<p>Hey,</p>
<p>I am a bit curious about this issue... I wanted to know the opinions of Duke students... which colleges do you all consider to be Duke's peers (academically, reputation wise etc.) Disregarding rankings and such, what are all fo your opinions? Do you consider some Ivies peers? Top Southern Schools? Thanks</p>
<p>Hopkins (specifically for BME)
Rice (BioE and southern school)
WashU (both research heavy)
Vanderbilt (well known southern school)
Virginia (well known southern school)
Emory (well known southern school)</p>
<p>Those schools are the ones that people I know who also applied to Duke went for so I guess you can call the list anecdotal.</p>
<p>As for Ivy Leagues, it’s really hard to say. I’ll make no pretensions that Duke is on par with HYPSM either in terms of overall academics or reputation. But I do think that Duke is definitely competitive with some top notch schools like Dartmouth, Brown, Berkeley, Cornell, Columbia, Chicago, Penn, etc. Maybe not in all fields, but definitely in some that Duke is strong in. For latter half of that list though, I do believe Duke is not as well known compared to them even if some of its programs are excellent.</p>
<p>I agree with SBR: most Duke students agree that HYPMS are more esteemed institutions and cannot really be considered as peers. They have more money, more prestige, and more academic strength/breadth.</p>
<p>I feel one measure to determine Duke’s peers is to see which schools that students seriously considered alongside Duke when ultimately choosing which institution to attend. When speaking to other Duke students, it seems that the most common schools given consideration were Northwestern, Brown, Penn, Chicago, Dartmouth, Columbia, Cornell, and Hopkins (BME). I guess I see those schools as peers.</p>
<p>In my opinion…</p>
<p>Slightly > Duke:
UPenn, Columbia</p>
<p>Peers:
UChicago, Dartmouth, Northwestern, Cornell, Brown</p>
<p>Slightly < Duke:
Wash U, JHU, Rice, Berekely</p>
<p>Specifically, I remember at Blue Devils Days last year, a lot of prospectives were talking about deciding between Duke and Cornell, Northwestern, and Brown the most (aside from, of course, their states’ top public schools). There were also quite a few Duke vs. UChicago discussions, but most of them ended up being about the two schools’ personality differences (which are very, very different) rather than about their academics. Many pre-meds have the JHU vs. Duke BME decision, but that comparison doesn’t reach many non-BME’s.</p>
<p>UChicago, Columbia, Upenn</p>
<p>completely agree with knat.</p>
<p>Agree mostly with knat, except I would break up Penn into Wharton and CAS</p>
<hr>
<p>Much Better and Very Similar
Stanford</p>
<p>Much Better and Totally Different:
Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, CalTech</p>
<hr>
<p>Slightly Better and Totally Different:
Columbia, Wharton</p>
<hr>
<p>Equal and Very Similar:
Dartmouth, Northwestern</p>
<p>Equal and Very Different:
Brown, Penn CAS, Cornell, Chicago, Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore</p>
<hr>
<p>Slightly Less and Very Similar:
Georgetown, Vanderbilt, Rice</p>
<p>Slightly Less and Very Different:
WashU, Hopkins</p>
<p>I think if you asked Duke students which schools they rejected, it would trickle down in this order. Most students who turn down Group 1 are scholarship students. Group 2 is not uncommon (ik a bunch who turned down Columbia) but I think its still relatively rare. Group 3 is pretty common. Many kids turn down at least one if not more of these schools. For Group 4, unless you applied ED, you turned down at least one of them if not more.</p>
<p>Overall, though, most students would consider Duke on par with the non-HYP Ivies, on par with Columbia, Dartmouth, Brown, Penn and above Cornell.</p>
<p>@andy_college09, Thanks for the great post! I particularly appreciate the different/similar part. Could you elaborate on how Rice is similar and WashU and Cornell are different? Just trying to get a feel of these schools.</p>
<p>Thanks andy_college09!</p>
<p>That’s really helpful. </p>
<p>I assume you’re saying that Stanford is “much better and similar” because of the big campus, and sports-mania? ( : Could you elaborate if you mean anything else?</p>
<p>@ JJParent</p>
