@ProudLoomisDad you must be new here. CC is filled with these types of pedantic discussions from parents with no kids in college that need to move on to more productive things in society than provide “insight” to college admissions
Also I’ve heard a lot about the world class faculty and Nobel laureates at Berkeley, does Duke have the same world class faculty or is it just that you get more attention from professors at Duke?
“World class faculty” and Nobel laureates have received those distinctions because of the quality of their research, not the quality of their teaching. As an Ivy League graduate I was sometimes “taught” by renowned faculty who were unable to effectively teach or just uninterested (it was the price they had to pay for access to the university’s resources and PhD students). Your educational interests will be served best by the school’s quality of undergraduate teaching. FWIW, US News & World Reports currently ranks Duke University 10th among national universities, while Berkeley is tied for 52nd (with University of Massachusetts-Lowell campus).
Duke does not have as many NLs on faculty as Berkeley does (few schools do) but 2 Duke professors have won the prize in the last 7 years. This is a very impressive accomplishment. Home-grown Nobel laureates (people who win for work done at the university) are the gold standard and Duke now has a couple. If we’re counting people who did their post-docs at Duke or were visiting faculty members, the number of affiliates over the past 5-7 years increases.
NLs have very little to do with the quality of undergraduate education. Dartmouth probably has no NLs on faculty but I would still pick it over Berkeley in a heartbeat. Princeton has fewer NLs than Columbia (historically) but I know where I’d be going if I got into both of those schools for undergrad.
I really think you’re making a relatively straightforward decision unnecessarily complicated. A large state school like Berkeley simply doesn’t have the resources to compete with a place like Duke at the undergraduate level. If you were getting a PhD in Chem E, I’d push you in the opposite direction but for undergrad, Duke all the way (and it isn’t particularly close IMO).
Thank you that puts things in perspective and the honestly is needed and appreciated
Great post! Duke is actually ranked 8th overall by US News (tied with Penn) and has oscillated between 7th and 9th over the past several years.
It is ranked 10th for undergraduate teaching. Peer schools ranked higher are Princeton (1st), Dartmouth (4th), Brown (6th), Stanford (7th), and Rice (8th). Berkeley is ranked 52nd (as you rightly mentioned).
I just chose Duke. I can only hope it was the right decision. Thanks everyone:)
Congratulations!
Make it the right decision by taking advantage of the opportunities on offer. Good luck!