The Case For…D U K E !!

College Search & Selection
101

<p>Holy multiple posts, batman!</p>

102

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<p>I've only met a few Cornell grads but those who liked Cornell were very enthusiastic about it. Coming from a future Duke student, Ithaca>Durham, at least from my limited knowledge. I chose Duke over Cornell in a heartbeat but I think Cornell is still an awesome school...if people want to hate on Duke for reasons that are unjustified, I will defend the school, however I don't think we should just hate on their own schools in response. Oh, the Gorges were really cool, imho.</p>

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Maybe the parent shouldn't send the child to school in the U.S. because I think this is prevalent basically everywhere. Again, basically everywhere you can probably avoid it w/out too much trouble. I agree w/ EAD that the article seems to be basic yellow journalism and promotes fear mongering.</p>

<p>thanks everyone for teaching me how to use quotes ^_^</p>

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Again, basically everywhere you can probably avoid it w/out too much trouble

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<p>Again, with anecdotal evidence I have had Duke alums caution me on the fact that it is harder to avoid it at Duke. This is why I caution students to really make certain that they are attracted to the Duke culture before they enroll.</p>

<p>I am confident, however, that you will enjoy your time at Duke.</p>

104

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No, it's a GREAT school. Berkeley's not too shabby either last time I checked, although its undergrad focus is not as great. The reason the Ivies get more applications and thus have a lower acceptance rate is that there are a lot of "just for kicks" applications filed because of the Ivy name. Once it's all said and done, Duke ends up getting a quality student body that is on par with Columbia, Penn and Dartmouth.</p>

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I have never EVER said anything about Brown from what I remember. The other three(Cornell, Berkeley and Michigan) have academic reputations similar to Duke's, but I don't think they are quite as good as Duke at the undergraduate level and the employers/top grad schools see it the same way. Check out the WSJ Feeder Rankings when you get a chance. Duke's academics are on par with Penn's, Columbia's, etc. and I do believe it offers a better undergraduate experience with better weather, top athletics, social student body, etc. I think Duke is the most complete institution in the country behind Stanford. It's just my opinion and it's a pretty reasonable one at that. You're free to extoll Cornell's virtues any time. This is a forum designed for free and open dialogue last time I checked.</p>

105

<p>I'm a little disappointed with all of the negativity expressed toward Duke in this thread, but I just want to ensure everyone who is considering applying that there will be just as many arrogant kids at any other school, there are a lot of spectacular kids at Duke as well, and if you think the school fits your personality (and you like basketball!) then definitely apply!</p>

<p>I also find it really frustrating when a lot of Duke supporters ignorantly call Duke basketball the best and when others simply despise the school for any legitimate reason other than its success academically and athletically. But that just comes with the territory. We Duke students do really take pride in our school and that's something that I love having in a college, and if I could do it again I would definitely choose Duke again because it's such a unique place to go to school.</p>

106

<p>Duke's acceptance rate is most definitely lower than Cornell. 18 vs. 20 percent for the class of 2012.</p>

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<p>i looked my numbers up directly from collegeboard.com unless you're telling me that number is for class of 2011.</p>

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<p>yes...that is exactly what i'm telling you.</p>

109

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Tsk, tsk. Acceptance rate is a measure of popularity and little more. My own university has a relatively high acceptance rate, but the stats of enrolled students are among the highest in the country. Similarly, Duke's acceptance rate is probably not directly related to its selectivity. </p>

<p>How selective is the College of the Ozarks with a 12% admit rate, pray tell?</p>

110

<p>You do realize telling us to chill does nothing. If you don't like what you are seeing, stop reading. Oh my!</p>

111

<p>The written source that I feel like portrays Duke the best and most comprehensively is "Admissions Confidential," by Rachel Toor. I'm surprised nobody has brought it up yet.</p>

<p>I'll summarize her view in a sentence: Toor, a Yale alum, a former academic press editor, spends time as an admissions counselor at Duke. She's very un-Duke and is eager to criticize the school, but she also develops a sincere love and respect for the school and for the people it admits.</p>

<p>I'd like to take our anti-Duke stuff down a notch. Northwestern, Duke, Chicago, Hopkins, etc. tend to suffer from excessive "we're not an Ivy but we're still awesome" syndrome, and as a poster, it's hard to put a word in edgewise when still common perception is that Ivy beats all. </p>

<p>I'll also mention that there are schools I highly, highly, highly despise and think of as "lesser" than Chicago, but I realize that my own thoughts on these matters are unhelpful to the CC population and so I tuck my biases away. EAD may genuinely believe that his school is the best school in the world and may be unafraid to say that.</p>

