<p>Compared with Stanford they do. Stanford has over 250 NAS members compared with 50 at Duke and nearly twice as many annual major awrad winners than Duke. Now at this level second-rate is still good--just not the best.</p>
<p>Second rate ? Now. Now. </p>
<p>Politically incorrect? maybe. ;)</p>
<p>The fact that a professor is not in NAS probably means squat for institutional comparison purposes.</p>
<p>Academy nominees can only be nominated by Academy members.
Hmmm. So, a guy from Stanford who is a NAS member will nominate a guy from
A) Stanford, or B) Duke?</p>
<p>Ok, so now the number of NAS members at Stanford goes up.</p>
<p>1sokkermom,</p>
<p>Nice investigative job! So the rich gets richer. D*mn! So many systems are corrupted. :(</p>
<p>Now let's put Northwestern, my alma mater, into the mix...lol...and Vanderbilt...It's nice for any school to be compared with Stanford.</p>
<p>Barrons,</p>
<p>Point taken, but Science medals equate to quality of research, not quality of instruction. </p>
<p>I think the best way to compare across institutions is to look at the students, not the professors - after all, there is no smooth way to compare professors across institutions but there is for students.</p>
<p>If you can prove the profs at Duke are better teachers have at it. It is clear that those at Stanford are more renown.</p>
<p>If it is not important why are on the make schools like UVa, NYU and USC specifically going after "NAS" level faculty to add to their schools?</p>
<p>Sokkermon--stick to soccer. Most academics view NAS membership as the highest honor for an academic short of the Nobel Prize. Every school wants them on their faculty and the admissions process involves much more than the nomination.</p>
<p>I don't think professors at Duke are better than ones at Stanford. I just think that having less NAS medals doesn't make them worse.</p>
<p>I just thought of another reason why Stanford is slightly better. Stanford has no merit-based scholarship and it still competes well against HYPM with a 70% yield. Each year, Duke gives out 70 merit-based full-ride (4% of the student body) but manages just ~40% yield. That 70 are probably at least 1/3 if not half of all NMFs Duke has each year.</p>
<p>
Come on. Are you REALLY saying that the professors teaching organic chemistry to sophomores at Stanford are likely to be much better than organic chemistry professors at Duke??? Take a certain Classics</a> professor at Stanford as an example of Duke/Stanford faculty. I would match ANY of my professors in Classics and Environmental Science (including the nation's foremost expert on beach erosion) against those at Stanford. Heck, one of my Roman History professors wrote the textbook used at Stanford.</p>
<p> [quote=Sam Lee] Each year, Duke gives out 70 merit-based full-ride (4% of the student body) but manages just ~40% yield.
1) Duke offers full tuition. Although quite a lot of money, this is nowhere near a full ride.</p>
<p>2) Stanford has a considerably larger budget and can offer better financial aid. Unless I'm mistaken, Stanford has enormously reduced the EFC for those making less than $60,000 a year.</p>
<p>Sam Lee,</p>
<p>National Merit Finalists become finalists because of their high PSAT/SAT scores. Duke's 75th percentile SAT score is 1550 (same as Stanford), meaning that over 25% of the students have a score higher than that. </p>
<p>Also, there are usually only 50 merit scholarship students who attend in a year, even though many more are offered (those kids probably go to HYPSM). That makes about them about 3% of the student body. Also note that these kids are just geniuses, which doesn't make them high SAT-scorers. Also note that some of these kids are international, so they aren't in the running for National Merit, and also some get in ED so they would have gone to Duke anyways.</p>
<p>If you assume that anyone who has above a 1550 on their SAT's has a good change of getting the National Merit Scholarship, then 3/25 ---> only about 1/6 to 1/8 of National Merit Scholars were merit scholarship winners.</p>
<p>I think that looks about right. If you take 1/6 of Duke's National Merit Scholars away, it still would have more proportionally than Columbia, Brown, or Penn (not Dartmouth though).</p>
