Alternatives to Duke

[Anonymous]

If your kid only wants private and does not like the bigger publics with sports, then your kid needs to decide if they care about academics/peer mix more than Big Sports on campus, acknowledging that Duke is big basketball mostly.
The only academically matched school with the same peer mix and with big sports is Northwestern.
Close second are Stanford and Notre Dame. Vanderbilt does not have huge sports save the one big game that just happened, but is an academic match.
If academic fit is most important, look at ivies. Penn is slightly more social than others, none are rah rah sporty. All have the right academic/peer mix for someone who wants a majority of super smarties like Duke has. So does Hopkins.
If sports is more important than academics, and it has to me private, then you have to go down a few levels to Tulane and the like.
Wake or USC are a great compromise: peers overlap UVA-level as far as smarts, so not top 15 but smarter than Tulane, yet sports are much more than the super-smart academic schools like ivies/Hopkins.
If your kid is ED'g Duke make sure they have talked to current students, not people who went in the 80s and 90s: most do not go out more than one night a week once past the freshman orientation party cycles, more than half spend most of Saturday and Sunday studying. The average humanities course has hundreds of pages of reading per week, the known "weed out" stem courses no longer actually "weed out"(Cs are rarely given) but students who wish to score better than average on midterms need to expect to study several hours per week in addition to class time.
Many clubs are highly competitive and have cuts just like Ivies, Georgetown, many others. The typical student is involved in 2-3 clubs/EC and a campus job or research, in addition to a full course load.
We have a kid at Duke and a niece at UNC. We live in NC. UNC is much more academically relaxed than Duke, more like Duke was in '91 when their parent graduated--niece did not get into Duke as a legacy and is now very glad they did not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Vandy
Wake
U Miami
Tulane

Thanks. Vandy on the list but others not quite academically appealing to DC. Lehigh ahead of Wake, Miami and Tulane.

lol no

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Vandy
Wake
U Miami
Tulane

Thanks. Vandy on the list but others not quite academically appealing to DC. Lehigh ahead of Wake, Miami and Tulane.

Find the post strange. Lehigh is a decent school but mainly a safety at 37 percent admissions. The rest of these schools are 20 percent and below and Tulane is 11. Also not sure the hate on public schools which are. starting to be viewed more favorably than Ivys. Is this a first child? You may have to understand that the snobbiness is not going to be helpful and everyone has a smart kid around here so that is really not special. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Notre Dame

[Anonymous]

Wake, UR, Vanderbilt, BC, Rice, Georgetown, Northwestern

If he would consider public, UVA (it is Duke lite).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Duke is DC’s first choice..likes the mix of sports, rah rah and private. Other options?

Vandy, Northwestern, BC

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wake, UR, Vanderbilt, BC, Rice, Georgetown, Northwestern

If he would consider public, UVA (it is Duke lite).

What does this even mean? UVA is not "Duke lite." My oldest went to UVA and is at Duke for grad school. They are both separate and distinct schools with different cultures... all schools are. People need to stop doing these weird comparisons for all of these schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wake, UR, Vanderbilt, BC, Rice, Georgetown, Northwestern

If he would consider public, UVA (it is Duke lite).

What does this even mean? UVA is not "Duke lite." My oldest went to UVA and is at Duke for grad school. They are both separate and distinct schools with different cultures... all schools are. People need to stop doing these weird comparisons for all of these schools.

Agreed - I went to both (one for undergrad and one for grad) and they are not very similar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I got the feeling the post was putting down Wake's academics.

Which is bull, considering it still is known as Work Forest

I have never heard that and I grew up in that area.

Duke and Wake were more peer schools, along with Davidson, when I attended in the 1900's, but now Duke just seems ridiculous. Every alumni event has someone telling us our kids shouldn't bother applying, but can we still give them some cash or gift Duke something in our will thaaaaaanks so much.

Duke was ranked 5 or 6 the first year Usnews came out in the 1980s. It was never peer schools with Wake or Davidson (not that they aren't excellent schools).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wake, UR, Vanderbilt, BC, Rice, Georgetown, Northwestern

If he would consider public, UVA (it is Duke lite).

What does this even mean? UVA is not "Duke lite." My oldest went to UVA and is at Duke for grad school. They are both separate and distinct schools with different cultures... all schools are. People need to stop doing these weird comparisons for all of these schools.

Agree! I had one go to Duke undergrad and one go to UVA. They are extremely different culturally and grind-wise.

[Anonymous]

Notre Dame

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wake, UR, Vanderbilt, BC, Rice, Georgetown, Northwestern

If he would consider public, UVA (it is Duke lite).

What does this even mean? UVA is not "Duke lite." My oldest went to UVA and is at Duke for grad school. They are both separate and distinct schools with different cultures... all schools are. People need to stop doing these weird comparisons for all of these schools.

Agree! I had one go to Duke undergrad and one go to UVA. They are extremely different culturally and grind-wise.

How are they grind-wise?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wake, UR, Vanderbilt, BC, Rice, Georgetown, Northwestern

If he would consider public, UVA (it is Duke lite).

What does this even mean? UVA is not "Duke lite." My oldest went to UVA and is at Duke for grad school. They are both separate and distinct schools with different cultures... all schools are. People need to stop doing these weird comparisons for all of these schools.

Agree! I had one go to Duke undergrad and one go to UVA. They are extremely different culturally and grind-wise.

How are they grind-wise?

Duke is by far more grindy. The students work hard even on weekends. They love it—or most do—but it has far less party/greek culture than UVA. Classes are fairly small from the start so class participation is part of the education; meeting and getting to know professors is expected to maximize networks/get tips on grad/med school.

[Anonymous]

Just here to say best of luck to your son. Duke holds a special place in my heart and I get it. It was my dream school back in the day..I didn't go but still love everything about it. Pulling for you both!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just here to say best of luck to your son. Duke holds a special place in my heart and I get it. It was my dream school back in the day..I didn't go but still love everything about it. Pulling for you both!

I went to Duke and from a poor person’s perspective the education was life changing. But it would have been the case at UVA or a number of other schools. I did like the size of Duke. A large campus if you count Duke Forest yet with about 6000 undergrads.