<p>If the CDS would include the stats of applicants we might know if selectivity means anything more than popularity.</p>
<p>That would be interesting.</p>
<p>But after this conversation, it certainly sounds like y’all agree that at the moment, Duke is looked upon by the population as more prestigious, but Vandy is a school on the rise.</p>
<p>So which school is more hollistic? Vanderbilt has 96% of its class from the top 10 percent. Seems like other schools would be more holistic.</p>
<p>What about WashU?</p>
<p>Both definitely are, but I think it’s been agreed upon that Duke does take subjective factors into account more (most likely, we don’t work for the schools though, it just seems that way as Duke has a supplement and seems to look at the whole picture, including thr non-academic side more)</p>
<p>
What are you talking about? People pursue an MBA because of the network it provides as well as the branding and leverage to switch career paths. The actual knowledge and quality of education accrued at one busines school over another is of minimal importance. Tons of students from Michigan, NYU, Emory, and Berkeley apply to MBA programs. Look at how well Berkeley does in this ranking. At an absolute level, it does better than Brown and Cornell but it is much larger so we need to take that into account.</p>
<p>Besides, Vanderbilt doesn’t have a BBA program so its students have every reason in the world to go after an elite MBA. They just aren’t getting in at the same numbers since Duke has much, much stronger recruiting for consulting and finance which are the two big feeder industries into elite business schools.</p>
<p>
I guess Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Penn, and Duke students have their priorities messed up while Vanderbilt and Chicago students are “above the MBA”? Get real bro!</p>
<p>I didn’t say anyone was “above” anything. You know that Chicago is a Ph.D factory along with many LACs. Students at these schools are less inclined to go into business or pursue MBA programs. They are different types of students at different types of schools with educational missions oriented a bit differently. The ratio of students that would perhaps rather go on to win a nobel prize in science is higher than those who want to start-up a fortune 500 or go into IB at such schools, that’s just the reality of it. And no, I did not lump Chicago and Vandy in the same category. Should we really say that Chicago is bad because it doesn’t send as many people to business programs as Harvard? Such a judgement would be completely misguided. The place is home to new schools of thought and theories in economics. Clearly they are solid regardless of if students there want to pursue MBAs at “top programs” or not. You need to get real!</p>
<p>The schools you mention have a huge portion of the student body legit interested in going into the business world, so yes many will apply to MBAs. And Berkeley also has a thriving engineering school (I would imagine there would be overlap as people who invent things may be interested), but we don’t know what “Tons of students” (this is not a number, this is useless to me, and then you have to scale for how many students are in a program or how long it is, like 2 vs. 4 years. What an Emory “ton” is really not that much) is. It is possible that many schools with BBA programs (especially top ones) do have a decent (certainly not most or even all) chunk of students who get a really well-paying position after the program and stick with it and advance up the latter, and thus do not necessarily go on to pursue an MBA. Some may even go on to other professional schools. Let’s not say all top schools have the same types of students with the same exact goals because it simply is not true. Throwing out the names of 3 schools that do send a decent of MBA applicants. The stats say that, those top schools have an abnormal amount of students interested in MBAs along success in the area. If other schools have less interest in the area, the level of success will not show as well. For example, if Emory somehow got better pre-med entrance success (given its 360+ applicants in a cycle), and did very well at getting students at top medical schools (doubt this will really happen as some students are wimpy and advising encourages it), would it be fair to compare it to a place like Chicago or Brown which have far less applicants to medical school and are more likely to place people in a top Ph.D program. Basically, sometimes I’d rather see a percentage (like % applying to those top echelon MBAs and percent attending or admitted) than a number. Such a % would give us an idea of how much of the student body expresses interest in the prospect along with how many are successful in the endeavor. All we know is that the schools with a lot have very high interest and success. We don’t know if the others are relative failures.</p>
<p>
[nsf.gov</a> - NCSES Baccalaureate Origins of S&E Doctorate Recipients - US National Science Foundation (NSF)](<a href=“http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08311/]nsf.gov”>http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08311/)
Chicago. 10.8%
Princeton: 10.3%
Harvard: 9.9%
Yale: 8.4%
Stanford: 8.1%
Duke: 6.8%
Penn: <5.3%</p>
<p>This goes to show you that the vast majority of students at these universities don’t pursue PhDs-they get jobs. Even at Chicago, only about 10% of science majors went on to get their PhD. Guess what the rest did-they went to law school, medical school, business school, or got their masters in a vocational field like finance.</p>
<p>Your thought process is extremely simplistic Bernie and you assume vast differences between interest levels in certain careers of peer schools that simply don’t exist.</p>
<p>HYP are just as intellectual as Chicago and orders of magnitude more academic than Vanderbilt yet they are represented at a clip of over 10x as much at the elite business schools.</p>
<p>Your anecdote about winning a nobel prize in science is so ridiculous that I don’t know how to begin to tackle it-rest assured, it is an almost impossible feat to achieve whether you plan to do it or not.</p>
