Anonymous wrote:Harvard and Stanford are 1 and 1a. MIT is great too but is still the other school in Cambridge. They don't have nearly the resources either. With real estate estimates, Stanford has the most $$ and in terms of pure endowment, Harvard has the most $$ of any school. Should we be shocked they are both great in pretty much every area.

Anonymous wrote:Yes, all of Duke’s departments are backwaters compared to the rest of the top schools. In particular, the law schools at Princeton, Johns Hopkins, MIT, and Cal Tech, all are leagues ahead of Duke’s, as well as the medical schools at Princeton, MIT, and Cal Tech. And same for the business schools at Johns Hopkins, Princeton, and Cal Tech relative to Duke. It’s almost like these universities have different institutional priorities across different programs.

Anonymous wrote:Yes, all of Duke’s departments are backwaters compared to the rest of the top schools. In particular, the law schools at Princeton, Johns Hopkins, MIT, and Cal Tech, all are leagues ahead of Duke’s, as well as the medical schools at Princeton, MIT, and Cal Tech. And same for the business schools at Johns Hopkins, Princeton, and Cal Tech relative to Duke. It’s almost like these universities have different institutional priorities across different programs.

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Anonymous wrote:outside of the professional programs, duke’s other areas are lack luster. Its med, business, and law are a touch below the majority of the top 10 schools. but again; the non professional programs are sometimes significantly worse.


im talking chemistry, biology, physics, engineering in aggregate

engineering in particular outside of biomed is particularly meh.

The majority of these top 10 (i.e. at least 5) are not particularly impressive for engineering.

That’s true, but they are impressive in just about everything else. Can’t say the same for Duke.

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Anonymous wrote:outside of the professional programs, duke’s other areas are lack luster. Its med, business, and law are a touch below the majority of the top 10 schools. but again; the non professional programs are sometimes significantly worse.


im talking chemistry, biology, physics, engineering in aggregate

engineering in particular outside of biomed is particularly meh.

The majority of these top 10 (i.e. at least 5) are not particularly impressive for engineering.

Anonymous wrote:outside of the professional programs, duke’s other areas are lack luster. Its med, business, and law are a touch below the majority of the top 10 schools. but again; the non professional programs are sometimes significantly worse.


im talking chemistry, biology, physics, engineering in aggregate

engineering in particular outside of biomed is particularly meh.

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone else think it is weird that Hopkins is tied with Caltech?

Anonymous wrote:outside of the professional programs, duke’s other areas are lack luster. Its med, business, and law are a touch below the majority of the top 10 schools. but again; the non professional programs are sometimes significantly worse.


im talking chemistry, biology, physics, engineering in aggregate

engineering in particular outside of biomed is particularly meh.

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Anonymous wrote:Is there any semi-accepted equivalent to the T14 or M7 for undergrad? I get that this discussion is top 10 due to the leak but I see random topX discussions once rankings come out.

There is only agreement on T5: HYPSM

And even that is starting to really become HMS.

If I got into every Ivy+ except HMS, I could see picking a school other than Princeton or Yale. I could see picking a school outside of Ivy+ for that matter.
If you included HMS, I don't see a lot of scenarios where I would pick a school outside of HMS.

The way i have it divided up in my mind are schools I would happily pay for, schools I would pay for because my wife made me, schools that I don't think provide a meaningful advantage over UVA and then all other schools.

Weird take, considering that USNWR (which is the ranking used for this thread) has ranked Princeton #1 for like 25 years straight or so.

I guess I consider different criteria than USNWR.
I guess I would put princeton a bit ahead of yale but certainly behind HMS and probably Caltech as well.
I put Princeton and yale in the same category as columbia... maybe even penn and duke

But like…why. Princeton is practically a leader in every field of study it offers and is an undergraduate based institution.

Princeton has a PA considerably higher than Duke. Its engineering school is the best in the Ivy League along with Cornell.

I will never understand the love affair with Duke. It’s supposedly a top ten school but it has very few disciplines ranked as highly as its undergraduate rating.

Mystifying to me as well.

Even in the south, Vanderbilt is often seen as the preeminent school in the region.

And I'd certainly put Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Rice, Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Penn, and Berkeley ahead of Duke. Because all of those schools are genuinely very good in numerous fields. Whereas Duke has ???? Basketball?

It depends on how you look at it. Hopkins is stronger than Duke academically. But the kids choose to go to Duke. So which school should be called "better"?

Dubious assertion that Hopkins is stronger than Duke academically. They’re on par.

With that said, the notion that the rankings reflect some sort of pure academic ranking is reductionist. Chicago crushes Hopkins academically, but last year’s ranking doesn’t reflect that, suggesting that rankings reflect factors other than pure academics alone. To that point, the fact that “the kids choose to go to Duke” must represent other factors, too.

To support your point, which is “better” can be reflected somewhat in pure academic rankings but also somewhat in where students choose to attend.

for undergrad what is duke better at? Hopkins engineering is better along with bio, chem, physics and multiple humanities programs and international relations. For duke, maybe economics and that’s it. Same argument for hopkins engineering vs chicago which doesnt even have engineering

+1

Duke also strong in biomed engineering and biochem engineering.

A couple of niche areas. Not widespread.

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Anonymous wrote:agreed with others, duke undergrad is highly overrated. people go there due to the basketball team. now that coach k is gone, we’ll see what happens. not off to a good start losing to nc state last year

Lol. Pretty sure people go to Duke because it consistently places kids in the top jobs, grad schools, etc. Top programs in the sciences, quantum computing, humanities, etc. Clearly some very salty people regarding Duke on here, but I understand because it’s the closest “highly elite” school for placements in the DMV. My kid applied and was rejected but is happy at UVA, and I would argue UVA in-state is one of the best deals in the country.

it does not in fact have top programs in the sciences or humanities relative to the others in the top 10

Is this based off the USNWR departmental rankings? I'm confused on why people are shitting on Duke's supposed lack of "top" departmental programs without data to back it up.