<p>“I agree that Duke and Wake are not peer schools, as there is actually a significant difference between the two. But Duke and Rice/Vanderbilt/WashU/Georgetown/etc? The difference is much too small to make a decision between Duke and any of these based on reputation.”</p>
<p>Ever heard of Research triangle park? Or the Levine science center? Google it. That alone places Duke one solid league ahead R/V/W/Gtown.</p>
<p>“On the other hand, the only person whom I’ve seen promoting the notion of a definitive top 15 schools is goldenboy8784.”</p>
<p>Just stop trying commodore15. You tried to make it seems as though schools outside of the top 15 are on par with Duke when in reality they are not (with the exception of Berkeley).</p>
<p>I’d say goldenboy8784’s tier rankings is pretty spot on.</p>
<p>Being subjective really doesn’t help your point at all. In fact, it indirectly reinforces my argument that goldenboy’s idea of 15 schools being a cut above the rest is simply not one that many people subscribe to, as the only support that you offer for his point of view is your own biased approval. </p>
<p>Ever heard of Research triangle park? Or the Levine science center? Google it. That alone places Duke one solid league ahead R/V/W/Gtown.</p>
<p>The Research Triangle Park has produced absolutely nothing of considerable utility to society. It has not birthed even one famous company with a major product since its founding.
The Levine science center is a collection of Duke’s research buildings that happens to be very large.
I’m stunned that you think either of these considerably bolsters your argument.</p>
<p>@ Commodore15: As a Duke rising senior who also spent time at one of its peer schools, I agree with you. I find it silly and amusing how some of my Duke peers are getting so riled up and defensive that Duke is being compared to Vanderbilt/Rice/NU etc. I don’t know why many of my peers at Duke find it necessary to boast about how Duke is better than other peer institutions. No one in the real world gives a crap and would find this constant bickering elitist, and it reflects poorly on the students that attend Duke. Yes, there is a difference between the aforementioned schools, but having spent time at both Duke and Rice, I can easily say they are peer institutions. Main difference is that Rice is smaller than Duke, so some of the non-traditional departments don’t have as much resources. Just because Duke has the LSRC doesn’t mean it’s better; I don’t see the logic in that. Rice recently opened a building similar to the LSRC in the Texas Medical Center with 8 floors dedicated biomedical research space. I did research there, and IMHO, it is nicer than the LSRC.</p>
<p>@ CuseAmbassador: Why don’t you google “Texas Medical Center”? Rice is next to the Texas Medical Center, which is the world’s largest medical center and contains some of the most respected medical institutions, such as MD Anderson, Texas Heart Institute, etc. It beats DUMC in my book. Rice also has active partnerships with many of the hospitals and research facilities at TMC, along with Baylor School of Medicine and UT-Houston School of Medicine; I know many Rice undergrads who work in labs and hospitals at TMC. In my opinion, there are more clinical and biomedical research opportunities at Rice than at Duke. Last time I checked, Vanderbilt has a pretty prestigious, well-regarded medical center on its campus too.</p>
<p>Duke isn’t a peer of Stanford. Stanford has only four peers which are HYPM. The ONLY school that has ANY chance of joining these elites is probably Caltech; it’s currently ranked #1, above Harvard, in the THE Rankings for research, and has been ranked as the #1 university in US News. </p>
<p>Duke is a solid tier-two school. Having Chicago, Hopkins, the middle and lesser ivies, and so on, as your peers is nothing to be ashamed about.</p>
<p>I do agree that Duke’s a great school however, and can certainly get you any job, and into any graduate/professional school (including Harvard Law ;))</p>
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<p>what? Duke’s way over 100 years old; it was founded in 1838. In fact, i nearly all the universities in the U.S. news top 25 are over 100 years old, with the exception of UCLA of course (which is 92 i believe.)</p>
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<p>Yet but it’s not #5 on US News, and not #4 behind HYP in terms of reputation or most other things. But most universities aren’t, so that’s not surprising.</p>
You have no idea what you’re talking about. I just did a quick Google search and here’s some momentous discoveries/findings that Duke researchers have contributed to in just in the past month.</p>
<p>This thread is honestly just full of Duke elitists, and it makes me kind of sick. Duke will NEVER catch up to HYPS, and this is simply because of the global reputation that HYPS have built since they were founded. As time goes on, this reputation will only grow as will Duke’s, but Duke will never catch up. Duke is an incredible institution, but it is not a peer of HYPS, and will never be. Duke is one of the few schools that has gone down in US News rankings over the past couple years, while schools like Vanderbilt and Rice are on the rise. What is a more interesting argument is whether Vandy and Rice will catch up to Duke, which is definitely possible in the near future, as they build up their endowment and reputation. Duke has been decreasing in the ranks, and probably will continue to do so. Currently Vandy/Rice/Georgetown are not Duke’s peers, but in the near future they definitely could be.</p>
<p>That sounds like semantics to me. it’s on Duke’s website as well though; but technically they say “created” which i think is a better term, since it was essentially created from a previously founded university (Trinity College.)</p>
<p>notice how they use “expansion” and not “foundation” (although you didn’t say this in your OP, so i assume you used it after i did.)</p>
<p>I suppose it’s fair to say that duke was “established” in 1838 (as it says on their wikipedia page) but “founded” in 1924. Still, i think it’s deceptive to say that Duke isn’t even 100 years old, considering that it was “founded” close to 100 years after it was “established”</p>
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<p>I don’t know about “any” but i’d say this is generally true.</p>
