Having to go to UNC as a Duke Fan

[ttam110]

As a high school senior and huge duke fan (seriously, a big duke fan), I have been debating where to go to college next year.

I did was not able to get in to Duke (wait list), however, I did get in to UNC.

My question is, anyone have experience, or know of anyone else that went to UNC as an avid duke fan? I obviously will never cheer for UNC in any occasion, but the question still remains. I don't know if I can walk around campus having to deal with all the UNC mantra!

[Matches]

I was in grad school at UNC. Actually got called out by a professor in class for being a "Duke Sympathizer". It was (mostly) in good fun though. Just put away the Duke paraphernalia and avoid calling Roy a hick in public and it will be fine.

Sometimes good comes of it too. I was on campus the day Dean retired. No place on Earth I'd rather have been. :)

[alteran]

As a high school senior and huge duke fan (seriously, a big duke fan), I have been debating where to go to college next year.

I did was not able to get in to Duke (wait list), however, I did get in to UNC.

My question is, anyone have experience, or know of anyone else that went to UNC as an avid duke fan? I obviously will never cheer for UNC in any occasion, but the question still remains. I don't know if I can walk around campus having to deal with all the UNC mantra!

I went there as a Duke fan. (I mention it on my profile.)

Of course, I'm a fogie who went there in the late 80s/early 90s, so maybe things have changed. But when I went there, while most people wore UNC gear (natch), I was surprised at how many folks wore gear from other schools. Particularly NCSU gear. Nobody really cared.

Frankly, I think the students handle it a lot better than the locals. Seriously.

My dirty little secret-- I had an absolute blast. Loved the student body, loved the eclectic architecture, loved the atmosphere. The mass population freshman dorms are an awful rite of passage, but you make a lot of friends. Franklin Street is great and the bus system is actually useful. I thought the administration was awful, but that's true in a lot of schools.

For a safety school it's not bad. ;-)

IM if you want to talk further, but my bottom line is that it's just a great school and you'll quickly get over the appalling shade of blue... just hold on to your soul, man-- hold on to your soul!

[cspan37421]

As a high school senior and huge duke fan (seriously, a big duke fan), I have been debating where to go to college next year.

I did was not able to get in to Duke (wait list), however, I did get in to UNC.

My question is, anyone have experience, or know of anyone else that went to UNC as an avid duke fan? I obviously will never cheer for UNC in any occasion, but the question still remains. I don't know if I can walk around campus having to deal with all the UNC mantra!

First, let me say that it's no shame to be waitlisted at Duke; competition for spots at Duke is incredibly intense and there are far more qualified students than there are spots for them. Duke has not grown in student body size anywhere close to the growth in applicant numbers, which have doubled in just a few years. It's crazy now.

Duke and UNC were my #1 and #2 choice, and I got into both. During my Duke years I had occasion to get a library card at UNC for material that wasn't available at Duke. I took a little pride in rising above the rivalry/fray by taking advantage of the research materials at both schools. Of course, I chanted 9F whenever we played them in hoops, but other than that, I never thought for a minute that they were a terrible school or anything. To quote a Duke prof of mine, the top students at each school would probably be the top anywhere. My corollary to that: the median students are where you will find the differences which show Duke to be more selective.

Couple of thoughts, your choice:

- get off to a great start at Carolina and, if you still really want to go to Duke, inquire about transferring after a year. I don't know the process or the difficulty of achieving admission by that means, but I believe it has been done.

- Go to Carolina and, for four years, bathe yourself in baby blue. Seriously, you will be much happier to be part of something bigger than yourself than you will be constantly feeling irritated at the sports rivalry. I'm not saying to go off the deep end and pass on lies about Duke, getting Maryland-style nasty or VaTech-style threatening toward whoever the most-hated Duke player of the year is, but just cheer for your school, you'll be happier. After you graduate you can rise above that minor-league version of nationalism if you wish, but I think you'll really sabotage your college years if you're constantly at odds with your classmates over sports rivalries. Go to Duke for grad school if you still are unsatisfied after 4 years.

