and Yale while Duke is commonly grouped with Dartmouth, Penn, and Cornell. </p>
<p>That being said, I'd pick Duke over any of those schools.</p>
<p>What aspects do you want us to use to compare Duke to Stanford?</p>
<p>Similarites:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Both schools are relatively young and are already on par with the Ivy League.</p></li>
<li><p>Rah rah sports on both fronts</p></li>
<li><p>Very big campuses (though we know Stanford takes the cake here)</p></li>
<li><p>Great grad placement at each</p></li>
<li><p>Laid back</p></li>
<li><p>Warm weather</p></li>
<li><p>STUNNING CAMPUSES</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Anymore?</p>
<p>Public school rivals closeby, 40,000 dollar tuition, medium sized privates</p>
<p>yeah, the stanford: berkeley:: duke: unc thing is what orignally came into my mind, but then I sstarted to see a lot of similarities...</p>
<p>Hm, I don't know much about Stanford at all, but here are some things (some objective, some subjective):
-Average SATs - Stanford: 1370 - 1550, Duke: 1330 - 1530
-Acceptance Rates - Stanford: 14%, Duke: 22%
-Target Size of Student Body: Stanford: 1650, Duke: 1640 (I say target because sometimes both schools tend to over enroll)
- Weather: both in sunny places and really big campuses with lots of green
- Professional Schools - Stanford's Med, Law, and Business schools are all ranked in the top 5-10, Duke's are ranked in the top 8-13ish
- Type of Student (stereotypes) - both places are supposed to be really fun, rara sort of places with good sports teams; Duke is considered a little more cliquish and partyish
- Location - Both in relatively small cities but with things to do, but most activities self-contained on campus (views vary on this)
- In-State students: Stanford is about 35-40% Californian, while Duke is 10-15% North Carolinian (this I'm not totally sure about, makes sense considering how California is two or three times bigger)
- Rankings - Stanford is usually ranked between 3rd and 5th (usually grouped with Harv, Pton, and MIT), while Duke is usually ranked between 6 and 8th (grouped with Columbia, Dartmouth, and UPenn)</p>
<p>That was fairly thorough.</p>
<p>Edit: bad spelling</p>
<p>thats a pretty good description of Duke</p>
<p>Stanford is actually much closer to 45-50% in-state student population.</p>
<p>Irishforever is correct. When I visited Stanford, I felt like EVERYONE was from Cali. </p>
<p>Stanford and Duke are very similar, there were my top two. I chose Duke. You'll find many Stanfordians applied to Duke, many Dukies applied to Stanford. It just comes down to preference in the end [and let me tell you, that was a hard decision to make].</p>
<p>Personally, I think Duke's is better balanced. Stanford seems to want be that "work hard play hard" school, but it's really not.</p>
<p>Both great universities, can't go wrong with either. ;)</p>
<p>Proud to have you with us, tweety!</p>
<p>stanford>>>duke</p>
<p>that was insightful</p>
<p>They have some similarities: both are strong in academics and in sports.</p>
<p>But in faculty reputaion, Stanford has a huge advantage. See below:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Faculty selected into national academies (national academy of science, national academy of engineering, institute of medicine)
Stanford (260 in total), Duke (about 50)</p></li>
<li><p>National medal of science winners:
Stanford (30 winners), Duke (0)</p></li>
<li><p>Nobel prize winners:
Stanford (16), Duke (0)</p></li>
<li><p>Wolf prize winners:
Stanford (7), Duke (0)</p></li>
</ul>
<p>In arts, social science, and professional schools, Duke is more comparable to Stanford. But Stanford is generally a little better.</p>
<p>Yeah, datalook shows the difference in grad programs in pure sciences and such - but undergrad both are strong, with tons of spirit</p>
<p>Duke and Stanford are similar in that they're warm-weather laid-back alternatives to the Ivies. Both campuses are beautiful, but in different ways. Duke's very Gothic, whereas Stanford's architecture is Spanish-styled. And believe it or not, Duke's campus is actually bigger (9432 acres as opposed to Stanford's 8180). They're also very athletic schools, which in turn leads to a lot of school spirit and an energetic student body. You can't go wrong at either one.</p>
<p>"Once they apply, Duke would like to use the A.B. Duke to keep some of them. "When Duke goes head to head with Yale, Princeton, Harvard, and Stanford, the prestige game we don't win," notes Thomas Robisheaux, associate professor of history and director of the A.B. Duke program from 1991 to 1996. The overall matriculation rate of students admitted to Duke was 43 percent this year. But just 8 percent of the students whose list of college options included Stanford ended up picking Duke instead. The figure dropped to 5 percent when Harvard was among students' choices. "We have been successful in attracting them, not as successful in matriculating them,"</p>
<p>It is not clear what the date of the above Duke Magazine article is. Is it current?</p>
<p>It seems that he article references an applicant class and numbers of 6-7 years ago. If that's the case, things may have changed since then.</p>
<p>It's from October 1998. Not exactly recent!</p>
<p>The 5 and 8% numbers are misleading and imply that 92-95% of people choose Stanford or Harvard over Duke. What it indicates is that 7 years ago, when someone was accepted to Duke and accepted to one of those schools, that person was likley to have a lot of choices (i.e., if someone is accepted to Harvard and Duke, that person was likely accepted to five other top ten schools), and that person was likely to choose another school.</p>
<p>A couple things have happened since then. Firstly, college admissions have generally become more selective, so that, aside from a very small number of applicants, no one is guaranteed to get accepted to all of the top ten places. This means that most people even at Harvard were rejected from another top ten school. </p>
<p>Secondly, Duke has been ranked between 3 and 8 in the US News for twenty years now, and so Duke undergrad is generally seen much more on par with Stanford than was the case in '98. Duke remains less acclaimed in terms of the awards garnered by its senior faculty, but these faculty have almost nothing to do with undergraduate teaching. In fact, they can undermine that teaching by attracting legions of graduate students who are then made to do the actual teaching. </p>
<p>As an aside, I've been a bit saddened by the intensity with which people look at these rankings. I'm an associate professor at an Ivy League school, and there is no appreciable/obvious difference in the people I work with. In other words, I can't tell whether someone went to Harvard or Hobart or a community college. There are far more people around here who went to Harvard than the community college, but for all the Dukies who remain uncertain about their place in the academic world, I can only say that such placement depends on your own effort. If you are even reading this board, you might be better off reading a textbook (or writing one).</p>