<p>
This applies to anyone that gets an elite job from any school. The BBA means absolutely nothing and the only reason it matters is that this program usually has better recruiting for jobs in the schools that offer undergraduate business such as Emory, Michigan, NYU, etc.</p>
<p>Your premise is flawed; the thought process for whether to get an MBA is the same for the Michigan grad who works for 5 years at McKinsey or the Yale grad who’s there for a similar time frame. The only difference is that a Yale alum is more likely to get hired by McKinsey in the first place. Nearly all Michigan BBAs will pursue a JD or an MBA sometime down the line. Not all of them will get into elite programs however and that’s the truth of it.</p>
<p>You need to accept the patterns you see emerging in all of the rankings instead of rationalizing why the data presented must be flawed.</p>
<p>“HYP are just as intellectual as Chicago”</p>
<p>Is this something everybody knows, or is there evidence?</p>
<p>This is totally my impression as a parent on visits to both schools. I was really turned off by Duke. The info session presentation seemed very snobby and also very female achievement oriented (there was one male student featured, and he was an athlete.) My child was turned off by the students they had presenting after the official admissions officer spoke – to my child, they seemed full of themselves (I did not think they were so bad, though). Our tour guide had the voice of a mouse and repeated everything from the info session. It was just a total bore and turn-off. We ditched the tour and started exploring on our own. I was expecting more of the same at Vanderbilt, but was very pleasantly surprised. The info session was very down-to-earth and friendly in comparison to Duke’s. Really loved it. Tour guide was personable and though not boomy-voiced, and could project her voice much better and seemed at ease in her role. </p>
<p>While I have no experience yet as a parent of a student at either place, maybe this feedback would be useful to both schools if they are reading??</p>
<p>I didn’t say “intellectual”, I said Ph.D geared. Also, HYP are intellectual in a sense, but I imagine that they are still some serious pre-professional factories compared to Chicago (I mean Ivies are known well for their ability to place people into the prestigious professions, especially those outside of academia. While they do very well in this last category, who should deny that they are pre-prof. factories to a huge extent). Regardless of if each student at Harvard is considered “intellectual”, it is more likely that a student at Harvard would more likely pursue a professional school education than a student at Chicago. I was not saying that pre-profs/profs. could not be intellectual. I never even mentioned this idea in this case. And vonlost is right. Your claim cannot be proven. And if I were to claim Chicago is more intellectual, I could not. We probably could prove that the student body at one school is more inclined toward Ph.D programs than another irregardless of perceptions of intellectualism. Duke is not viewed as among the more intellectual schools in the top 10( or where ever it is), but still is solid at producing a solid amount of Ph.D candidates, perhaps even when compared with so called.</p>
<p>And to be honest, I was trying to rationalize the idea that the comnmenter made about BBA programs having an impact. Look at your numbers, a significantly larger portion at Chicago pursued a Ph.D than at Duke. That is only science and engineering. My statement on Nobel in science was just an anecdote/random point about how, overall, students at Chicago may be more inclined to get PhDs than at many other schools (they do better than Duke here). What about other fields for PhDs? Chicago may perform well there as well. The main point is, regardless of those numbers, that I doubt the level of interest in an MBA (specifically an MBA, let’s not talk MD or Law because the MBA numbers started the conv.) is the same at every school. I am betting it is significantly less at a place like Chicago. As opposed to the success of getting in being significantly less, the interest is. Perhaps those not pursuing a Ph.D are indeed more interested in working, or the other professions but NOT the MBA. Your data only tells me that I over-estimate interest in PhD programs (again note that I was not exclusively talking about the sciences) at certain schools. However, saying that everyone in a certain program (like you said about Michigan) at a certain school wants an MBA is an even bigger stretch. Let’s just let this die. Perhaps I was at fault for suggesting the PhD thing, but I still believe you are at fault for attempting to suggest that all top national universities have a ridiculous chunk of the student bodies wanting MBAs and that ones that don’t have many in the top ones are essentially unsuccessful. I stand by what I said. Not all campuses likely have such strong interest levels in MBAs. I welcome your providing me with numbers saying that Chicago has way more applicants (or a similar amount) to prestigious (or perhaps any at all) MBAs as those top 4-5. Good luck finding them.</p>
<p>Stats wise Duke wins, I really don’t see how someone can argue against that after the arguments made in this three unless they just don’t want to accept defeat. </p>
<p>How was Dukes info session geared towards women? A campus tour guide is probably something that a woman would be more into (vast generalization, but most of my tour guides were females, so I’m assuming more females volunteer, which definitely could be wrong, but I visited ~10 colleges so I’m liking my sample…anyway). And what’s wrong with a tour guide being a student athlete?</p>