[dukebsbll14]

Go to South Carolina. I'm serious. The people there are very, very nice. I went there for the College World Series last year while wearing my Duke hat and shirt. Got a ton of "Go Duke"s since they've got a mini-rivalry with UNC.

In all seriousness, cspan makes a great point. I went to a different high school starting my sophomore year because a new school opened and I had to attend it because of redistricting. I hated that. I loved my old high school (mainly because the baseball coach supported me and I had heard REALLY bad things about the guy at the new school...but that's neither here nor there). Anyways, I basically spent 2 years rooting against my school and it wasn't until my senior football game that I rooted for my actual high school. Ironically, this was against my old high school. What is even more ironic, is Duke QB Anthony Boone was the QB there. I had so much fun at that game (even though I was rooting against a future classmate). Just getting to be loud and crazy with my friends was great. Looking back I really wish I had invested more into my school.

All of this is completely arbitrary though if you happen to find a group of friends who are all Duke fans! Then you can be the guys at the Carolina games in all Duke gear!

Also, the people in my high school who were Duke fans, but didn't go to UNC. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't. Carolina is a...fine...institution. My best friend goes there and we'll make the trip over to each others' campus a couple times a semester to visit each other. I do like the Southern architecture. However, our Alpine Bagels beats the snot of of their Alpine. They do have Yogurt Pump though. Which I want to steal.

I don't really know where this all is going. Reading back through it seems like I jump all over the place. The moral of the story find a place that's going to make you happy...or possibly who gives you the most money (which was my back-up plan). And wherever that place is, make it home.

[Bostondevil]

You may get in off the waiting list yet! (Assuming you're planning to stay on the list.)

[davekay1971]

I took some courses at UNC after graduating from Duke (easy As...and, of course, in-state tuition). It was kind of nauseating, and the UNC kids really were pretty obnoxious about knowing I was from the better blue. But it IS fun being around campus when the sports go south. The year I was there, UNC was preseason top 10 in football (Mack Brown years). I'll never forget the Daily Tarhole article about the upcoming UNC-Syracuse game. According to the Tarhole, UNC was going to crush Syracuse. Syracuse had nobody at quarterback, you see. Some lousy senior, some lousy junior, and some sorry freshman named McNabb.

Syracuse went on to destroy UNC. It was awesome to watch that Tarhole arrogance get a punch in the nose.

Interestingly, the same year I also took some courses at State. Totally different experience with the kids. The State kids were lots of fun, even knowing I was from Duke. The rivalry stuff was much more good-natured. And it's a totally different group of kids - much more of a blue collar feel, and very refreshing.

Anyway, good luck. UNC, for all it's light blue faults, is a great school and you'll get a degree there that's worth something, not to mention a great education. Just try to avoid being sucked into the cult.

[cspan37421]

ttam110: where else did you get in? There may be other/better options for you than UNC depending on where else you got in and what you hope to study (assuming you know yet, which admittedly many kids don't).

davekay1971, interesting perspective on NCSU. Sometimes I roll my eyes at the near-love shown for NCSU on this website - wondering why they seem to be the 2nd favorite ACC team, always pulling for them to return to relevance, more so than for other ACC cellar-dwellers. Perhaps your experience is one piece of the puzzle that explains that.

[cf-62]

ttam: sent you a PM on this.

Basic gist is this. You're obviously smart enough to make college decisions regardless of your fanhood. And you're obviously smart enough to get into UNC and w-listed at Duke.

Wherever you go, embrace the school as yours. Don't go to UNC and wear Duke stuff around campus. That's okay if you're in grad school, but if you're going to undergrad there, you should cheer for your school.

[cspan37421]

... applicant numbers, which have doubled in just a few years. It's crazy now.



