Better for high-end career; UPenn or Duke?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hello, just curious what might yield a better trajectory for an ambitious kid. It seems UPenn kids flood Wall Street and tech at a level only matched by Harvard and Stanford, while Duke also has very good placements but perhaps is less prominent in Wall Street, but Duke might benefit from a more loyal alumni network. Thoughts?

You are correct, though Duke is in the next group of 5-6 schools. Penn SEAS is the highest paying for jobs over other Penn undergrad and over Duke, due to high paying tech consulting and quant. Starting salaries higher than Wharton but not by much. Math and econ from Penn CAS also do extremely well for those who want that career. Duke is on par with Penn CAS. Duke engineering(Pratt) for top tech placement is not at the level of Penn SEAS and of course Penn Wharton is unmatched.
Alumni are engaged from both schools. Make the decision based on fit not splitting hairs over top-3 vs top-8 for MBB and the like.
We know students at both and have one who considered both. They are popular schools from our known public magnet/gov school and they all seem happy with their decision.
Both place into the top law, med, and phd though for highest percent name-brand the edge again slightly favors Penn. That may be due to ivy leaugue students tend to choose name brand for the next level of schooling. The student population is not different based on intelligence, ambition, intensity.

[Anonymous]

What type of environment do they want? Duke is more isolated in the South and has a large % from the Carolinas. While Penn is in Philly and walking distance to Amtrak to all the major cities in the NE so many students from there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Since when did Duke and Penn become comparable. Penn culturally is close Brown and Columbia certainly not anything like Duke.

No, Penn is more like Harvard than any of the other ivies. Strongest professional schools and an urban campus that is not NYC.

I have kids at multiple ivies and spouse and I went to different ones for undergraduate and law. Penn is indeed closest to H as far as the campus setting goes and proximity to law (on campus) and med center attached(P) or very close(H). Both are adjacent but not in a big city, even down to the pedestrian bridge connecting the campus areas. Penn has more green space than Harvard. Columbia is the only truly urban ivy with almost no green space and actually in the city. Yale is more like Brown based on setting, with New Haven and Providence streets mixed through the campus but no bigger city close by. Princeton is its own small town feel and Dartmouth and Cornell are positively rural, though Cornell is so large it does not have the same rural-mountains college feel as Dartmouth.

[Anonymous]

Duke is the epitome of undergrad experience.

[Anonymous]

Penn always is the poor stepchild to HYP. Not even close..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hello, just curious what might yield a better trajectory for an ambitious kid. It seems UPenn kids flood Wall Street and tech at a level only matched by Harvard and Stanford, while Duke also has very good placements but perhaps is less prominent in Wall Street, but Duke might benefit from a more loyal alumni network. Thoughts?

Duke produced Stephen Miller.

There will be no Wall Street by 2028.

Your kid is not getting into U Penn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Penn always is the poor stepchild to HYP. Not even close..

So, Duke is the poor stepchild to the entire Ivy League.

You keep making your asinine comment over and over.

[Anonymous]

Going to say the same thing on all of these incessant threads, any kid would be very lucky to attend either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These posts are so dumb. An ambitious kid at either can do perfectly well and achieve the same outcomes.

This. People post the most illogical threads on the college forum. The irony.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^LOL!

Penn is a top 10 college with #1 undergraduate business, #1 MBA program, #5 law school, top 3 medical school, and so on.


Overall, the closest peer is Harvard among the ivies. You can laugh all you want. Penn is on a different level compared to Duke.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let me know when Penn basketball is on College Game Day or when Penn football plays Notre Dame, Clemson or FSU. Penn plays Brown, Columbia and Cornell before 5,000 at Franklin Field.

Smart people do not pick a school based on sports.
Penn is a top school. So is Duke. Like it or not the ivy brand gives Penn grads the slight bump for elite companies that care about such things, though Duke is on most of those target lists.

[Anonymous]

Penn produced Trump and Elon. Advantage Quakers. Let’s Go Duke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Since when did Duke and Penn become comparable. Penn culturally is close Brown and Columbia certainly not anything like Duke.

Culture at Penn is much closer to Cornell than Brown imo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Penn always is the poor stepchild to HYP. Not even close..

When you get into the details of rankings, and really investigate quality metrics, academic departments, student outcomes, and so on, Penn is right up there with HYP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Since when did Duke and Penn become comparable. Penn culturally is close Brown and Columbia certainly not anything like Duke.

No, Penn is more like Harvard than any of the other ivies. Strongest professional schools and an urban campus that is not NYC.

I have kids at multiple ivies and spouse and I went to different ones for undergraduate and law. Penn is indeed closest to H as far as the campus setting goes and proximity to law (on campus) and med center attached(P) or very close(H). Both are adjacent but not in a big city, even down to the pedestrian bridge connecting the campus areas. Penn has more green space than Harvard. Columbia is the only truly urban ivy with almost no green space and actually in the city. Yale is more like Brown based on setting, with New Haven and Providence streets mixed through the campus but no bigger city close by. Princeton is its own small town feel and Dartmouth and Cornell are positively rural, though Cornell is so large it does not have the same rural-mountains college feel as Dartmouth.

Largely agree with most of this but Columbia's green space is fairly comparable to Penn. It has the quad. And it is close to Riverside and Central Parks (and Morningside Park, though I wouldn't choose to spend time there).

For whatever reason, I found Cornell to be more gray and dreary than Dartmouth. I spent a lot of time at Cornell and just a few brief visits to Dartmouth so it might have been luck of the draw. Most of my time at Cornell was in the summer yet it was still depressing.

Duke is the quintessential college campus. Beautiful architecture. Lots of green space. Athletic facilities and hospital right on campus. Beautiful gardens right there. Durham is not a major city but Durham plus the Triangle have plenty to offer - good restaurants (Durham is a major foodie destination), bars, shopping, major concerts come through, a major airport, etc.

I know a lot of kids from the northeast corridor who choose Duke because they can feel comfortable there but want at least some change of scenery for college. The world would be a better place if people ventured out of their comfort zone and lived somewhere else at some point (not necessarily just for college - just at some point in their life). I'm from the northeast corridor and have lived elsewhere and cannot stand those who have never left and have knee-jerk insults for the rest of America.