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Nobel Prize established: 1895
Duke founded: 1838</p>
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<p>Learn your terminology…“Cal” is UC berkeley, not Caltech. :)</p>
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That comparison is less useful than you’d think. It’s extremely difficult to attract brilliant professors to a brand new university. Penn was organizing large-scale excavations in the Near East while Duke remained a small Methodist-affiliated southern LAC. It didn’t become a university in the present sense until the early 1930s.</p>
<p>Of course, being founded relatively late hasn’t hurt Chicago in its collection of Nobel laureates (despite their often exceedingly tenuous ties to the university), particularly since it was founded to be a research university.</p>
<p>“I don’t understand how having a handful of faculty members who have produced high-level research improves the school’s reputation. There are very few famous academic scholars that most educated people even associate with a certain school(Friedman-Chicago, Pinker-Harvard, etc.). Anyhow, at all of these schools, the number of faculty members who have famous awards/memberships constitute less than like 1% of the school’s overall quality. What about the remaining 99% of faculty members? How do we know how acclaimed they are? What if these acclaimed professors aren’t even good professors? My best instructor at Duke was a 3rd year PhD student…I kid you not. He had a knack for teaching and the small seminar-style classroom made the class incredible overall.”</p>
<p>I agree with much of what you say for once. I had 6 TAs at Michigan, and all but one were excellent. My professors were also mostly brilliant. At any rate, it isn’t just 1% of the faculty at top universities that are excellent. Sure the nobel prize winners are few and far in between. I never took a class with a nobel prize winner myself. But the overall quality of the faculty does matter a great deal. Who do you think attracts those awesome PhD candidates? You got it, faculty!</p>
<p>“They have produced a great amount of nobel prize winners because they have been around for centuries and have like a 3 century headstart on a school like Duke. Besides, these individuals constitute a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the alumni of these five schools.”</p>
<p>Harvard has been around for 2 centures longer than Duke. Yale and Princeton for two centures longer than Duke. MIT and Stanford are in fact younger than Duke. So no, not a SINGLE one of those schools has a three century head start. In fact, two of those five schools are younger than Duke. </p>
<p>“They are ranked top 10 in most graduate departments. How does this apply to the undergraduate level? Is there clear evidence that HYPSM students do more high-level research than Duke or Penn students?”</p>
<p>The same faculty and facilities that make those departments so good are availlable to undergrads. And the quality of the PhD students who enroll at those top 10 programs is on average, better than the quality of the PhD candidates who enroll in non-top 20 programs. Since PhDs also help in leading discussion groups, one is probably better off having a PhD candidate at a top 10 program lead their discussion group, although the benefits in this case are indeed marginal. Finally, most undergrads (at Michigan anyway) take graduate level courses. Again, I would rather take graduate level courses at a top 10 department than at one that is not ranked as high. I should say that having top 10 departments elevates the quality of the entire university.</p>
<p>“The PA just reinforces the status quo. University presidents have grown up knowing that Harvard and Yale were the best schools in the country so they just mark 5 every time they get the form. Does the PA score reflect reality? It’s hard to tell.”</p>
<p>The PA is just a gauge or reputation, not an exact measure of quality. And even then, it is not 100% accurate of a reputational score. A school that receives a PA score of 4.5 is not better than a school that receives a PA score of 4.4 or even 4.3 or worse than a school that receices a PA score of 4.6 or even 4.7. This said, the opinion of the members of the PA is generally fairly accurate and I definitely think you can gauge the overall reputation of a school by looking at the PA. A school that has a PA score of 4.9 is better than a school that gets a PA score of 4.3 and a school with a PA score of 4.3 is better than a school with a PA score of 3.7.</p>
<p>“I don’t really understand what the endowment has to do with anything. They have a high endowment since they’ve been around since the age of dinosaurs. Does a Harvard student have some sort of special resource that Caltech or Penn students don’t have access to? Please enlighten me o wise Alexandre.”</p>
<p>Again, MIT and Stanford are younger than many universities with far smaller endowments. Penn is the 5th or 6th oldest university in the US, but its endowment is not quite as substantial as MIT’s or Stanford…both of which are a century younger than Penn. As for Caltech, it is a bit of an exception. Caltech has not medical school and has a total student body of 2,000 students. It’s endowment is more than sufficient for its purposes. However, a large endowment provides universities with financial stability when needed and with the ability to launch large scale projects such as facilities improvement. Is it any wonder that the top universities in the nation are also its welathiest?</p>
<p>WOW! I can’t believe how big this thread. Glad to see how passionate people are about those three schools. After immense agonizing, I ended up choosing Duke.</p>
<p>And since you all somehow ended up debating this topic for like a million posts, I feel like I owe an explanation of my decision.</p>
<p>After visiting all three of these schools and doing an exhaustive amount of research, I felt that Duke and Stanford had a more impressive student body and offered more opportunities for undergrads. Michigan, on the other had, had the best college town and might have offered the best overall college experience. </p>
<p>I ruled out Stanford because it was way too far away from Detroit and I have no intention of settling in California and I felt the students there were somewhat arrogant. Michigan was too close home and I plan to get as far away from Detroit as possible so I can get hopefully get a job after graduation(which the state of Michigan doesn’t have too much left of).</p>
<p>I want to live in New York City after I graduate and I met a large amount of kids who were from the New York City and I heard it was the number one destination for grads. Also, the classes I sat in at Duke were smaller than the classes I sat in at in Michigan and Stanford, which appeared to be more graduate school focused institutions. Finally, I was impressed with the international opportunities available at Duke as I heard that 2/3 of Duke students travel abroad for study abroad or a service project, something that really interested me.</p>
<p>Anyway, I feel that I could have succeeded at all three schools. It was amazing the amount of kids I met at Stanford who were cocky and made fun of me when I said I was still considering Michigan and Duke. Oh well, I have no regrets. Go Devils!:)</p>
<p>Although I obviously strongly disagree with your impression of Stanford students lol, you could not have possibly made a wrong choice with these amazing universities. I’m sure you’ll have a great four years ahead of you at one of the nation’s best universities. Good Luck at Duke!</p>
<p>You were able to justify your decision with first-hand experience and a great deal of introspection with regards to your personal wants and life goals: it was a sensible one, congrats!</p>
<p>Stanford’s West Coast location is the chief reason that I would turn it down (if I have the luxury to do so in the future). I hope the perceived “arrogance” wasn’t one of yours for turning it down, though. It so happens that kids at the top schools have a reason to be proud of their achievements and where they’ve gotten in life. They may be proud, and exude self-confidence and charisma… perhaps that was a little different and intimidating?</p>
<p>Anyway, good luck!</p>
<p>Congrats on your decision! You will have a terrific time at Duke.</p>
<p>Congrats! Hope to see you in August, fellow 2013-er :)</p>
<p>Good luck to you broski91. If you do meet ring<em>of</em>fire, please try to straighten him out. :-)</p>
<p>Way to go, it must feel great to have made a decision. Congratulations!</p>
<p>michigan… no doubt about it</p>
<p>michiganboy, please actually read a thread before you reply.</p>
<p>oh, and i’m glad that you didn’t chose stanford just for the reputation, duke’s an amazing school and i hope you enjoy it there.</p>