<p>The point is undergrad education is a sideline at Cal Tech. The main business is research and producing PhD's.</p>
<p>i doubt that..its not without reason that caltech is a top ranked uni(even for undergrad..)
I havent heard anything like that from any caltech student..
I think they manage both pretty well..heck..one guy who went to caltech for undergrad and MIT for grad said its better to do undergrad at caltech!
im pretty sure they can manage undergrad education and research well at the same time..
for a more detailed report il get back to you in a few months ; )</p>
<p>CalTech is awesome for undergrad AND grad from what I've heard</p>
<p>However, you don't have any time to have any fun...thats something I've also heard</p>
<p>excellent academics < well-rounded, IMO, but I'm sure at every school there is something for everybody - its just that Cal Tech is so small that it might have more limited social options than MIT or similar academic institutions</p>
<p>friend got accepted to CalTech</p>
<p>the reqs alone are enough to keep their students busy and their undergrad program at a high level</p>
<p>Stanford's peers would seem to be the other schools that are a part of HYPMS.</p>
<p>As for Stanford's lower SAT scores (than Duke's) - (1) Stanford has more varsity teams than any other private university; (2) Stanford, unlike Duke, doesn't award merit scholarships and (3) for what it's worth, talking standardized test scores, Stanford has higher ACT scorers among its student body.</p>
<p>Stanford doesn't have lower SATs than Duke...</p>
<p>On that note, I don't think a few dozen merit scholarships a year would skew the SAT scores by a significant amount, since its still percentiles, and 25% of the student body is still 400 people</p>
<p>
[quote]
Stanford doesn't have lower SATs than Duke...
[/quote]
</p>
<p>
[quote]
for what it's worth, talking standardized test scores, Stanford has higher ACT scorers among its student body.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>again, not true, see links</p>
<p>
[quote]
As for Stanford's lower SAT scores (than Duke's) - (1) Stanford has more varsity teams than any other private university;
[/quote]
</p>
<p>stanford has almost exactly as many varsity athletes as duke as a percentage of its class</p>
<p>duke = 10.3%
<a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/983/story/548433.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.newsobserver.com/983/story/548433.html</a></p>
<p>stanford = 12.5%
<a href="http://www.stanford.edu/dept/uga/living/4_7_faqs.html#15%5B/url%5D">http://www.stanford.edu/dept/uga/living/4_7_faqs.html#15</a></p>
<p>elsijfdl,</p>
<p>Are those "admitted" stats? It's likely that Duke, with its much lower yield, will have greater adjustment (drop) in the SAT once you look at "enrolled" stats. Actually look at Yahoo Education, Northwestern appears to have higher ACT than Duke. Does that mean NU is the same level as Stanford? I don't think so.</p>
<p>Even if Duke's SAT is higher, that's just one year. I think as far as I can remember, Stanford usually have higher SATs. Maybe that year was different. If Stanford really wants to, they can put more importance on the numbers and jack up those scores. Stanford splits the cross-admits evenly with Yale and I've also seen quite a few people turning down Harvard for it on CC this year. I have yet seen anyone on CC that did the same for Duke without the merit scholarships.</p>
<p>In a way, I am not sure what you are trying to prove. But if you are talking about selectivity, I don't think there's any question that Stanford is a notch more selective.</p>
<p>By the way, Stanford has a record year:
23,956 applied
2465 accepted (10.3% admit rate)
1745 signed (70.8% yield)</p>
<p>The yield is comparable to Yale's and probably higher than Princeton's.</p>
<p>SamLee, those are students in the freshmen class, not admitted students</p>
<p>So all your points are moot. I just think Stanford has more geniuses that don't need to prove it with SATs, while Duke has a higher proportion of students who are just normal and really smart. I think thats a good enough explanation.</p>
<p>Also, Stanford is in Cali which means it doesn't compete with the students on the East Coast as much...consider that around 45% of Stanford's student body is in-state and Cali is the biggest state. In contrast, Duke is 15% in state, and NC is a much smaller state, and it is relatively close to the Ivies etc. Which is just one reason why Stanford does so well against HYPSM, and Duke still falters against them (usually losing 75-90% against HYPSM).</p>