<p>Unless the entering student is a mere statistic, then statistics of one top university vs. another does not make an experience. It is possible that someone can enjoy their experience at a school of less prestige (statistical or whatev) than one with a lot. It’s not like it’s random school without good rep. vs. Ivy League. If the OP knew what’s good for them, they would recognize that Duke is indeed better statistically, but decide if they actually care, or better yet, how they envision themselves contributing to them. If they think they like Vandy better and will thrive there, then Vandy it is. Perhaps they’ll actually help “better” Vandy’s statistics. Often it is not the school making the student more competitive, it’s the student themselves. Students at both schools do great things and the decision should not be based upon stats. unless accomplishments of the OP are extremely influenced by these stats or competition/association with the peers (I know it’s great to be surrounded by really cool, driven, smart people, but one should not be dependent upon them, perhaps slightly inspired by them, but that’s about it). I would hope that Duke and Vandy students do great things because they desire to do great things from the get-go and because the institution provides them the resources to do so, not because “so and so is doing X.” Being at Vandy as opposed to Duke will not impede a student bound for success. Although, I now don’t realize how we got here. The OP asked, which is harder to get into, a kind of silly question. They should just apply to both if they like them. It’s the only way to find out. The admissions schemes, other than stats, don’t seem the same to me and it looks like they use different criteria.</p>
<p>
We can look at a smattering of elite PhD programs to see if there are as many or more Chicago grads than HYP grads.</p>
<p>Here’s Yale History for instance:</p>
<p>[Graduate</a> Students | History Department | Yale University](<a href=“http://www.yale.edu/history/gradstudents.html]Graduate”>http://www.yale.edu/history/gradstudents.html)</p>
<p>Harvard: 10
Yale: 12
Princeton: 3
Chicago: 1</p>
<p>Princeton Sociology was pretty similar if I recall. Every Ivy, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Duke, Wash U, Amherst, Swarthmore, NYU, etc. had more graduates represented than UChicago. It’s really nothing out of the norm.</p>
<p>Are those numbers per capita in the various departments?</p>
<p>Patriotsfan – It wasn’t the tour guide who was the athlete. It was the canned documentary movie Duke showed us before the info session started. Totally girl power, about 4 girls fatured plus the one guy. And the three students they presented to us live after the admin woman spoke – all girls. The tour guides, however, were of both genders. we just got stuck with the mouse.</p>
<p>Oh gotcha I had a really bad tour guide there at first and then kinda switched groups to one who seemed better, and she was. And are you talking about the Kyle Singler Buckets 2.0 video where he does trick shots around campus? I remember there were like 10 videos ranging from that to some science fair to community service and Duke Engage showing all aspects of the school and student life. Did you see those or did you just see the basketball one? I can see how seeing only the basketball one would be a turnoff, but if you saw thr music ones, the teacher interviews, etc it might make a bit more sense.</p>
<p>You are being elitist again goldenboy. Yesterday, I found a source (don’t feel like posting now) that listed Chicago as composing a little over 13% of PhD recipients in the United States (it was dated, so I bet it’s like 12 now, I’ll go take a look). This was still more than the others you mentioned. It does not matter if they all got PhDs from elites, that 13% was getting a PhD. That’s all that matters to me. Seriously, we’re going to say: “Your not intellectual if you don’t go to HPY for your graduate studies”? That’s such a stupid sentiment. The fact that they still pursue a PhD outside of extremely elite schools is somewhat impressive to me (also, HPY and them are not the only elite or well ranked institutions. Often, public schools will have better grad. programs).</p>
<p>I would have to agree with LBowie. I was struck with the same thought while watching their video - Where are the guys?</p>
<p>I was very disappointed with the Admissions Officer presentation as well. She was an alum and spent roughly 2/3 of her time talking about her personal experiences at Duke. That would be fine if prospective students were interested in living on the Freshman Campus for four years (kinda creepy) or spending thousands of hours at the Nasher Art Musuem. This left far too little time to discuss the items that most of us were there to hear about. In fact, when she reached the Financial Aid slides she said something along the lines of “I realize all you parents are very interested in this, but we are short on time so we will skip over it.” I didn’t fly my family to Durham to watch a twenty-something’s slide show of her four year vacation!</p>
<p>When we visited Vanderbilt, it really seemed that they were excited that we had come to visit. It was a more relaxed, congenial atmosphere that felt welcoming. I would normally chalk up the vastly different expereinces to normal fluctuations in personalities, but it seems that I am not only the only parent/family to have felt far more comfortable touring Vanderbilt than Duke.</p>
<p>I will also note that we will not make our four-year (or even lifetime) decision based on a one or two day visit. However, when the school is theoretically trying to roll out the red carpet for prospectives, this experience certainly speaks to a potentially prevailing attitude.</p>
<p>FA stuff is honestly the same at every top school, fill out FAFSA and CSS and the schools are need blind. Duke won’t give more than 5k in loans every year (the rest is grant/work study) and does meet full demonstrated need mostly through these grants. </p>
<p>The Adcom went personal and seemed like they liked their time at Duke, while maybe you weren’t into Nasher (the fact that you remembered that probably meant that she said it way too much) or the Frosh campus, hopefully that doesn’t turn you off.</p>