The Case For…D U K E !!

College Search & Selection
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<p>Dude, get real. Oh, great, so you go to Duke. But, wait, you go to Duke, and you don't belong in a class that qualifies you to look down on other fine schools such as Cornell or Johns Hopkins. Seriously, know your place. I could understand if a HYPS student has an attitude like yours, even if that would be really annoying and would seriously make that person not the most attractive person to hang out with in real life. The fact that you are acting like the most stuck up, arrogant elitist and preaching inferiority of Cornell and JHU before Duke, is ludicrous since most objective measure would indicate that the differences between these schools are only marginial, if there is any. Also, I have noticed that you purposedly avoided my reponses, or others' as well. You said you NEVER EVER said anything bad about Brown. But, quick search of some posts, guess what, I see that you were ripping on Brown in the past. I think it is YOU that is the most frustrating poster on this board, not others.</p>

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Of course, there are some people who apply to basically all top schools like I did and have Duke in the mix. But during my campus visit, it was clear that a number of the students were only interested in attending Duke out of all elite colleges or at least had it as their clear first choice in out of all the elite colleges they applied. It is indeed a "dream school" and a "perfect fit" for a certain type of student. Northwestern and Duke have stronger student bodies and offer a more quality learning environment than Cornell and JHU. Cornell and JHU students are always talked about on this site as being extremely stressed and cut-throat.

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<p>Then, how do you explain that Duke has a yield of 40%, which is similar to Cornell? You constantly preach how Duke is the most special place, or this 'dream school' for so many, yet, many of Duke's accepted students choose to enroll at other schools. Perhaps you are mistaking Duke with Harvard, Yale, or Stanford, all of which have yields over 60% each year.</p>

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<p>To be fair, he did say that in terms of how laid back each school is. Admittedly, this was a factor in my decision as I felt (correctly or not) that Cornell's school of engineering would be so intense that it would stifle my taking advantage of the school's well-roundedness.</p>

<p>I agree with the rest of your post.</p>

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<p>Also, if you are so confident on preaching about how superior Duke is to other peer schools every single time and how it is the highest up on everyone's list among "elite colleges", try this (revealed preferences):</p>

<p><a href="http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/papers/1287.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/papers/1287.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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A Comparison of the Revealed Preference Ranking of Colleges
and Rankings Based on the Crude Admissions and Matriculation Rates
National Rank Based On:
Revealed Preference (based on
Matriculation Tournaments)
Admissions Rate Matriculation Rate
Harvard 1 4 139
Yale 2 12 309
Stanford 3 7 297
Cal Tech 4 9 854
MIT 5 13 422
Princeton 6 5 266
Brown 7 14 561
Columbia 8 6 438
Amherst 9 19 916
Dartmouth 10 20 647
Wellesley 11 23 492
U Penn 12 104 794
U Notre Dame 13 58 459
Swarthmore 14 28 1016
Cornell 15 45 649
Georgetown 16 22 703
Rice 17 25 996
Williams 18 29 797
Duke 19 32 859
U Virginia 20 76 630

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<p>You CONSTANTLY preach on how much smarter the Duke students are, compared to Cornell students. To be frank, I said before that I concur that Cornell Hotel, Architecture, Agriculture students are not as strong statistically (SAT) compared to Duke CAS and Engineering. How many times do I need to repeat this? Comparing apples to apples, however, it should be similar. Acceptance rates between the two schools are similar. The yield percentage between the two are similar. Get off your high horse.</p>

184

<p>EAD the reason for this newfound Duke hatred is that as a Duke student, you and your buddies are essentially representing your school on this forum, and you are an idiot. Since quite a few Duke students have acted like you, and since most of us have not had much contact with other Duke students, we are led to believe that this inferiority complex /necessity to put other schools down to make yourself feel better greatly pervades your school. Hence, the Duke hatred.</p>

185

<p>When you guys make comnparsions with Cornell, why do you always separate the land grant from the A+S and Engineering colleges? I don't buy that "different mission" for a second. If you are so proud of their different mission you wouldn't separate them to more favorably compare to other schools. I bet you guys wouldn't separate the schools if they had higher board scores... The fact of the matter is if you take ALL of Cornell's students into consideration, duke has a stronger student body on average. </p>

<p>EAd has a point because the difference between the median SAT score at Cornell and duke is about the same as the median at HYP.</p>

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<p>Actually apple2pie, we are proud of the land grant schools. They are top in the world in their respective fields. The difference is, though, that their respective fields are so much different and more diverse than anything Duke has to offer. That's why you cannot reasonably compare Duke A+S and Engineering with anything other than just Cornell A+S and Engineering. And weather you buy it or not (different admissions standards and different missions), it's true.</p>