<p>Plus.... Duke has a grad school program that I'm very interested in. I want to know that I'll love it there if I end up attending... right now my apprehensions are not about the Duke campus or Duke community (I know I'll love both) or about the fact that I'll have to start liking sports (basketball is easy to watch, I would just have to remember to cheer for the right team), but issues about being in the South. Having never been to the south but having friends in NC, there are things that my friends tell me that make my skin crawl and make me thing it's not the best place for somebody in my personal position. But that's neither here nor there.</p>

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<p>IBclass06 // im not the one who brought up selectivity issue in the first place and since you're saying that is not how one is suppose to base claims on selectivity of a school, there is no concrete data to base any claims remotely related to selectivity in the first place then, so he shouldn't have brought up the selectivity issue from the start, claiming Duke is more selective than <name of="" school=""> (based on what?)</name></p>

<p>and if you read through my old posts, you know i turned down Duke and Berkeley for my current school. so you know i had respect for it until EAD sprouted up in this thread.</p>

113

<p>loll, I don't come on these forums a whole lot, but every time I do there seems to be some war about Duke being waged......</p>

<p>EAD, give it up. You say Duke isn't any more "special" than the others but simultaneously you emphasize that Duke has better-looking girls, a more social student body, happier students, etc. etc.</p>

<p>Just going by your and others constant arguing, i don't think I want to even apply to Duke.... but I'm not going to be judgmental and not apply to Duke because of a few sour grapes. </p>

<p>xjis-
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seriously, no matter how you want to fool yourself thinking you are attending a school in the same tier as HYPSM or directly below, you're not attending THAT great of a school.<a href="haha%20i%20used%20quotes!">/quote</a></p>

<p>what do you expect? According to his stats profile <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/profiles/member_stat_view.html?user_id=46874%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/profiles/member_stat_view.html?user_id=46874&lt;/a> Duke was his 7th choice, after Yale, Stanford Princeton, Harvard, UPenn, and Chicago. Since he said that his other choice was UPenn, I assume that he was rejected at his first five choices.</p>

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Duke's acceptance rate is most definitely lower than Cornell. 18 vs. 20 percent for the class of 2012.

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<p>You may want to review those numbers! </p>

<p>Duke admit rate for the Class of 2012 is NOWHERE near 18%. Despite the burning desire to announce a sub-20% admission rate in early May 2008 and try to be considered a highly selective shool, Duke only accomplished that by under-admitting deliberately ... and almost immediately having to dig deep in the wait-listed pool. Adding the more than 200 waitlisted/admitted students yields the CORRECT number which is in line with the prior years. </p>

<p>The announced numbers by Duke in early May raised eyebrows because it intimated an untenable yield in Durham; there were very good reasons, the numbers were simply ... a bit too fantastic. In all the senses of the word! When it comes to admissions' numbers, Duke is as believable as Middlebury.</p>

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<p>Admission figures that conform to Common Data Set standards don't come out till after the turn of the year for each new fall entering class. So high school class of 2008 (college class of 2012) figures that are comparable from one college to another will be available after January 2009.</p>

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<p>^^ just like Harvard's acceptance rate--once you factor in the students admitted from the waitlist, it doesn't have a 7% acceptance rate anymore.</p>

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<p>" Despite the burning desire to announce a sub-20% admission rate in early May 2008 and try to be considered a highly selective shool, Duke only accomplished that by under-admitting deliberately."</p>

<p>I highly doubt admitting 200 more students will make Duke lose its highly selective image. Furthermore, even AFTER admitting 200 students its admission rate is sub-20%.</p>

<p>(3814+200)/20,337 = 19.7%</p>

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<p>^^ in all publications, it will be rounded to 20%. The image of "super selective" (in a the sense that it inspires awe among college hopefuls) comes when the acceptance rate drops below 20% by more than a fraction of a percent. See Williams, Swarthmore, etc. Duke just isn't there it.</p>

119

<p>^^--^^</p>

<p>No need to wait for January 2009 to know that the figures released by Duke in May will not be close to the official numbers. </p>

<p>No amount of southern voodoo by Christoph Guttentag will help obfuscate the MINIMUM of two hundred students who became Blue Devils via the waitlist. The waitlisted/admitted students increase the admission rate on the Common Data Set forms. It's also a mistake to believe that the yield on Duke's WL will be ... 100%.</p>

120

<p>"The image of "super selective" (in a the sense that it inspires awe among college hopefuls) comes when the acceptance rate drops below 20% by more than a fraction of a percent"</p>

<p>That is highly opinionated. I could say the same thing about single digit acceptance rates.</p>