<p>TheSay, so when you state that Dook is the 10th most selective university in the U.S., how do you come to this conclusion?</p>
<p>I hope not by its 16% acceptance rate?</p>
<p>[2010</a> Admissions Tally - The Choice Blog - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2010-admissions-tally/]2010”>http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2010-admissions-tally/)</p>
<p>Please call me Saiyan or something resembling my username. Not “TheSay” or “Satan”</p>
<p>I go by this: [The</a> HARDEST Schools To Get Into 2010 (PHOTOS)](<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>The HARDEST Schools To Get Into 2010 (PHOTOS) | HuffPost College)</p>
<p>TheSay, how convenient that you forget to mention where the students that you met that were much brighter than MIT students were from?</p>
<p>was it Harvard?</p>
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<p>^@JohnMcCain:
No…they’re from Duke I thought I explicitly stated that…and I’m sure you’ll find some students at Ohio State who are much brighter than ones at Harvard…</p>
<p>TheSaiy, ha!</p>
<p>so you go by an early article on acceptance rates by the Huffington post to make the formal statement that Dook is the 10th most selective college in the U.S., but fail to research the actual data to determine the fouteen other accetance rates that are lower than Dook?</p>
<p>wow!</p>
<p>those are some great researching skills they taught you at Dook, eh?</p>
<p>Who says this is Duke bashing? You said the Colorado School of Mines is better than Berkeley. I said Cal, which is easily a top 3 engineering school, is better than Duke. Therefore, both the CSOM and Berkeley are better than Duke. This is just my opinion of course. Duke is indeed very good in biomedical engineering. Congrats. You majored in the one area in engineering that it’s not absolutely ordinary in.</p>
<p>Well, JohnMcCain12, I read what comes on my Yahoo! News feed. I don’t go about researching on this stuff, nor do I care/have the time to. And please don’t say “Dook.” It makes you sound unbelievably unintelligent. I might actually start calling you JohnAdams if you make an effort on your part :)</p>
<p>wow!</p>
<p>unbelievable!</p>
<p>TheSaiy, you go on a college message board and claim that Dook students are as bright as MIT students and use Dook’s accetance rate as an example and to top it off you refer to an article that appeared on the Yahoo news feed, instead of using easily available data on the raw figures?</p>
<p>and you are off by 50% in terms of Dook’s rank in selectivity if the acceptance rate is used, and now you expect us to take you seriously on your comments about Dook/MIT?</p>
<p>what is wrong with this picture?</p>
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<p>JohnMcCain, repeat after me: There are students at Duke who are brighter than students MIT. There are students at MIT brighter than students at Duke. </p>
<p>I have not offered Duke’s acceptance rate in any way to suggest Duke is better. This fact you have twisted like an idiot. Please go back an read what I posted. I posted Duke’s acceptance rate completely independent of the Duke/MIT comparison. It was in reference to the growing popularity of Duke after the Lacrosse incident.
The admissions said Duke’s acceptance rate is 14.8%, not 16%. I’m not sure about the credibility of that link you have me.
You need to relax more and stop being so closeminded. Like I said, I’ve been to both Duke and MIT. Have you even set foot at Duke? How about MIT? How would you ever know what the students are like in these institutions? </p>
<p>Please ask any credible person among these boards. They will agree with me.</p>
<p>I will still be calling you JohnMcCain if you stop saying Dook.</p>
<p>TheSaiy, oops, a little lacking on the research again, eh?</p>
<p>you seem to have forgetten the 235 students that were let in from the Waitlist by Duke?</p>
<p>oops, there goes the acceptance rate up to 16%.</p>
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<p>Unfortunately, if you meant to use Duke’s admissions’ office and credibility in the same sentence, you won’t find many “credible persons” to support you. The fact is that the admission’s office has developed a habit to misrepresent Duke’s admissions numbers by presenting selected data at self-serving points in time. Simply stated, the final numbers of October NEVER match the overly optimistic numbers released in April. And this is obviously by design, just as the reluctance by the staff of Duke to stop the abject practice of obfuscating the official numbers from prying eyes. Until someone at Duke decides to terminate the reliance on smok and mirrors, observers have to consider the school a bunch of liars, and pretty bad ones to boot. </p>
<p>Are there other schools that play similar game? Of course, but few reach the same obsession with gamesmanship that seems to consume Duke. As far as having a sub 15% admission rate for a freshman class at Duke, that does require either a lot more work (read manipulation) or a VERY gullible audience.</p>
<p>The saddest part is that Duke does not need to play such games. They are not in the same admission league as the HYPS of this world, but do not need to be to attract plenty of great candidates who cannot attend a higher ranked school. Duke is Duke and they should be proud of who they are instead of pretending to be something better.</p>
<p>TheSaiy, I don’t think that anyone would disagree with this, </p>