187

<p>You seriously can't say Duke is a better school than Cornell. Duke is not more selective than Cornell, it's admit rate is 19%, Cornell's is 20. Cornell's yield is even about 10% higher than Duke's (50 to 40)... And we've been over this... Cornell is better known than Duke outside of the Southeastern United States, by virtue of being in the Ivy League. Seriously, what top-ranked programs does Duke have for undergrad when compared to Cornell? Cornell has Architecture (#1 in the country, one of the tops in the world), Computer Science(top 5 in the world), Business (#4 in the country), Electrical engineering/Computer Engineering (best in Ivy League, top 5/10 in the country), Ag. Engineering (#3 in country), Hotel mgmt (# 1 in the world)., Applied Engineering Physics(#1 in the country), Operations Research (#4 in the country), nanotech in the matsci dept. (#1 in the country) and at least just as good as a liberal arts program as Duke. I can't find pure science rankings either, but Biology, Physics, and Chemistry are really good here. I didn't even name all of CU's top ranked departments. How can you conclusively say Duke is better than all of this? How does Duke stack up to this? Name some top ranked Duke undergraduate departments, and compare apples to apples. I'm sorry, but Pratt engineering (w/ the possible exception of bioengineering) is garbage compared to Cornell engineering. </p>

<p>What is Duke's average SAT score? somebody mentioned 1460 I think? Cornell's is about a 1430, even with schools such as agriculture, hotel, or architecture mixed in there. You do know that's one question right? 30 points can amount to one freaking question on one section of the SAT. That supposedly makes Duke students sooo much smarter than Cornell students huh? Like coolman said, you have to compare apples to apples. Compare CU engineering to Pratt engineering, and CU A and S to Duke's. I guarantee you these scores will be at least as high as Duke's.</p>

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<p>EAD you're not an idiot...I don't understand how people can rip him so much for suggesting Duke might be "better" for undergraduate education than U of M, Cornell, or Hopkins. This is such a subjective term, it could mean anything. My guidance counselor tried convincing me that Eastern Michigan was better than Harvard (and has done similarly to other kids looking to apply to selective colleges), obviously because we have differenent conceptions of what is better. </p>

<p>At least for me, I do honestly believe Duke is slightly better than Cornell and Hopkins as an UG school. Columbia might be a bit better, I don't know a whole lot about Brown except its more selective, so at worst its probably equal to Duke. As others have pointed out many times, they are close enough to be peer schools. I think many of the stats EAD has used and in general aspects of the school have relevance and support Duke and although he occasionally is a little harsh, I have found much of the anti-Duke namecalling more uncalled for.</p>

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"To prove me wrong, provide me with some data that shows that the adcoms at top grad schools will look more favorably upon Duke applicants, compared to Cornell applicants, given simliar qualifications between the two applicants."

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<p>Duke lists 85% of UGs into med school. Although last year Cornell was a little low at 68%, over the past couple years it has been around 75%. If the schools are equally prestigious, and admit kids who are about equal as premeds, then it seems the higher percentage must be accounted for somewhere, maybe in a slightly stronger preparatory education. If anyone has any ideas as to explain these numbers, they could very well be correct as I don't know that much about medical school admissions, but could you please offer it without calling me or EAD an idiot?</p>

<p>here are my links for those stats, Cornell is more open than Duke with the data so unfortunately we can't compare acceptance rates of candidates with particular MCATs and GPAs:
Accepted/Applied</a> Charts for Health Careers
Office</a> of Health Professions Advising -- Duke University</p>

<p>Edit: by the way I agree w/ the fact that you can't compare Duke to many of Cornell's specialized schools, at least for the med school applicants though, I think the vast majority of them are probably from A and S or Ag (w/ a few engineers).</p>

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<p>First off, I am not stating that duke is a better school than Cornell. I am simply saying the duke student body is academically stronger than that of Cornell when looking at the WHOLE university. </p>

<p>Secondly, a university is NOT simply the number of programs in has in the top 10. Heck if that was the case, Berkeley would be the #1 university in the world.</p>

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<p>Careful, you'll pull UCBChem_Grad out of the woodwork...</p>

191

<p>I'm not sure about Duke, but Cornell will support any applicant who wants to apply to medical school (and some other top schools wont). This explains why Cornell's med school acceptance rate is lower than that of some peer schools (Cornell writes recommendations for students it knows have no shot of getting into med school).</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Duke lists 85% of UGs into med school. Although last year Cornell was a little low at 68%, over the past couple years it has been around 75%. If the schools are equally prestigious, and admit kids who are about equal as premeds, then it seems the higher percentage must be accounted for somewhere, maybe in a slightly stronger preparatory education. If anyone has any ideas as to explain these numbers, they could very well be correct as I don't know that much about medical school admissions, but could you please offer it without calling me or EAD an idiot?