<p>Granted this thread is becoming a bit elitist etc. However, danders what makes you think Duke will fall further when its one of the ONLY schools whose application numbers are increasing, and it had the LARGEST growth in endowment last year. Also, (god forbid) if Duke does fall out of the top 10 (and trust me its not going to happen) how does that equate to becoming a peer of Vandy or Rice. According to your notion, Chicago and Penn are as good as Stanford, and in 1999 or whatever, Duke was better than Yale and Stanford! Come on now, don’t be absurd. Duke kids on this form (myself included) are very passionate about their school (which is awesome) and this can sometimes be misconstrued as being elitist. However, if you think about it objectively there is no way Duke is falling because it has OBJECTIVELY improved in all the important metrics (acceptance rate etc). In fact, if you factor in cost of living, Duke probably offers its faculty the most competitive salaries in the country. We are perpetually one of the best feeders to top professional schools. Until very recently we were ranked higher than Stanford in BOTH the world and us rankings (check out 2005) if you don’t believe me! Does that mean we were better? No. So even if vandy/rice do come closer, it doesn’t make them as good let alone better. Also to put things in perspective, Duke’s aggregate score on us news is 1 percentage point lower than mit/stanford etc. 92 vs 93! How much of a difference does that 1% really make? Lastly, I want to draw your attention to the fact that its much harder to go from 10 to 1 than it is to go from 25 to 15. It’s the same as the an olympic 100m sprinter going from 9.8 seconds to 9.7 seconds versus a high school student going from 14 to 13 seconds (hope you like the analogy).</p>
<p>“Why don’t you google “Texas Medical Center”? Rice is next to the Texas Medical Center, which is the world’s largest medical center and contains some of the most respected medical institutions, such as MD Anderson, Texas Heart Institute, etc. It beats DUMC in my book. Rice also has active partnerships with many of the hospitals and research facilities at TMC, along with Baylor School of Medicine and UT-Houston School of Medicine; I know many Rice undergrads who work in labs and hospitals at TMC. In my opinion, there are more clinical and biomedical research opportunities at Rice than at Duke. Last time I checked, Vanderbilt has a pretty prestigious, well-regarded medical center on its campus too.”</p>
<p>All you’ve done is stated your opinions and who you know that works at where. Show us some discoveries or findings like goldenboy has provided. Until then your post is simply just moot.</p>
<p>“Duke is a solid tier-two school. Having Chicago, Hopkins, the middle and lesser ivies, and so on, as your peers is nothing to be ashamed about.”</p>
<p>The only shame here is the fact that you use the term “lesser ivies.” What does that even mean? And I would argue that Duke is and historically has been a cut above all the schools you’re referring to.</p>
<p>You’ve misconstrued my post. My first point was that RTP hasn’t accomplished much in the way that a research park is intended to (though it has supplied jobs). Look at what Silicon Valley has produced: Hewlett Packard, Netscape, Adobe, e*trade, Intel, Genentech, etc. My second point was that having the Levine Science Center doesn’t really give Duke an edge. It’s just a giant facility. Sure, the research that happens there is important, but that’s a testament to the faculty who work there. I’m not knocking Duke’s research, I’m refuting CuseAmbassador’s argument. </p>
<p>Also, regarding recent productions of Vanderbilt researchers:</p>
<p>*June research hasn’t been posted on the blog yet, but a sampling for the month of May is below.</p>
<p>As an older alumnus who has served on several senior Duke volunteer leadership Boards and Executive Committees during the last two decades, I believe this entire thread is somewhat ill-founded.</p>
<p>Duke aspires to be the best Duke possible, not to replicate any other university’s approaches. This certainly includes superior academics and research – undergraduate, postgraduate and professional schools, alike – on the same level as HYP’s, but it goes MUCH further.</p>
<p>It also embraces pervasive scholarly integration and collaboration, which is not always common at other “elite” universities. In addition, it incorporates continuously enhancing a shared Duke spirit, affinity and cohesion that – again – may not be universal at peer institutions (to illustrate, Duke’s Vice Provost for undergraduate STEM plays in the undergraduate pep band at every home basketball game . . . I wonder if things of that nature are common at, for example, Harvard?). Moreover, it strongly emphasizes an agility to adapt and to innovate that is unusual among our peers . . . and governance, leadership and finances to support this vision. </p>
<p>Terry Sanford, our president throughout much of the 1970s and 1980s, personified this Duke-uniqueness; he deeply understood that our successes were best measured by how well we served our constituencies and society within our own model, NOT by adopting other universities’ paradigms. His wisdom and his legacy remains our beacon.</p>
<p>The two C’s are gaining quickly on Stanford in terms of student body and faculty and given their locations in NYC and Chicago it would not be surprising if they equal and surpass Stanford in a few years. In light of the NYC project, Cornell will also gain quickly on Stanford in the hard sciences and Duke is already a Stanford peer in medicine, law, and banking. </p>
<p>Further, in the East, Stanford is not viewed as the end all and be all that it is in the west. As the New Yorker noted in a recent article, people are starting to question whether academics have been left behind in the “entrepreneurial culture” of Stanford where adjuncts (good at founding start ups but not so good at teaching anything) teach many classes.</p>
<p>The student bodies of Stanford, Columbia, and Chicago are already too similar for one to meaningfully differentiate between them. There are more than enough good students to go around at the top schools, and many slightly lesser schools are therefore able to fill their classes with top talent as well.
