arcadia

By et. al., I assume you mean Swarthmore. Let's count the number of elite national universities we could place in front of Duke.

goldenboy8784

http://mup.asu.edu/research2011.pdf
Total Research: Duke is #2 among private schools.
Federal Research: Duke is #6 among private schools.
Endowment Assets: Duke is #11 among private schools.
Annual Giving: Duke is #9 among private schools.
National Academy Members: Duke is #11 among private schools.
Faculty Awards: Duke is #10 among private schools.
Median SAT: Duke is #14 among private schools.

Duke excels in nearly every area that a research university is measured by. Jealous that you couldn't get admitted to Berkeley and had to settle for UCLA?

goldenboy8784

Swarthmore, Pomona, Welleseley, et al.

arcadia

Hmmm. never heard of Welleseley. Must be a hybrid of Wellesley and Wesleyan. Probably filled with a bunch of very liberal female overachievers.

beyphy

And that's why it's 'extremely good' as i claimed. But lets face it, the elites compete with one another, and Duke is just slightly outside the periphery. This can be seen here:

Duke still step below top schools | The Chronicle

and in the Stanford faculty minutes. I needn't repeat the point, as this was most eloquently stated by phantasmagoric:

Again, Duke is extremely good. But non-elite. I'd actually like to see some cross-admit statistics of how Middlebury fares against Pomona, Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, etc.

I SIRed to UCLA before i even received the rejection from Berkeley. The rejection was largely arbitrary (with as many applications as they receive they sometimes have to be) and i was essentially rejected because i missed a phone call. I hold no regrets. I received an extremely good education for very minimal debt (under five figures) which i could have completely avoided had i wanted to. I got an education from the top UC in the field (historically and this year) and i am completely satisfied with my education. You and your petty comments aren't going to change that.

tortoise

http://mup.asu.edu/research2011.pdf

Interesting report. Looks like Duke is 12th, not 2nd, in total research. Impressive showing nonetheless. Their biological sciences are very strong. Definitely "elite" by any reasonable measure.

Sam Lee

Bio sci and medical research drive most of "total research" for many schools (80%-100%). For these schools, the numbers say very little about their non-bio/non-medical fields (e.g. engineering, math, computer sci, physical sciences, etc.)

kevinchen1219

Hey Man, thanks for you stats about duke which is very convicing. But hey, dont get personal, I appreciate all your help!

Sam Lee

kevinchen1219,

Northwestern is actually the most diverse of the bunch. It got six undergrad schools, including music, education, communications, and journalism. They are all among the best of their kind. So on top of the liberal arts and engineering students, you'd get to meet a large number of aspiring educators, journalists, tv producers, and performing artists.

goldenboy8784

I would agree with Sam there. Honestly, just go with your gut here; you can't go wrong between Duke/Northwestern and Middlebury. Vanderbilt is probably the least diverse.

timetodecide12

Actually, Vanderbilt has an equal if not more URMs than the other schools. It is only “less diverse” in the sense there are fewer Asians (the other schools have Asians overrepresented, compared to the US population, to a larger degree).

Vanderbilt's Diversity -
Hispanics of any race 7.8%
Asian or Hawaiian/Pacific Islander 7.8%
Black/African American 8.0%
Two or more races 5.6%
Total Minority 29.2%
International 5.8%

k&s

Yep - besides having the largest student body, it's the most diverse when it comes to the type of students - from the extremely artsy to the extremely technical and those in btwn.

Plus easy access to Chicago leads to doing more things and meeting all diff. kinds of people (for instance, when I was at school, I got to know a couple of blues musicians - one who toured with the Rolling Stones in Europe).

kenyanpride

I love how beyphy digs up articles that are almost a decade old and then uses them to 'fortify' his ludicrous claim that Duke is not elite. Just fyi, the article is comparing Duke to Harvard, Yale and Princeton only. In the context of that article, those are the only schools that are considered to be truly elite. Please do us all a favor and give us a break from your relentless hogwash.

beyphy

It's a bit of a stretch to call a six year old article 'almost a decade old.' Reputation changes very slowly. It's isn't likely that Duke's done anything within those six years to largely change its reputation.

I wrote none of the content that i posted. So i'm not sure exactly how it's my 'hogwash.' Perhaps my point about Middlebury being an elite university was lacking in evidence. But, if memory serves, SWAMP (which Middlebury is a part of) is the LAC equivalent of HYPSM.

Overall, it just depends on broad you want to be in your usage of words. Is Duke among the best universities in the US? Yes. Would that make it elite? (Arguably) yes. Is Duke among the top 5 universities in the US? No. Would that make it non elite? (Arguably) yes.

BeanTownGirl

Hard to remember the original post at this point ;-) , but if the OP is considering engineering at all then Middlebury is out of the running completely.