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<p>What I meant was for EAD to show me that with same qualifications, such as same MCAT, same GPA, would adcoms at top medical schools prefer Duke grads, instead of Cornell grads? Those percentages don't give us the whole, clear picture. The lower percentage at Cornell might suggest that Cornell has a bit of harsher curves on premed courses, thus a bit lower gpa on average. It could have multiple implications, but, it doesn't clearly tell me that "Duke has a superior placement into top grad schools in the country, superior to Cornell."</p>

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<p>goblue10ns, please show me some top ranked Duke departments that stack up with Cornell departments. Look at departmental rankings and show me that Duke is consistently better than Cornell in a lot of departments. Then, I'll agree that Duke is a better place to get your education for undergrad. Honestly, what top-ranked departments does Duke have at the undergrad level?</p>

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<p>Also, goblue, acceptance rates don't necessarily equate to "better," as you clearly beleive by suggesting Brown is at worst on par with Duke becuase Brown is more selective. By that logic, U Chicago is, at best, a decent top 40 school, right?</p>

<p>And, for the record, we aren't ripping EAD because he thinks Duke may be stronger than Cornell. He is trying to tell us that Duke is definitely better than Cornell (although that's really a matter of opinion becuase they are so similar), and he is using rediculous statements to support his opinions.</p>

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<p>apple2pie9: three of Cornell's undergraduate schools are "statutory colleges"--meaning they receive partial funding from the state of New York, and meaning they have some in-state preferences. This will affect selectivity, and is also in part why you have to apply to a specific college at Cornell. It creates a clear separation, divisions which must be accounted for in discussions selectivity.</p>

<p>Give it up, guys. You're not going to convince EAD of anything.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
First off, I am not stating that duke is a better school than Cornell. I am simply saying the duke student body is academically stronger than that of Cornell when looking at the WHOLE university. </p>

<p>Secondly, a university is NOT simply the number of programs in has in the top 10. Heck if that was the case, Berkeley would be the #1 university in the world.

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<p>There are reasons for this 'seperation' among cornell colleges, when comparing to other top schools. Case in point, can you compare Harvard Ph.D students with Stanford Law students? I know 3 kids from Cornell, who are headed to Harvard this year for Ph.D. I don't know about the last kid, but first 2 kids had gpa of only 3.3-3.4. If they applied, I am sure they would never get into Harvard law or med schools w/ that gpa. Instead, they had deep career of research. Obviously, the top Ph.D programs in the U.S. look for research credentials, more than gpa or whatnot. And, you would be foolish to suggest that Harvard Ph.D. people are somewhat of "lesser" crowds, "less accomplished and dumber" students compared to other top schools' students in law, medical, etc. </p>

<p>The point is, the specialty schools at Cornell is just that, it is craddled for special folks with special interests. The architecture school or hotel school at Cornell don't measure the importance of SATs as heavily as other schools at Cornell, such as engineering, the business school(AEM), or the CAS. They look for portfolio, resume, extensive leadership postions in hospitality industry, etc.</p>

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<p>The point is not how Cornell gets the students. Whether it be through admitting more in-staters or what not, they end up with an overall weaker student body. That's all that I'm saying. I could care less what goes on during the admissions discussion. The end result is the end result.</p>

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<p>It seems to suggest for premed Duke might be a little stronger. Personally I believe many factors contribute a little. Basically though what I've heard argued on this forum was that the Cornell students, especially the ones not in the public/specialized colleges, were just as smart/qualified as Duke grads. If that's true, then the gap has to be attributed to something. If the fact that Cornell has so much more grade deflation than Duke that is causes a 10% gap in med school admissions is true, then for me, at least, as I am premed, it would be a pro for going to Duke. However, I don't believe all this can be attributed to Cornell giving out a lot harder grades; I know many of the premed classes at Duke have tough curves as well as Cornell.</p>

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<p>Students with 3.3-3.4 would certainly not even be in the same league as Stanford Law Admits.... It doesn't matter if it's Harvard, those students are clearly not as strong as students with average gpa's of 3.9+ and LSAT 170+.</p>

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<p>Go blue... Cornell produces the most doctors in the country out of any UG institution. You have yet to answer my question about Duke's top ranked departments at the UG level. Where are they? How do they stack up to Cornell's?</p>