<p>guhengshuo - You ask a very complicated question (actually a couple of questions), with multiple layers in the answer. This could be discussed for pages and pages and for hours. But here is my opinion.</p>
<p>Well first let’s get the ranking question out of the way. As idad says, peer assessment is one big factor, which translates to a large degree to reputation and national coverage, both sports and otherwise. Duke certainly deserves its reputation, I think Tulane gets a little underrated in this regard. Partly it is still people being ignorant that Tulane was not as affected by Katrina as the parts of New Orleans they kept showing on the news. But the closure for a semester, along with those pictures of New Orleans, led to the mistaken impression that Tulane was barely surviving. Maybe the reorganization of the university at that point, which included cutting some programs that were not as strong or popular to begin with, added to that impression. The simple truth is that Tulane has improved fairly dramatically the last 4 years, both in student quality and academic programs. Unfortunately that takes longer to get through to Tulane’s “peers” than it seems to take for students to realize it.</p>
<p>Then there are the statistical factors like retention and graduation rates. This has really hurt Tulane because of Katrina aftereffects. USNWR should be ashamed for not correcting for this in Tulane’s case. It certainly cannot be a reflection of the quality of a university that a flood decided to close the entire city for a time.</p>
<p>Should Duke be ranked above Tulane? Sure, given the way people usually think of the kinds of factors that go into rankings any objective person would tell you that Duke should be where it is. I also think that any objective person would tell you that Tulane should be ranked anywhere from 15-20 places higher than it is. But this gives more credence and attention to the whole ranking phenomenon than it possibly deserves. The simple fact is they are both wonderful schools that are academically superior in both faculty and students, where you can get a first rate college experience.</p>
<p>Duke is more well known nationally and internationally than Tulane, for a few reasons. Certainly the great basketball team is part of it, but that’s not to take away from the fact that Duke is considered a higher level institution academically than Tulane. Why? Well, probably foremost because the average Duke student has higher academic accomplishments coming in. Tulane is at a very very high level, Duke is even higher. Will you learn different things in class at Duke than at Tulane? In general, no. Basic calc is basic calc, freshman chem is freshman chem, so on and so forth. The profs all know their stuff at each place. In fact there are some former Tulane profs at Duke and vice-versa. The big difference is the level of competition (and I mean this in a good, non-threatening way) from your classmates. Just like it was far easier for me when I took a couple of classes at the local state university, even though we used exactly the same books as at Tulane, I imagine that there is some difference between Duke and Tulane in the same way. That’s just the way selectivity goes. However, I would also venture to say the difference between Duke and Tulane is smaller than the difference between Tulane and the state university I am talking about. At Tulane there are still plenty of really accomplished students that could have attended Duke and/or other ranked schools, but chose Tulane for any number of reasons. My D, jym’s S, idad’s S and many others, just to name a few. The point is, you can indeed have a very high level academic experience at Tulane.</p>
<p>Finally, your question as to whether to attend Tulane and major in a non-science area in the hopes of getting into the Creative Scholar’s Program. This is a really, really tough thing to answer. I have had a half-dozen thoughts on this just while typing, but I think in the end the right answer is to go to the school that you think is best for you overall. You are obviously taking a risk in the sense you might pick a major you normally wouldn’t just to try for this program. I don’t think you are taking a risk at all if you pick Tulane, I just don’t know about the wisdom of putting your eggs all in this basket. On the other hand, since you have to take 4 chem courses, a bio course and whatever other pre-med requirements there are by the end of your sophomore year, if you did not get in the program you could always switch to a science major I suppose.</p>
<p>So I have tried to give my opinion on what you directly asked, but I still think the main point is to go where you think you have the best chance for academic and personal success.</p>