The Case For…D U K E !!

College Search & Selection
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My opinion is very cemented and will probably not change. I'm done with this thread.

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<p>The history shows that strongly opinionated posters NEVER EVER change their opinions, however flawed their logic may be. Case in point: EAD.</p>

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<p>Case in point: a vast majority of people who post on this site.</p>

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For the MILLIONTH time, the NYT survey is flawed because of its small size and population sampling bias.</p>

<p>Duke</a> still step below top schools - News
"Duke enrolls between 75 and 90 percent of cross-admitted students from the third group of top competitors, which includes Cornell, Northwestern and Georgetown."</p>

<p>There you have it. RIGHT FROM THE MOUTH of the admissions director! The real story is that 4 out of every 5 cross admits between Duke and Cornell end up choosing Duke. Maybe that 5th person decided he/she would rather go into farming or hotel employment instead?</p>

<p>"Duke also attracts the sixth-most National Merit Scholars on the list of top competitors, based on the 2005 scholarship competition results released by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. In 2005, Duke enrolled 117 National Merit Scholars, again behind the top five but ahead of all other schools."
Right behind HYPSM in this area. Cornell doesn't have nearly as many.</p>

<p>As far as the SAT percentages, one critical point that has not been brought up is that Duke enrolls scholarship athletes each year that bring down the school's SAT average unlike the Ivies, which have an inter-institutional agreement that prohibits given athletes preferential treatment in admissions. It is more fair to look at the 75th percentile SAT average mark to better truly compare the scholars from both schools. Duke is higher by OVER A HUNDRED POINTS!!!</p>

<p>Duke also leads Cornell in getting premends into med schools, getting prelaw students into top law schools and kids interested in business the top banking/consulting jobs. These are all facts all there for the world to see.</p>

<p>Yes, in the eyes of academics, Cornell is a notch higher than Duke. However in the eyes of ambitious high schoolers, graduate school adcoms and employers, Duke holds an edge over Cornell. It might provide better opportunities for the nation's hotel workers and farmers, but Duke is a better school for kids who want to be lawyers, doctors or businessman. Both are solid for kids who want to be engineers I think.</p>

<p>I apologize if I thought Brown was lesser than Duke because it is definitely a peer along with Columbia, Dartmouth and Penn. Cornell is more in the league of JHU, WUSTL and Northwestern.</p>

<p>But you know, this is just an objective conclusion. Who cares about data, statistics and logic when we can continue to spew biased hatred against Duke and gang up on its few supporters right?</p>

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"Duke enrolls between 75 and 90 percent of cross-admitted students from the third group of top competitors, which includes Cornell, Northwestern and Georgetown."</p>

<p>There you have it. RIGHT FROM THE MOUTH of the admissions director! The real story is that 4 out of every 5 cross admits between Duke and Cornell end up choosing Duke. Maybe that 5th person decided he/she would rather go into farming or hotel employment instead?

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<p>And how does the admissions director know? He doesn't. It's based on voluntary response data--what students choose to respond. It's as flawed as the NYT survey.</p>

<p>The fact is, Duke still has a yield about the same as Cornell's, etc. There's no reporting error there.</p>

<p>The dean of admissions also said:</p>

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"I'm not sure these are significant differences [in SAT scores]," Guttentag said. He pointed out that scores are dependent on many variables, citing the percentage of students in different academic disciplines and the percentage of international students as examples. "I'd say these data are another indicator that Duke students as a whole are academically roughly comparable to students at these other schools," he said.

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<p>Sounds kinda familiar, doesn't it? :rolleyes:</p>

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which have an inter-institutional agreement that prohibits given athletes preferential treatment in admissions.

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<p>Actually, they can give preference to athletes (recruiting, etc.), but they cannot give athletic scholarships.</p>

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<p>Explain to me again how Duke is better at producing better businessmen or lawyers? Dude, Cornell's undergrad business school (AEM) ranked #4 in the nation by the businessweek. It can't possibly trail Duke by THAT much. Also, not that it is much of concern, look at the Duke grad school rankings and Cornell's. Duke's law, MBA are simillarly ranked with Cornell's, although Duke's med school is ranked higher.</p>

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<p>Given the fact that Duke's yield is actually lower than Cornell's, there is no way Duke enrolls more than 75% or 90% of crossadmits between Duke and Cornell. And, I agree with kyledavid on inaccuracy of that source, anyway. How would the dean know the exact figures of such details, drawing indefinite, instatistical conclusion from a small sample of voluntary responses from a limited set of students? If you don't like NYT survey, since it doesn't go your way, try a more established study of college preferences list:</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)</p>

<p>Harvard
Yale
Stanford
Cal Tech
MIT
Princeton
Brown
Columbia
Amherst
Dartmouth
Wellesley
U Penn
U Notre Dame
Swarthmore
Cornell
Georgetown
Rice
Williams
Duke
U Virginia

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The real story is that 4 out of every 5 cross admits between Duke and Cornell end up choosing Duke. Maybe that 5th person decided he/she would rather go into farming or hotel employment instead?