Correction, gone up by 50% ... though to get a doubling you don't have to go much further back. But beyond a few years I can only find spot data.

Duke Magazine reports the jump being from 13,950 in 1997 to 31,600 in 2012. That's +127%.

For curiosity's sake, I'd like to know what the acceptance rate was in 1985 (and split ED/RD. I was ED ... and ironically, most people I knew didn't understand that ED acceptance rates are higher than RD and that might have helped me get in).

[sagegrouse]

As a high school senior and huge duke fan (seriously, a big duke fan), I have been debating where to go to college next year.

I did was not able to get in to Duke (wait list), however, I did get in to UNC.

My question is, anyone have experience, or know of anyone else that went to UNC as an avid duke fan? I obviously will never cheer for UNC in any occasion, but the question still remains. I don't know if I can walk around campus having to deal with all the UNC mantra!

I met a young woman last summer who was a UNC undergrad but a Duke fan. She had always been a Duke fan and didn't change alleginaces when she went to Chapel Hill, which is not to say that she didn't root for UNC most of the time.

WRT the waitlist: the most important thing is for Duke to know that, if it offers you admission, you are certain to accept. It gets really crazy filling the last slots, and no admissions staff wants to waste time on people who will reject the Duke offer and go elsewhere.

Anyway, good luck!

sagegrouse

[Highlander]

If you are thin skinned and take criticism poorly, it would be tough to go to UNC. One piece of solace was that, whenever Duke lost, I was around friends who felt just as bad as I did. I never actually applied to UNC b/c I wanted to do engineering, but if I had received a scholarship I would have gone there.

Then again, I imagine being a Duke fan at UNC is not much different from going to public school in NC as a Duke fan, and I survived that OK. I agree with cheering for them in sports (except maybe when they play Duke) as well.

Bottom line, go where you want to study and where they will give you the best opportunity to succeed later in life. If that means you have to listen to a bunch of obnoxious UNC fans for 4 years, so be it. UNC is a great University, and will set you up well.

And if you just can't take it, Duke is only 15 miles away. Plus there's always the Robertson's scholars program :)

[cspan37421]

And if you just can't take it, Duke is only 15 miles away.

Haven't you been following ESPN's frothing-at-the-mouth coverage of Duke vs. UNC? It's no longer that far away. Apparently it gets closer by a half-mile or so every year. Latest I heard is that it's only 8 miles! :)

[Indoor66]

Haven't you been following ESPN's frothing-at-the-mouth coverage of Duke vs. UNC? It's no longer that far away. Apparently it gets closer by a half-mile or so every year. Latest I heard is that it's only 8 miles! :)

Yeah and Google Maps says it is 10.7 miles from Cameron to the Snooze Dome.

[cspan37421]

Yeah and Google Maps says it is 10.7 miles from Cameron to the Snooze Dome.

8-9 might be right under some unrealistic assumptions: that you can go in a straight line, and avoid roads; also, that you're only going from the edge of one campus to the edge of the other, where the start and end points on each edge are the ones that are closest to each other.

[Highlander]

Haven't you been following ESPN's frothing-at-the-mouth coverage of Duke vs. UNC? It's no longer that far away. Apparently it gets closer by a half-mile or so every year. Latest I heard is that it's only 8 miles! :)

My distance reference comes from the song "Fifteen miles from Durham's ditches, there's an awful smell..."

[diablesseblu]

I've heard from people who knew him in Henderson that Charlie Rose started at UNC and transferred to Duke. Of course, he never mentions it.......only talks about doing both UG and law at Duke.

Any thought to doing well the first year and transferring?

That said, as a retired admissions professional, I echo others comments. Be certain to let Duke know you would enroll, if admitted.

[sagegrouse]

I've heard from people who knew him in Henderson that Charlie Rose started at UNC and transferred to Duke. Of course, he never mentions it.......only talks about doing both UG and law at Duke.

Any thought to doing well the first year and transferring?

