Speaking of academics

[jimsumner]

Duke does quite well in APR rankings.

http://www.goduke.com/ViewArticle.db...DB_OEM_ID=4200

[Bluedog]

Nice! I'm surprised Wake does so poorly. Last in the ACC with only 2 teams?!? What's the deal with that? I would have thought Wake would be at BC level. It's also interesting how there's a huge drop after ND (17), Duke (15), and BC (12) -- with Miami coming in fourth (5).

[ChillinDuke]

Duke does quite well in APR rankings.

http://www.goduke.com/ViewArticle.db...DB_OEM_ID=4200

Always a proud accomplishment.

Duke finished tied for 3rd nationally (15 teams).

Tied with Northwestern. Only Notre Dame (17 teams) and Stanford (19) were higher.

Interesting correlation with men's basketball coaches.

- Chillin

[devildeac]

Duke does quite well in APR rankings.

http://www.goduke.com/ViewArticle.db...DB_OEM_ID=4200

And the insurance adjuster who came into our house last month was offended that one of the media comments was about how Duke had several MBB working on laptops taking tests and/or writing papers on the plane returning from the FF. He declared he hated Duke as I was wearing an old Duke sweatshirt and raved/bragged about the c*rolina way. What a tool!

[devildeac]

Always a proud accomplishment.

Duke finished tied for 3rd nationally (15 teams).

Tied with Northwestern. Only Notre Dame (17 teams) and Stanford (19) were higher.

Interesting correlation with men's basketball coaches.

- Chillin

Yep, we still get all the calls.

[cspan37421]

Nice! I'm surprised Wake does so poorly.

1) Wake is a tiny school by comparison. Half of Duke's size.

2) Perhaps they grade harder. They don't call it "Work Forest" for nothing, you know.

(and by "they", I mean someone my wife heard it from in the 80s when she was there)

[sagegrouse]

1) Wake is a tiny school by comparison. Half of Duke's size.

2) Perhaps they grade harder. They don't call it "Work Forest" for nothing, you know.

(and by "they", I mean someone my wife heard it from in the 80s when she was there)

The numbers, please:

Wake has 4,812 undergrads and total enrollment of 7,591.
Duke has 6,471 undergrads and total enrollment of 15,850 (as of fall 2014).

Other undergrad student body sizes of interest:

Northwestern - 8,000
Stanford - 6,980
Vanderbilt - 6,851
Harvard - 6,700
Yale - 5,414
Princeton - 5,391
U. of Pennsylvania - 10,406
Dartmouth - 4,276
Cornell - 13,935*
Brown - 6,182
Columbia - 8,365

* Cornell has some NY State-sponsored colleges, such as Agriculture and Life Sciences.

[jimsumner]

1) Wake is a tiny school by comparison. Half of Duke's size.

2) Perhaps they grade harder. They don't call it "Work Forest" for nothing, you know.

(and by "they", I mean someone my wife heard it from in the 80s when she was there)

Why would the size of the school negatively impact the ability of their student-athletes to graduate at an elite level?

What am I missing?

[OldPhiKap]

Congratulations, Duke. Great results in the classroom; great results in athletics.

[Bluedog]

Nice! I'm surprised Wake does so poorly.

1) Wake is a tiny school by comparison. Half of Duke's size.

2) Perhaps they grade harder. They don't call it "Work Forest" for nothing, you know.

(and by "they", I mean someone my wife heard it from in the 80s when she was there)

Why would the size of the school negatively impact the ability of their student-athletes to graduate at an elite level?

What am I missing?

<Answering my own question a bit>
I agree that size of school is irrelevant, but what is relevant is the number of varsity sports (which may be correlated somewhat to size of school). Wake has only 16 varsity sports. By contrast, Duke has 26, BC has 29 (or is it 31?) teams, and ND 23. Still, 2/16 is very poor percentage...

[cspan37421]

Why would the size of the school negatively impact the ability of their student-athletes to graduate at an elite level?

What am I missing?

Perhaps fewer teams. It was a count of teams, right?

