The CS department at Duke is actually quite strong, especially as it’s the most popular major on campus. I think outcomes for their students will only get better with the recently completed Google Fiber Office and the Apple Campus in Durham. |
You must be kidding! Both Cornell and Penn are highly diverse. |
| Choose the school your kid really wants to attend and let them shoot their shot. If admissions chances at a highly ranked private school are what matter most, then apply ED to UChicago or WashU. |
You must be kidding! This is two years old! |
So? Recycling is good, better than 1 million threads on SAT prep. |
| Stuff is barely relevant from last years cycle, much less two years ago. Instead of searching particular school names and coming up with old threads, they should start a new one. Weird to bump up with an opinion. |
Seriously, it is overrated |
What?! Look at public policy at other major public and private universities. Many many quality programs. These dukies are just something else on this board. |
| One factor that hasn't been mentioned is that Cornell and Penn are test required while Duke is test optional. Duke's applicant pool is therefore littered with rich kids who went TO because they couldn't cracked 1400 but could buy their way to strong ECs/essays. Cornell and Penn would have fewer of these kids. This, along with Cornell having the largest incoming class and the highest ED acceptance rate followed by Penn and Duke, makes Cornell the best ED target followed by Penn and Duke for a high stats kid. That is, if the kid's primary goal is to get admitted to one of these three schools. |
| Cornell isn’t test required until next year? |
Yeah. wtf? |
You know Cornell reduced ED percentage, right? |
Students who are applying now for the fall of 2026 must submit a test score. |
| Yikes, as a proud Dukie it’s bad enough to be compared to Penn, now Cornell. What’s next Brown and Columbia. There goes the neighborhood. |
| Cornell and UPenn are both now test required while Duke is still TO. If you don’t got the test scores then your only choice might be Duke. |