<p>Sorry, I meant full-tuition.</p>
<p>thethoughtprocess,</p>
<p>Point taken. But it still doesn't negate what I said about the significant difference in yield. </p>
<p>warblersrule86,</p>
<p>As far as EFC reduction goes, Stanford just copied what Harvard/Yale did.</p>
<p>"Sokkermon--stick to soccer."</p>
<p>Ouch, barrons. I'd tell you to stick to something. I'm just not sure what! ;)</p>
<p>To be quite honest with you, after a year of constant media attention, I'm sure that a certain group of Professors at Duke (about 88 of them) are much more "renown" than any group at Stanford. They may be going after the real Academy awards ! :cool:</p>
<p>Barrons,</p>
<p>Duke still has 50 NAS, thats good enough. Having more NAS winners who do research and don't teach classes really isn't that much of an advantage, believe it or not.</p>
<p>If Duke was so bad (your definition of bad is relative to HYPSM but still), why do the students that go there consistently near Stanford in quality? hmmm things to think about.</p>
<p>lol!</p>
<p>My little observation:</p>
<p>HYPSM <--> S = HYPM
HYPM > (slightly) Duke --> no controversy
Yet S > (slightly) Duke --> discussion & discussion</p>
<p>:rolleyes:</p>
<p>Also,
People on CC often say "UChicago is best for econ" (little controversy)
But their #1 ranking in econ is largely based on the Nobel winners.
Yet, we got "#NAS...etc. doesn't matter". </p>
<p>Sometime, I found myself in similar contradiction. </p>
<p>It's hard to find consensus when people contradict even themselves. ;)</p>
<p>Haha, I don't think Chicago is best for Econ and would always argue with anyone who said that...</p>
<p>I think the controversy started when someone pointed out students at Duke have higher SAT scores than ones at Stanford (I dunno how true that is), while the rest of HYPM has higher SATs than Duke...plus Duke and Stanford are much more similar to each other (partying smart kids) then the rest of HYPM so people might just enjoy comparing them more</p>
<p>But good observation haha</p>
<p>To me, the main reasons why Stanford's SAT is lower than HYPM are two:
1. athletes
2. more holistic/quirky admission (I can't verify that; I just have seen people saying that)</p>
<p>Actually WashU's SAT was even higher than Duke/Stanford last year. So does that mean WashU = Stanford also? SAT isn't everything and I think even the ones with low scores somehow must have amazing ECs in order to be one of the 10 that get into Stanford and if Stanford wants to jack up its score, it certainly can by shifting more emphasis on test scores. When I applied to colleges, the guy that got into Duke from my Hong Kong HS was ranked around 30th out of 260 students. The valedictorian made history in Hong Kong for being the first (and only one that year out of 100,000+ students) arts student with 10As at the O-level (students are divided into arts or science group) and he was flat-out rejected by Stanford. The grading curve in Hong Kong makes an A in any of the O-level subject much harder to get than an 800 on SAT II (or a B much harder to get than an A in the UK version of O-level).</p>
<p>The always correct PR 2007 survey gives Stanford high marks for undergrad experience--no Duke.</p>
<p>Sam Lee deserves a medal. This discussion should now be over.</p>
<p>In US NEWS graduate school ranking, Stanford beats Duke in almost every (perhaps every) field.</p>
<p>Stanford's faculty are more distinguished by any measure. Stanford has won far more top notched prizes: Nobel prize, National medal of science, Fields medal, Wolf prize, crafoord prize, Turing prize, national medal of technology. Duke's faculty has NOT won any of prize at that level. To reach Stanford's level, Duke needs to break the zero record first</p>
<p>"I doubt that anyone would easily pick Duke over Stanford when given a choice, may it be for ugrad or grad level. "</p>
<p>I am not so sure that there are that many cross applicants. I know many students at Duke that never applied to Stanford because that had no interest in the school at all. The same probably holds true for Stanford students.</p>