<p>Both are terrific schools for undergrad, but Duke is at a higher level than Georgetown. Duke is often the next in line after HYPSM. Rarely is that the case with Georgetown with the possible exception of its SFS program. I like both schools a lot, but I don’t think that this is that close of a call.</p>
<p>^ Statistics between Georgetown and Duke in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…</p>
<p>Duke>Georgetown</p>
<p>“proves that HS kids don’t know anything.”</p>
<p>Very true. And college students know even less. Which is why student-based rankings (such as the Princeton Review etc…) or surveys are ridiculous.</p>
<p>Alex,
It never ceases to amaze me how little you think of students. You must not have known many smart ones at your school. You know, from the paying customer’s perspective, what the student gets in the classroom is a heckuva lot more important than how many faculty awards Professor Smith receives or how many impenetrable articles are published in obscure academic journals. </p>
<p>In my experience, both as a student and as a recruiter, students are practically the only ones who know the real story about what goes on in the classroom. At good schools, undergrads expect a lot and usually they get a lot. And when they are asked, they don’t submerge their interests by defaulting to research reputations (often forged by grad programs). They want a good product in the classroom. </p>
<p>Given the amount of money that college students are spending these days, most students are paying attention to what they receive in the classroom and most can tell good stuff from bad stuff. They can sniff out which profs really care about the students’ interests and development and which don’t. </p>
<p>Student-based rankings are an excellent tool for divining the nature of the experience that prospective students will encounter when they get to a college. Like any other data point, they need substantiation when the prospective student learns about and/or visits the school, but this input can be invaluable, particularly for students interested in finding places where student learning is favored over research activity.</p>
<p>Hawkette, I think the world of students’ potential and abilities, but not of their experience in matters of the world. Student-based ratings and rankings are the worst. Besides, since students have no common frame of referrence (they did not take classes at several universities), their opinion cannot be used for comparative purposes. Don’t bother using them with me in the future Hawkette.</p>
<p>Sitting in a classroom is hardly a “matter of the world.” It’s not rocket surgery to figure out who is an effective teacher that cares deeply about undergraduate learning. As a student, I would care tremendously about that. If a school is not getting a good mark on the teaching evaluations by students, then I’d want to learn a lot more about that. Spending upwards of $50k a year is not chickenfeed. </p>
<p>Btw, I’m not publishing student evaluation grades for you. I’m publishing them for prospective students who are the ones who will actually attend the classes and pay the tuition bills.</p>
<p>Hawkette,
I looked at that CP site you often tout for student reviews…</p>
<p>Top student praises for Berkeley were:
- Huge, diverse, and intellectually-driven student body
- World-renowned and inspiring faculty
- Large and abundant academic and athletic facilities
- Natural amenities (marinas, parks, trails, ocean, etc. )
- DECAL program to start your own class
- Academic prestige in professional circles
- Cal Football games
- Thought-provoking and world-famous speakers
- Berkeley’s energy</p>
<p>Top student pans for Berkeley were:
- Quality and price of off-campus housing
- High academic pressure
- Homeless population around campus
- An overly accepted drug culture
- Rainy weather in the winter
- Lack of local hot spots as opposed to San Francisco
- A college-town feel that can, at times, feel suffocating
- Lack of parking and the non-car-friendly UC policies
- The work-related pretentiousness of some students
- Bureaucratic/administrative red-tape</p>
<p>For Michigan top student praises are:
- Football Saturdays
- Lovely Ann Arbor
- Stellar academics
- Great social life
- 900 student organizations
- School spirit
- Proud reputation
- Research opportunities
- Numerous cultural opportunities
- Academic calendar: school starts in September, and final exams are over before May!</p>
<p>Top pans are:
- Long and cold winters
- Overly eccentric GSIs
- Poor dorm food
- Outdated residence halls
- No parking, anywhere!
- Tuition (most expensive public school)
- Cost of living
- UHS
- Anti-social North Campus
- So much snow!</p>
<p>Don’t seem to be complaints about too many TAs and out of touch profs. I’m laughing though about the “eccentric GSIs at UMich”.</p>
<p>Ucb,
Re your UC Berkeley and U Michigan comments, please note that I didn’t mention either school. This thread was about Duke and Georgetown. Anyway, Duke got an A and Georgetown got an A- for academics. CP graded UC Berkeley an A- and U Michigan a B+ for academics. </p>
<p>Out of curiosity, what did you think of the CP comments and their accuracy? I’m sure you know that they only published the comments of a relative handful of contributors. When I gathered my data on the site, they noted that they had received input from large numbers on each campus (288 at Duke, 261 at Georgetown, 364 UC Berkeley students and 272 U Michigan). Hopefully what they printed is representative of what was discovered on each campus.</p>
<p>@hawkette: I’ve tried to talk to you about the CP rankings before, but you always seem to disappear.
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/848154-rml-rankings-6.html#post1063933518[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/848154-rml-rankings-6.html#post1063933518</a></p>
<p>
Oops…right. Sorry, thought this was the other thread.</p>
<p>Duke Strengths:
Caring professors
College hoops baby!
The student body
Wireless Internet
Duke Chapel
Unlimited meal plan
Stoic buildings
Ethnic diversity
Random Duke statues
The pleasant weather (especially the fall)</p>
<p>Duke Weaknesses:
Kids who didn’t get into Harvard
High-school-style cliques
Administration organizing spontaneity
Three straight weeks of rain
Communal showers
No air-conditioning!