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<p>Weak. Very weak. I see that you look down upon ag school or hotel school at Cornell or its students. Remember, these are close to being ranked #1 in the world in respective fields. Btw, the hotel school grads do very well, financially. In fact, on average, they make similar salaries compared to an average Duke grad. And, that person who chose Cornell over Duke was maybe also interested in architecture, business, CAS(which is similar to Duke CAS), superior engineering, computer science, or just liked Cornell better.</p>

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<p>EAD, Duke does not lead Cornell in getting students into Medical or Law School, or into any sort of profession. You are confusing raw, unrefined numbers with properly intepreted figures. At the end of the day, graduate school adcoms and corporate recruiters will approach the Cornell and Duke campuses in identical ways and students from those universities will be given equal opportunities.</p>

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<p>I live in the midwest. I would say Cornell is perceived as more prestigious around here than Duke. The main reason for this? Cornell is in the Ivy League and Duke is in the ACC.</p>

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<p>Its quite sad to see America's brightest minds arguing over such things. </p>

<p>In my opinion, the difference between Cornell and Duke is a pretty small one. Entering this discussion will always turn into Cornell vs Duke just like it always has.</p>

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<p>This is INSIDIOUS. The most important factor in determining whether a human being is successful is not their SAT score, where they went to college, or how much money they have. Its their character.</p>

<p>And people here arguing which is the better school are on the wrong path to determining character if you ask me.</p>

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<p>Agreed. It's not where you get your education, it's what you do with it.</p>

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Its quite sad to see America's brightest minds arguing over such things.

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<p>Lol?</p>

<p>10char</p>

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<p>It's definitely what you do with the education, as opposed to where you got it. But we Cornellians are just frustrated with EAD's obnoxious posts that are supported with inaccuracies.</p>

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And people here arguing which is the better school are on the wrong path to determining character if you ask me.

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<p>Keep in mind what we Cornellians are arguing here. Not that Cornell is any better than schools ranging from Berkeley to Duke, Middlebury to WUSTL. But that at this caliber of schools, the schools cease to matter and that it is all about the individual student.</p>

<p>So pick the school that you feel the most comfortable with. Not the school that you think will lend you a better chance to get into med school or law school. Because they are all the same after controlling for student quality an individual student effort.</p>

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<p>Unfortunately this country (or the world) doesn't reward people with good character as much as they deserve. In fact, I'd say one's looks are the most important factor in determining success rather than character, intelligence, the school you've attended, etc. But there's another thread for that. (May the Duke and Cornell debate continue if so wished...)</p>

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<p>^ What? Looks? Are you serious?</p>

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<p>No man, its definitely your degree of control of your mind control powers. Trust me on this one.</p>

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<p>coolman123, no joke. Watch a few TV shows on this, it's not something I made up out of thin air. Though I do think arbiter has a good suggestion...</p>

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<p>It's obvious what Cervantes is proposing. </p>

<p>I don't necessarily agree with it all, but I can understand why someone would think that way. </p>

<p>It's also certainly not limited to racial characteristics.</p>

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I used the admit rate for 2012 because those are available. And certainly with those, duke admit rate is lower than Cornell. </p>

<p>By like what, 1.5%? Your point?

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<p>Fwiw, it is very hard to make a point about comparing admission rates for Duke and Cornell as both schools have a history of disclosing optimistic numbers AND publishing official numbers that are substantially different. For instance, the number reported by Duke to the US government (IPEDS) for the Class of 2010 is higher by several points than was reported earlier. On the other hand, Cornell can decide to report the incomplete applications or decide to leave them out of the statistics. Again, the latest reported numbers did include more than 1,300 applications without a designated college. The comparison will remain nebulous as long as the public is denied access to comparable data such as Common Data Set for BOTH schools and a much needed crackdown on creative and whimsical reporting.</p>

<p>One of the few elements worth comparing are the trends of applications and admissions at Cornell and Duke. While the rate of admissions has dropped drastically at Cornell, the same cannot be said at Duke.</p>