So Penn State graduates are the most employable? That’s what the WSJ’s ranking would have you believe. These lists are taking all jobs into account. Graduates of elite schools don’t just want to be employed. They want to work at the best firms.
Also, the only schools listed on 2016’s 30 under 30 list are:
Also, ASU has 10 times as many undergraduates as Duke does. So any analysis needs to be carried out on a per capita basis.
ASU is a perfectly respectable school but it doesn’t even come close to being able to provide the opportunities that Duke does.
Not that any of this matters in this particular instance. The student made a binding commitment to Duke. Anyone with a modicum of integrity wouldn’t back out now.
“ASU is a perfectly respectable school but it doesn’t even come close to being able to provide the opportunities that Duke does.”
What’d be great is to have some actual numbers behind all these generalities. I think many/most have a “common belief” that Duke > ASU/Barrett, so rehashing that (or the converse) really isn’t interesting. I think the OP was really trying to get at some objective way to quantify the additional “value” provided by a Duke BS/A vs an Barrett BS/A.
For instance, is the person who might be at or near the top of their class at Barrett really at a disadvantage to a person who is middle of the road at Duke (assuming this is the more average scenario)? Or to put it another way, do you HAVE to be the cream of the crop at Barrett to sniff the same opportunities that an average Dukie would? We have a notion that being at the top at Duke is likely to create more opportunities than Barrett, but are there any actual numbers or facts to bear this out, or is it just more “well of course man, it’s DUKE!” And of course this is all under the context of moving on to grad school (vs jumping out into the real world right after).
I agree with @txNerd and will go a bit further. Deciding on a college is a complicated task filled with nuance and it is meaningless to use hyperbolic descriptions like “ludicrous”, “laughably absurd”, and “doesn’t even come close”. It is not so clear cut to judge whether one school obviously provides more opportunities than another, especially when there are so many ways you can measure opportunities.
Duke has a world class and well-deserved reputation of providing lots of post-graduate opportunities for its students. But Barrett/ASU also regularly places its students in the top graduate schools. Maybe @IBsciencelife wants to get a Fulbright research fellowship to get a jump start on graduate school research. ASU performs fantastically well in [winning[/url] Fulbright research grants. In some metrics, ASU [url=<a href=“https://asunow.asu.edu/content/asu-bests-competition-and-court%5Ddoes”>https://asunow.asu.edu/content/asu-bests-competition-and-court]does better](Top Producers of U.S. Fulbright Students by Type of Institution, 2012-13) than Duke.
This is not to say that ASU is better than Duke. There are plenty of other metrics in which Duke beats ASU. But the main point I’m trying to make is that it is foolhardy to rely on outdated assumptions like ASU is a worse school that is clearly going to provide fewer opportunities than a traditionally elite school like Duke.
@purpleacorn , in this case I think the broader discussion does not require the OP’s participation to make it worthwhile for others. This type of question really strikes at the heart of trying to make truly intelligent choices related to one’s educational and financial future, vs simply following the established herd mentality to one’s potential financial detriment.
Furthermore, you’re acting like the person who called ASU the “most uniquely successful” school in the nation wasn’t resorting to hyperbole.
This is a school that accepts 80% of the students who apply. There is nothing wrong with that and accessibility is a large part of the mission of most state schools but let’s not pretend that ASU is Princeton.
Furthermore, none of this should even be relevant in this scenario. The OP made a commitment to Duke. He/she can afford to attend Duke and abide by that commitment. It is settled then. There really should be no more room for discussion. This thread has served its purpose.
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”.
IMO, if the parents are OK with paying the EFC for Duke, 20K is an acceptable amount of student indebtedness. Said student could also get a part time and/or summer job to cut those loans in half.
Grad schools do take institutional prestige into account in their admissions and funding decisions. On balance, I’d go with Duke.
If the debt load were substantially higher, my answer would be different.
@flyertalk01 Thanks for pointing that out. Do you know why ASU alums are winning so many Fulbright scholarships? Is there a concerted effort to target these awards? I’m genuinely curious because ASU does appear to be punching above its weight. Beating Princeton, Columbia, Duke and Penn on a pretty regular basis definitely takes some doing!
Of course, in the interest of fairness, it’s worth pointing out that Duke has eight times as many Rhodes scholars (80 times more on a per capita basis). That difference is slightly more pronounced than the difference between 29 and 33%
ASU’s Fulbright success is largely due to Barrett Honors College’s success with its ONSA.
The Lorraine W. Frank Office of National Scholarship Advisement (ONSA) helps Arizona State University Students compete for national and international scholarship and fellowship awards. ASU students have been awarded over 500 national awards worth millions of dollars in external funding, placing ASU among the top schools in the United States for success in national scholarship competitions.
Duke is number 7 on the list of most innovative universities. 3rd among universities ranked in the top 20 overall (behind Stanford and MIT). Not too shabby.
In order to answer the OP (for any other readers since OP himself/herself hasn’t come back): OP doesn’t have a choice. It’s not a matter of “ASU Barrett is cheaper”. OP knew that when entering the ED contract. Now, OP has to honor his/her commitment. The ONLY reason you can back out of an ED offer is if the school isn’t affordable. Duke is affordable (and having a stafford loan packaged in does not count as “unaffordable”). Therefore OP has to attend Duke.
Simple.
OP doesn’t seem to worry that he’ll be blackballed (note that if OP backed out of Duke, Duke is forever off his list since they ask “have you ever applied to Duke”…), nor seems to have dwelled on consequences for his high school - subsequent classes, current classmates, and guidance counselor.