<p>I) Undergrad: HYPM & Berkeley</p>
<p>II-1)Professional</p>
<p>1) Law : YLS, HLS
2) Buz: Wharton, HBS
3) Med: little weak here, perhaps UCLA</p>
<p>II-2)Grad
1) Humanities/Social Science: H Berkeley Yale
2) Hard Science/Math: H Berkeley Princeton MIT Caltech
3) Engineering: Berkeley MIT</p>
<p>thethoughtprocess,</p>
<p>The Californian thing is silly. Stanford does well against HYP mostly because of its academic reputation which is well-known in the world. It's every bit as good as HYP. If you are a ranking whore, you will find Stanford very attractive as it has more top ranked departments than the other three. Students tend to be happier with their undergrad experience than their Harvard counterparts. It's difficult to find weakness in Stanford.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Undergrad: HYPM & Berkeley
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Berkeley..this thread is gonna be controversial and more than 50 pages long.</p>
<p>Demographics plays a large role in determining which are "peer schools" today. In 1994, there were 2.3 million high school graduates. In 2007, there will be 3.4 million. So the universe of students is much bigger and there are undoubtedly a larger number of very top students. Howver, the number of entering places at the USNWR Top 20 is only 32,000. As a result, students who ten years ago were automatics (if there was such a thing) for HYP are now matriculating at a broader universe of schools. Those schools increasingly have higher caliber student bodies that arguably compare well statistically with HYP. Stanford is clearly one of those schools and is broadly seen today as the premier university on the West Coast. </p>
<p>Still, other schools are also benefiting from the demographics. Duke is definitely in this bunch as they have also gotten some of the spillover that historically would have gone to HYP. Today, Duke's position in the Southeast is as secure as Stanford's is in the West. In the Northeast, both Duke and Stanford have their fans with Stanford likely having a slight edge (possibly a grass is greener effect as well as the publicity benefits of being close to Silicon Valley) and its continuing association with the expression "HYPSM." In the Northeast, IMO Duke would be considered at the same level as Dartmouth, Columbia, Williams and Amherst and ahead of Brown, Cornell and U Penn.</p>
<p>hawkette,</p>
<p>I agree with all of the things you said. But I think you need to add that Stanford has many top ranked departments across just about any field while Duke doesn't. It is one of the main reasons why Stanford, despite its short history and long distance from HYPM, is associated with the expression HYPSM at the first place while Duke, or UPenn...etc. isn't. Stanford also has contributed greatly to development of Silicon Valley with its large number of top engineers/computer scientists. It's not like Stanford has been lucky to be coincidentally in the Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley is where it is because of Stanford.</p>
<p>Personally I think the inclusion of the S to HYP was to make the folks happy on the Left Coast. :)</p>
<p>I think you may underrate Duke a little and Duke has had a ton to do with the success of Research Triangle which does not benefit from a large local metropolis with millions of people to support it. Also, I'm not so hung up on these individual department issues which are nice, but it's like comparing two fabulous baseball teams and one has a better shortstop although the overall teams are extremely close. </p>
<p>I also think not enough is being made of the great similarities of the undergraduate experience at Stanford and Duke. IMO, these two schools are much more alike than Stanford is to any of the Ivies. And I mean that in a positive way as I think the Ivies are great academically, but lag places like Stanford and Duke in many other aspects of undergraduate life.</p>
<p>Stanford has about 250 great players, Duke about 50. That's a big gap.</p>
<p>Exactly...........</p>
<p>The role that Duke has played is nothing like Stanford literally "fathering" the development of Silicon Valley. It's not even close. There are UNC and NCST too. Duke's strength in engineering/computer/pharmacuetical (chemistry isn't well-ranked and it doesn't even have chemE department) isn't that great. If anything, I'd probably find more fingerpints of UNC and/or NCST in the Triangle's development.</p>