Loafers and pink shorts
Catching the bus
Student officers who don’t show up to their own events
No parking! Anywhere!</p>
<p>Georgetown Strengths:
International students and teachers
Washington, DC
Awesome speakers and presenters on campus
Cherry Tree season
The Exorcist stairs
Free movies on the weekend
Balance of academic and social life
Hanging out on the lawns
School spirit
Hoya basketball</p>
<p>Georgetown Weaknesses:
Sporadic weather
Meal plans
Parking
No Metro stop
Hoya Football
Student Health Center
Cost – overall and tuition
No wireless in dorms
Yates Field House
Hoya basketball (when they’re disappointing)</p>
<p>So, it looks like you go to Duke if you want wireless internet access and unlimited meal plans to help along that Freshman 15…or you go to Georgetown because you don’t care about wireless access and you wanna utilize the Exorcist stairs to work off the Freshman 15.</p>
<p>
I don’t know. I haven’t spent time reading 'em…but thanks for posting the number of responses for each university. Out of curiosity, what do you think, given the percentage of undergrad students responding, would provide a more accurate sampling of student opinion?:</p>
<p>Duke: 4.5%
Georgetown: 3.7%</p>
<p>Cal: 1.4%
Michigan: 1.0%</p>
<p>Ucb,
While I know you haven’t read all of it, I was asking if you felt that CP was successfully communicating some of the frequent thoughts expressed by students at UC Berkeley. These were the ones you listed:</p>
<p>Top student praises for Berkeley were:
- Huge, diverse, and intellectually-driven student body
- World-renowned and inspiring faculty
- Large and abundant academic and athletic facilities
- Natural amenities (marinas, parks, trails, ocean, etc. )
- DECAL program to start your own class
- Academic prestige in professional circles
- Cal Football games
- Thought-provoking and world-famous speakers
- Berkeley’s energy</p>
<p>Top student pans for Berkeley were:
- Quality and price of off-campus housing
- High academic pressure
- Homeless population around campus
- An overly accepted drug culture
- Rainy weather in the winter
- Lack of local hot spots as opposed to San Francisco
- A college-town feel that can, at times, feel suffocating
- Lack of parking and the non-car-friendly UC policies
- The work-related pretentiousness of some students
- Bureaucratic/administrative red-tape</p>
<p>How did they do?</p>
<p>Surely there is more that they could cover and I expect that they do in the books that they publish. Have you ever read their stuff? It’s not completely accurate, but I have been impressed at how much they do get right. </p>
<p>As for your question on the sample size, I’m not sure what the right number is. If you’re on a college campus and sampling and getting similar responses from large numbers of students, how many more do you need to ask? If you hear 200 times that the student body is “huge, diverse, and intellectually driven,” is there much utility in hearing from another 200 students? </p>
<p>Noimag,
That thread is huge so direct me to the post you’re referring to. </p>
<p>My bottom line on CP is that it’s an informative source. Is it perfect? No, but they get a lot right and provide a fairly detailed inside view on many aspects of college life at a given school. I value the thoughts of the consumer and would use their comments as a spur for further investigation on issues that were important to me.</p>
<p>
It should have redirected you. Here’s the direct link: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1063933518-post108.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1063933518-post108.html</a></p>
<p>I think your comments have some merit. No method is going to be perfect and I can’t speak to how they manage their way through the issues you raise. That doesn’t mean that they don’t do it very professionally and systematically, but you’re right that we don’t know. </p>
<p>One way that I check this is to read some of their materials on a dozen or so schools that I have fairly good knowledge of. As I posted earlier, I’ve been impressed by how much they get right. Is 100% accurate? No, but it’s pretty good and certainly a heckuva lot more relevant to most prospective students than the abominations of the PA scoring.</p>
<p>@hawkette:</p>
<p>Quite apart from my concerns about their collection methodology, I just don’t understand how we can make distinctions based on the letter grades when we don’t know what the letter grades represent. Is there a bell curve? How different is an A- from a B+? What about a B? I agree that an A is probably better than a C, but where is the brightline for distinguishing quality?</p>
<p>I’m not reading it quite so literally as you. I might think of this in tiers with A+ being Tier 1, A being Tier 2 and so on with the ultimate conclusion being that the differences from one tier to the next aren’t sharp. But the argument for moving a school up or down 2 tiers is a more difficult proposition. </p>
<p>The fact that you’re struggling to find a bright line is not a bad thing. IMO, using something like CP as a source should provoke inquiry rather provide conclusive answers. After all, it is an opinion survey and people will sometime reach different conclusions.</p>
<p>^ I suppose that’s fair. My mistrust for their methodology causes me to recommend against drawing any conclusions based on distinctions of less than or equal to two tiers.</p>
<p>hawkette, I agree that all the comments concerning Berkeley have merit…except for the rain and drugs…I like rain and perhaps my major insulated me from the drug influence. </p>
<p>
I’ll agree with that. Do you feel the comments about Duke and Georgetown are accurate? Most of the comments seem quite superficial to me.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Yes, compared to the Berkeley comments, comments for the other 2 seem to reflect a difference in campus climate and expectations. That’s the problem I have with the CP grades. It’s not that they aren’t useful at all, but for comparisons among schools it is impossible to know if an A from one student population means the same thing as an A from a completely different student population. An A presumably means the students are satsified, which is a good sign. What it takes to satisfy them is another thing.</p>