The Case For…D U K E !!

<p>^
Cornell may produce more doctors because it is so much larger than duke. As can be seen from go blue's statistics, duke students enjoy a greater percentage of success.</p>

<p>Brown man, do you go to Cornell or Brown?</p>

<p>All of you are completely ignoring my question to you about how Duke's departments stack up with Cornell's... you have yet to answer this, and I am going to assume that you have no answer if this goes unanswered. You will never convince me that Duke is a better school or that Duke provides a better education than Cornell unless you address this issue.</p>

<p>


</p>

<p>Sorry if I wasn't clear. I was stating that I am not familiar with Brown as many of these other schools as I didn't apply and haven't visited it and researched it. I was simply trying to be nice by stating from what I do know, that it has a lower acceptance rate than Duke, and may very well be better.</p>

<p>Brown man: I am premed, and I know Duke has very strong biology. I think they were ranked first in Philosophy of Biology which is something I'm interested in. Personally, I think department rankings are more important for grad students, and the premed acceptance stats are more important for me since I want to go to med school someday. All I know is the 4 classes I'm taking next year are a lecture of 70 (with discussion and lab of 18, 12), two seminars with professors w/ 15 kids, and a writing class with 12. I am very pleased so far.</p>

<p>
[quote]
If the fact that Cornell has so much more grade deflation than Duke

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I don't know where people get this idea from... it's a pretty common belief, but I took a look at the median grade reports on the Cornell registrar website and they looked pretty high to me. Plenty of classes had median grades that were B+ or higher. I don't consider that deflation.</p>

<p>I don't think you can just brush this issue aside... I am mentioning undergraduate departments' rankings. This leads me to think that Cornell's departments are consistently stronger than Duke's departments at the undergraduate level. Hence, Cornell provides the better education. DUKE'S ACCEPTANCE RATE IS 19% CORNELL'S IS 20. This difference is statistically insignificant and you can draw no conclusion from this.</p>

<p>^^ ken: look at the premed classes though. Those are the ones worth considering since we are talking about medical school acceptance rates</p>

<p>
[quote]
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.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Are you suggesting that the adcoms at Cornell hotel, architecture, or agriculture schools need to put greater emphasis on SATs, rather than porfolios, resumes, leaderships, etc? I personally know a student who worked at Cornell CALS and architecture admissions comittee, and he directly told me that at those schools, SAT is like 5th or 6th most important application material. Sorry, SAT doesn't have much bearing on predicting the success of future architects, hotel managers, etc.</p>

<p>Kenblue... many of the median premed grades for requirement classes are around a B-. Look at bio 101, bio 102, Chem 207, Phys 208, Phys 207 and you will see this. Median grades are usually higher than the mean grade assigned to a class. Hence, many of these classes were curved to a C+, B-. Can you say the same as Duke?</p>

<p>
[quote]
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.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>The point is, do Duke kids get an advantage over Cornell kids, given similar qualifications, when they apply to grad schools? Because, that is what EAD was suggesting, all the way until now, because of this "greater prestige of Duke among top grad schools and employers".</p>

<p>
[quote]
"Hence, many of these classes were curved to a C+, B-. Can you say the same as Duke?"

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Yeah I've heard most of the premed intro's are C+/B-, this is kinda off the top of my head, someone correct me if I'm wrong.</p>

<p>Wow! So far206 views and 205 replies.This DUKE business really struck a cord. It's about one of the busiest if not the busiest of the summmer threads. Thanks for providing some relief to us CC quasi-addicts.:)</p>

<p>We would like evidence that most Duke premed classes are curved to around a C+, B- or so. "Off the top of your head" is not good enough. You are a Duke'12 and have yet to take a course on campus. And where are those top-ranked undergraduate Duke departments, and how do they stack up to Cornell's?</p>

<p>
[quote]
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+.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>No. They excel at different areas. Ph.D. programs look for future researchers. Hence, they judge their cnadidates heavily based on their research skills, recs, rather than their gpa or test scores. I know a handful of people from Cornell headed to Columbia, Harvard, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Georgetown, UVA, UPenn ph.D programs with gpas under 3.6. </p>

<p>Same goes true for MBA programs. The average gpa of accepted candidates to Harvard MBA, or Wharton MBA is around 3.5 Granted, they had less stellar gpa compared to Yale, Harvard, or Stanford law students, who usually cracked 3.9 gpa with 170+ LSAT. But, MBA programs don't need to focus that heavily on gpa, bc it is not as useful with MBA programs. MBA programs look for management potential, through work experiences, leadership experiences, etc, among candidates. </p>

<p>Again, similar things hold true for Cornell architecture, hotel, etc, schools. Cornell architecture school is ranked #1 in the nation. It is concerned about producing the most productive architects, and, hence they care less about SAT bc it is not that much of use for predicting the sucess of future architects.</p>

<p>^
The SAT's test very basic information. I'm pretty sure basic math is required to be a good architect. </p>

<p>Also, you assert that the specialty schools look for "other qualifications". What "other" qualifications could you have that would make you stand out for say Hotel Management for a HIGH-SCHOOLER? You worked for a restaurant? lol. </p>

<p>What about Vetrinary School, Agriculture and Life Sciences, or Human Ecology?</p>

<p>They clearly look at academic records, test scores not the "research experience" that you mention for PHd programs.</p>

<p>Talent and vision are more important for architecture students than math. My alma mater's architecture school, which is also one of the best in the country, said specifically that they put very little weight on test scores and GPA's when admitting students. The #1 factor is the portfolio, which showcases talent.</p>

<p>seriously, here's my analogy.</p>

<p>Juilliard school of music is nation's most selective (7% or 8%), one of the most renowned music school in the world but do you think they care so much about SAT scores? heck, i'd be surprised if it was over 1400. same goes with Cornell's architect and hotel schools. </p>

<p>Im just surprised Cornell still has such high median SAT even those in the mix and still has 20% admit rate. </p>

<p>UPenn's nursing college has admit rate of 40%. If UPenn had another college like that, both their admit rate and median SAT would've suffered. On the contrary, I guess cornell committee didn't care and so now, we have alot of colleges that wouldn't consider SAT as highly as would've been by CAS and Engineering.</p>

<p>so i guess the lesson for any other colleges that only have Engineering and CAS is as follows: don't add any more specialized colleges if you want to be viewed favorably upon by CC'ers</p>

<p>You can clearly demonstrate talent in music. </p>

<p>How about Vetrinary science, Agriculture and Life Sciences, Human Ecology, or Hotel Management? Still havene't answered that.</p>

<p>Apple... The vet school is not an undergrad school, and clearly, you don't need test taking skills to be in the agriculture school. Neither you, nor any Duke fanboy have not answered my question about whether or not Duke has any top ranked undergraduate departments, and how they stack up to the ton that Cornell has. Compare Duke eng. to Cornell eng., Duke A and S to Cornell's. Show me some departmental undergraduate rankings.</p>

<p>Let me repost some of Cornell's top undergraduate departments:
"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."</p>

<p>Cornell is the best or one of the best at almost all it offers at the undergraduate level. This is such an accomplishment considering that it has 7 undergraduate schools. Can the same be said about Duke? No. Duke has 2 schools and it cannot manage to do this.</p>