<p>Rice is similar to Duke in regards its balancing of athletics with academics. The two major things that define Duke besides its stellar academic reputation are sports and Greek life. The way I constructed the similar/differences was with respect to those aspects of Duke. If a school emphasized either of the two, they fell under the “similar” category.</p>
<p>For Rice, the school is without a doubt smaller than Duke. However, both have a community focus that is very strong and breeds a cohesive student body. Likewise, sports are emphasized at Rice, though the sports themselves are different. Just as Duke is phenomenal at basketball, Rice is phenomenal at baseball (won the College World Series in 2003 and is perennially ranked). It’s a difference in preference. However, there is definitely more of a northern vibe at Duke as opposed to Rice (Duke has this bubble around it that honestly makes it feel like a northern school in the south).</p>
<p>@ ocgirl92</p>
<p>I put Stanford under the “better and similar” because academically I think Stanford is stronger, while it still emphasizes both sports and Greek life. To be honest, Duke and Stanford are probably two of the most similar schools in the country when it comes down to it. Both are VERY Greek orientated, both are very much into sports, and both are very warm with strong student communities. However, where Duke excels in sports a little more, Stanford excels slightly in academia. Yet both are top 10 institutions with AMAZING academics. I just think public perception puts Stanford on a higher tier.</p>
<p>andy_college09, thanks for the post. I like to understand what is very different between Duke and WashU?</p>
<p>Thanks andy_college09!!!</p>
<p>It’s really helpful!!!
Could you please elaborate on Duke v.s Columbia??? I would like to know more about both the slightly better and totally different. </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>How about Duke’s peers in terms of med/pre med?</p>
<p>^In terms of med/pre-med would be Harvard, Johns Hopkins, WashU, UPenn, Stanford, and maybe Yale.</p>
<p>ok, awsome.</p>
<p>And knat, your opinion seems to go hand in hand with the USNWR rankings, which change from year to year. 10th is actually the lowest Duke has been ranked (which is this year), with 3rd as their highest and 6th-7th as their average. Usually they are tied with Columbia and UPenn, and a few years ago with Stanford. The reason their rankings fell last year is that their acceptance rate was higher compared to the other top 10 schools, but they should go up in the rankings this year due to their 14.8% acceptance rate, and not to mention all the good publicity from winning the NCAA basketball championships. This might push them back to where they usually are ranked, which is in the 6th-8th range.</p>
<p>Duke, WashU, and JHU are all very popular for premeds, since they all have outstanding med schools and great science departments. However, I still wouldn’t say most premeds consider them with the likes of HYPS. If you created a “Duke vs. Harvard” thread, mentioning that you were premed won’t save you from getting a bunch of “lol” responses. There of course are a few exceptions (people who choose Duke over HYPS), but exceptions are exceptions.</p>
<p>As happy as I am that Duke won the NCAA’s, I doubt it’ll really affect our rank. Based on the idea of converging evidence, should it not be the case that prestige correlates highly with USNWR ranks? Many of the same factors (quality of student body, quality of faculty) determine both–at least theoretically, in USNWR’s case.</p>
<p>while i do agree that winning the NCAA championships doesn’t DIRECTLY contribute, i have to say that it does give Duke a lot of good publicity, which is really good for any school. take Butler for an example, their applicants will probably go up a lot this year just because it has become more well known now. if it weren’t for reaching the NCAA championships, a lot of people wouldn’t know about Butler and all that it has to offer. the same goes for any school, even those that are already up there, like Duke.</p>
<p>I declined Princeton, MIT, and JHU for Duke. As far as academics go, I would not hesitate to place Duke in line with Ivies and pseudo-Ivies, but most people do not associate Duke with as much prestige because it is a relatively new up and coming university (as opposed to old school Ivies).</p>
<p>^How? How can you just throw MIT away like that? D:</p>