It would be very surprising if either Columbia or Chicago managed to catch Stanford any time soon. Columbia and Chicago have had their respective NY and Chicago locations since their founding…why would things change because of location now? Also, Stanford has arguably the more advantageous location; it is in the heart of Silicon Valley, and many of the industries which the region cultivates are those that are experiencing growth at the moment.
Cornell’s NYC campus will concentrate on engineering and technology. It isn’t an effort to directly improve Cornell’s hard science departments (with the possible exception of computer science).
Duke is a peer of Stanford in medicine (many in the medical profession would argue that Duke exceeds Stanford in this regard; medicine is what made Duke what it is today), but it is not a peer of Stanford in law…or “banking” (which isn’t a field and which is impossible to measure by any standard academic performance metric). Duke law is very good and Duke is very much a target for banks and consulting firms, but Stanford’s law is on par with Harvard’s and second to only Yale’s, and Stanford is recruited more heavily by top financial and managerial companies. </p>
<p>I do agree that the New Yorker article addresses what may be a rather serious problem at Stanford, but the issue in itself is more of a double-edged sword. These connections benefit Stanford quite a bit as an institution ($$$), despite potentially precluding some of the traditional intellectualism that may be found at a more cerebral institution such as Chicago. Many would actually argue that it’s better to be more like Stanford and less like Chicago; Stanford’s focus aligns with forward thinking, whereas Chicago’s is arguably outdated. The field of engineering, for example, is anticipated to be central to the advancement of technology, science, and civilization in innumerable ways throughout the future. Stanford has one of the top two engineering departments in the world, while Chicago lacks an engineering department altogether. Considering that Chicago has already been a “hidden gem” of sorts among top colleges, it’s unlikely that it has positioned itself for future acclaim as well as Stanford has.</p>
<p>As far as academic quality is concerned, I think Duke is already at par with HYPSM. Maybe even better in some areas already. As far as prestige goes, witht he exception of Caltech, HYSPM are head-and-shoulders above all the rest, including Duke, in terms of undergraudate prestige. HYPSM(C) are in their own league, and are the only real peer schools to each other. In general, Duke’s peers are Columbia, Penn, Dartmouth, Brown, JHU, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Berkeley and the like.</p>
<p>Maybe. But talk about enrollment yield. How many cross-admits of Duke and Stanford who would rather end up at Duke than at Stanford given both schools would cost the same? I guess not many. On the other hand, Stanford steals a lot of HYP admits. Stanford even wins against Princeton and Yale in the cross-admit battles. Only Harvard beats Stanford in that area. If Duke can have 40% yield among the Stanford-Duke cross admits, it can be a Stanford peer. Until then, Stanford is in a league above Duke.</p>
<p>Stanford is in a unique position. I see Stanford surpassing Harvard during my lifetime, and I don’t believe that Columbia even has a chance of catching up to Stanford at the undergraduate level. At the end of the day, the only schools that have consistently remained at the top of the rankings are HYPS(M). MIT is not a well rounded university in my books, so I exclude it from the discussion. However, even within this tier, Yale seems to be in decline while Harvard and Stanford power on. I don’t see Duke taking 40% of cross admits away from Stanford in the foreseeable future. However, I would not be so quick to dismiss the possibility of Duke eventually drawing a good number of cross admits away from Yale. I would attribute Yale’s gradual but noticeable decline to a focus on the humanities as opposed to the STEM fields. Yale has also caught wind of the situation they find themselves in, and are attempting to remedy this disparity asap. The fact that there endowment is so much larger than Duke’s allows them the freedom to correct their course and become a scientific stronghold. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of some of the ‘lesser’ ivies. The fact that Duke has always been a research university that has demonstrated particular brilliance in the field of life sciences will hold it in very good stead for the next few decades as the inevitable biotech revolution begins to dawn on humanity.</p>
(which is 92 i believe.)</p>