Duke vs Barrett Honors College (ASU)

flyertalk01
Mon, 11 Jan 2016 16:48:38 +0000

Sorry for not addressing the OP commitment issue. I thought this conversation had evolved to a broader discussion about the merits of general comparisons between schools. I agree with you that if OP has committed and his/her financial situation has not changed, then there is an obligation to attend Duke.

I also agree that “most uniquely successful school” is also pretty hyperbolic and that I should have called that out. That statement wasn’t useful. But the “most innovative” description can at the very least be supported by the previously cited [US News analysis](http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/innovative). We can discuss the merits of that particular review, but it at the very least shows that it is neither “laughable absurd” nor “ludicrous” to call ASU “most innovative”.

In terms of the [Fulbright analysis](US Fulbright Program - Top Producing Institutions), the overall data presented shows that ASU has had more success than Duke. If you take all 11 years of the given data into consideration (2004-2015), ASU has more Fulbright wins than Duke in 7 out of 11 years. It also has had a higher win percentage (awards out of applications) than Duke on 7 out of the 11 years. Overall, since 2004, ASU has had 182 Fulbright awards out of 544 applications (33% win rate) and Duke has had 154 Fulbright awards out of 533 applications (29% win rate).

Again, this is NOT to say that ASU is better than Duke; nor am I saying that ASU is Princeton. My (fairly mundane) argument is that ASU does better than traditionally elite schools in some metrics and it does worse in other metrics. If it happens that an applicant aspires to excel in a particular metric in which ASU is stronger than another school, then that applicant has a compelling case to pick ASU.

My point is that applicants should never make a college decision based on a general blanket reputation that School X is better than School Y (or something similarly vague like School X offers more opportunities than School Y). Rather, the decision process should be something like “School X is better than School Y based on Metric Z that I care about so I am going to pick School X”.