BTW, Sagegrouse, thanks for the update on their UG population. I hadn't realized they have grown as much as they did. When I was in school, Duke was about 6000 and they were 3000. A few years ago when DD and I visited WFU, they were talking about getting rid of a parking lot and putting up a new freshman dorm, perhaps adding a couple hundred to a few hundred. I didn't realize that must have been just one of perhaps several expansions that has increased their UG population 60%.

PS I thought Duke now tops 7000 UG. No? I wonder if their yield went down recently. I'm an AAAC chair and have a vague recollection that in the last couple springs, their acceptance news releases (complete with touting the <10% rate for RD) cited an expected ultimate matriculation figure of 7000. I see your 6471 figure on their website. That's not all that different from when I went there, kind of. I think we had 1600+ entering ... but about 1300 finishing in the year I graduated. So I'm not sure how large all 4 classes put together was then, or now. But the 2 to 1 Duke to Wake proportion stuck in my head. Again, I really must have missed the boat on WFU's expansion. Thanks for modernizing my understanding!

[Bluedog]

Perhaps fewer teams. It was a count of teams, right?

BTW, Sagegrouse, thanks for the update on their UG population. I hadn't realized they have grown as much as they did. When I was in school, Duke was about 6000 and they were 3000. A few years ago when DD and I visited WFU, they were talking about getting rid of a parking lot and putting up a new freshman dorm, perhaps adding a couple hundred to a few hundred. I didn't realize that must have been just one of perhaps several expansions that has increased their UG population 60%.

PS I thought Duke now tops 7000 UG. No? I wonder if their yield went down recently. I'm an AAAC chair and have a vague recollection that in the last couple springs, their acceptance news releases (complete with touting the <10% rate for RD) cited an expected ultimate matriculation figure of 7000. I see your 6471 figure on their website. That's not all that different from when I went there, kind of. I think we had 1600+ entering ... but about 1300 finishing in the year I graduated. So I'm not sure how large all 4 classes put together was then, or now. But the 2 to 1 Duke to Wake proportion stuck in my head. Again, I really must have missed the boat on WFU's expansion. Thanks for modernizing my understanding!

Duke has been consistently targeting 1,705-1,720 students/class for the last several years as far as I know. The board of trustees did okay an increase in the enrollment in Pratt starting in the fall of 2005 by 200 total students over the subsequent four years, though (i.e. 50 more per year). So, before that, the target was around 1650. Yield has been pretty consistent at Duke in recent years -- this year, rumors are the waitlist was barely touched.

[PackMan97]

Why would the size of the school negatively impact the ability of their student-athletes to graduate at an elite level?

What am I missing?

I imagine it affects the number of easier courses/degrees offered. Just thinking out loud on that one. (Note: I'm talking about easy classes such as making turkey pine cones that a school like UNC used to send their athletes too as opposed to the Potemkin program of AFAM).

I imagine the biggest factor in those numbers for Wake is the recent turnover of both FB and BB coaches and the number of kids that have left the program.

[acdevil]

Aren't the numbers how many teams are in the top 10% of their respective sports? That would also help explain why Wake and others are so low. Being outside of the 10% doesn't imply that they aren't graduating/remaining eligible.

[cspan37421]

I'm talking about easy classes such as making turkey pine cones that a school like UNC used to send their athletes too as opposed to the Potemkin program of AFAM).

That's studio art, you insensitive clod!

It ain't easy cutting out hearts on Valentines Day, either.

[DukieInKansas]

I imagine it affects the number of easier courses/degrees offered. Just thinking out loud on that one. (Note: I'm talking about easy classes such as making turkey pine cones that a school like UNC used to send their athletes too as opposed to the Potemkin program of AFAM).

I imagine the biggest factor in those numbers for Wake is the recent turnover of both FB and BB coaches and the number of kids that have left the program.

That's studio art, you insensitive clod!

It ain't easy cutting out hearts on Valentines Day, either.

Semantics!

Whatever happened to Underwater Basketweaving?

[Skitzle]

Duke finished tied for 3rd nationally (15 teams).

Tied with Northwestern. Only Notre Dame (17 teams) and Stanford (19) were higher.

Interesting correlation with men's basketball coaches.

- Chillin

Noticed this as well. I'm replying to your post, because I don't think enough people saw the significance of this...