<p>sakky said: "I still don't think that's fair competition. I think even most current Duke, Rice, or Northwestern students, even if they are civil engineering students, would gladly transfer to Harvard (and drop civil engineering) if given the chance."</p>
<p>As a former Duke student and current Duke faculty in engineering, I strongly disagree with the idea that most of our CEE students would both transfer to Harvard and drop CEE. The people we get are interested in the combination of a small, dynamic, top-20 engineering school with close ties to a medium-sized, internationally renown liberal arts college, bookended by awesome business, law, and medical schools and punctuated by facilities that students can actually use and athletics that students can actually cheer for. Harvard's great - but contrary to your proposition, not everyone (or even I would say most of everyone) wants to live there... Heck - our CEE Department has had a Harvard faculty member transfer down here (full prof, no less) so apparently faculty at least would gladly transfer to Duke (and stay in CEE).</p>