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<p>just like there are students at CalState Long Beach that are brighter than those at Duke.</p>
<p>but that is not what you originally posted, was it?</p>
<p>should I copy/paste your exact words to remind you?</p>
<p>here they are:</p>
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<p>so you see,TheSaiy, just because you know of a couple of students at Duke that are brighter than some students at MIT DOES NOT MAKE THE DUKE STUDENT BODY AS BRIGHT AS MIT, does it?</p>
<p>if so, then Long Beach State students as a whole are as bright as Duke students</p>
<p>but but but TheSaiy, you made a strong point to emphasize that Duke was very selective, in fact, so selective that it was ranked #10 in selectivity due to its low acceptance rate.</p>
<p>you were off by 50% in the relative standings on this matter, sinced Duke is at #15. In fact, that 16% acceptance rate is MORE THAN DOUBLE the acceptance rate of Harvard, Stanford and Yale.</p>
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<p>“The saddest part is that Duke does not need to play such games. They are not in the same admission league as the HYPS of this world, but do not need to be to attract plenty of great candidates who cannot attend a higher ranked school. Duke is Duke and they should be proud of who they are instead of pretending to be something better.”</p>
<p>But xiggi, I honestly think many Dookies here at CC feel they are on par with HYPS. I constantly see them comparing their school to one or more of those four, as well as MIT.</p>
<p>@xiggi: Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I meant the “Please ask anyone credible” in reference to Duke student body not being “dumber” than the MIT student body. I’ll try to be clear next time (Although the usage of the new “paragraph” should have indicated a new train of thought).</p>
<p>@JohnAdams12: I don’t believe in college vs college. To say MIT is better than Duke is terrible indeed. Why? Because that crushes the self esteem of Duke students who may be roaming among these boards. What if a student gets into MIT but rejected at Duke? Does that mean he’s somehow better than the MIT-rejected Duke student? I also don’t believe in saying MIT is better than, say, UCSB. As a high school student, I might have laughed at what I’m saying now. But as you get older…a choice between Harvard and UCSB isn’t a no brainer at all. If you’re a good student, you should be successful anywhere you go. </p>
<p>When people starting saying y school is better than X school, elitism starts. That is just terrible. It seems you enjoy being elitist, but I don’t. </p>
<p>My point is: Stop comparing universities. Different universities have different fits. Duke and MIT are both PRESTIGIOUS and SELECTIVE universities. You cannot go wrong.</p>
<p>As for my previous statement about Colorado School of Mines: I don’t normally use rankings, but PayScale rankings is an exception. I like this list and that’s why my fav is Harvey Mudd. I compare universities in this term for fun. 
Also, as a fellow Norcal, I hate Berkeley :p</p>
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Your logic does not hold up. If a “good student” has the maturity and ability to succeed at a lower-ranked school, they should surely be able to read anonymous opinions online without having their self-esteem destroyed.</p>
<p>“My point is: Stop comparing universities. Different universities have different fits. Duke and MIT are both PRESTIGIOUS and SELECTIVE universities. You cannot go wrong.”</p>
<p>Once again a Dukie is placing his school at the same level as HYPSM, albeit not overtly.</p>
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<p>I do somewhat agree. The Duke administration is striving to make Duke among the HYPS–or that’s the sort of feel I got. But I do feel its doing pretty well even though it does have a long way before it reaches the “HYPS level” of prestige and attraction. But from how other view it, its been swimming along with Columbia, UPenn, Brown, and Dartmouth for a while. I’m fairly content and I completely do agree with where its at. </p>
<p>But I was just telling JohnAdams that Duke isn’t a bad university that deserves any bash. Now I haven’t met any of these “crazed Dookies,” but from an objective point of view, I think its doing just fine.
And yes, I still do abide by this: If a student gets into Harvard and UCSB, I think its highly irresponsible to tell him to go to Harvard hands down. Harvard is a great choice, but if HE doesn’t feel it, then its pointless.
The same goes for Duke and MIT.</p>
<p>TheSaiy, well, thanks for the heads up on this…</p>
<p>so what you are saying then is that Duke is not any better than Cal State Northridge, Cal State Long Beach, UC Merced and UC Riverside…</p>
<p>and therefore there is absolutely no reason to even apply to Duke if you are a 4.0 GPA and 2,220 SAT person who plays 3 sports.</p>
<p>good to know</p>
<p>because certainly, students that attend the above schools will get just as good an education as if they graduated from Duke, according to you.</p>
<p>thanks again…</p>
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<p>“To say MIT is better than Duke is terrible indeed. Why? Because that crushes the self esteem of Duke students who may be roaming among these boards.”</p>
<p>Wow! I easily admit MIT is better overall as an academic institution than Michigan in areas where they can be compared. I can’t say the same for Duke as compared to Michigan. I hope this hasn’t crushed your self esteem too badly. This is just my opinion of course. :-)</p>