That said, as a retired admissions professional, I echo others comments. Be certain to let Duke know you would enroll, if admitted.

News to me. Charlie was a classmate. I knew him for four years, and he was president of the sophomore class. Moreover, he was a memeber of BOS, based on achievements in the freshman year.

sagegrouse

[devildeac]

ttam110: where else did you get in? There may be other/better options for you than UNC depending on where else you got in and what you hope to study (assuming you know yet, which admittedly many kids don't).

davekay1971, interesting perspective on NCSU. Sometimes I roll my eyes at the near-love shown for NCSU on this website - wondering why they seem to be the 2nd favorite ACC team, always pulling for them to return to relevance, more so than for other ACC cellar-dwellers. Perhaps your experience is one piece of the puzzle that explains that.

He has to root for State as his second favorite school if he'd like to sleep indoors. (He has posted here before that his wife went to NCSU;).)

[ttam110]

You may get in off the waiting list yet! (Assuming you're planning to stay on the list.)

Yes I might, but they will not let me know until June. All college deposits are due May 1 and housing plans few weeks later. So It would be such a hassle and $$ to switch.


ttam110: where else did you get in? There may be other/better options for you than UNC depending on where else you got in and what you hope to study (assuming you know yet, which admittedly many kids don't).


Wake, Davidson and UNC. Waiting for Wake's financial package.



Any thought to doing well the first year and transferring?

That said, as a retired admissions professional, I echo others comments. Be certain to let Duke know you would enroll, if admitted.

Yes I have. It just depends on how I start off at UNC. What do you recommend me sending to Duke to ensure them I am still strongly interested?

Thanks for everyone and their insight. Providing great advice to consider.

[-jk]

Yes I might, but they will not let me know until June. All college deposits are due May 1 and housing plans few weeks later. So It would be such a hassle and $$ to switch.



Wake, Davidson and UNC. Waiting for Wake's financial package.



Yes I have. It just depends on how I start off at UNC. What do you recommend me sending to Duke to ensure them I am still strongly interested?

Thanks for everyone and their insight. Providing great advice to consider.

Well, that's easy - Davidson is also part of the Duke family.

-jk

[cspan37421]

Wake, Davidson and UNC. Waiting for Wake's financial package.

My wife attended Wake, as well as a some of our friends (who were originally her friends from college). All are very accomplished now. She does not recall ever having a TA/grad student teach a class. She felt the teaching quality there was excellent, and twenty(censored) years later she still stays in touch with her math advisor. Things may have changed, but I doubt it - not that much. The downside is that there's next to nothing around Wake's campus unless you have a car - and that's increasingly hard as during a recent visit DD and I were told that a particular parking lot would be removed to put up a new dorm, to accommodate a modest increase in the undergraduate population.

Teaching quality isn't the only thing you're buying, but it's arguably the most important single thing. I suspect you'd find teaching quality excellent at Davidson as well. I have a good friend from CLT who went there. I'm not sure I'd pick UNC over either of those unless financial circumstances dictated it. Granted, it does appear that UNC-CH is considerably selective now (and I would bet, more selective than in the 80s when I knew some folks there), but I still suspect you could get stuck with a lot of grad student teaching in your first couple years - which can be OK, is seldom great, and not infrequently bad.

[diablesseblu]

News to me. Charlie was a classmate. I knew him for four years, and he was president of the sophomore class. Moreover, he was a memeber of BOS, based on achievements in the freshman year.

sagegrouse

You'll not be surprised to hear that the people who shared this are "Carolina people". Who knows, maybe Charlie was admitted of the wait list and UNC had been his backup? ;)

[diablesseblu]

Yes I have. It just depends on how I start off at UNC. What do you recommend me sending to Duke to ensure them I am still strongly interested?

Thanks for everyone and their insight. Providing great advice to consider.

1. Check on Duke's policy about additional credentials. If permissible, I would send a personal letter to affirm my continued interest.

2. Also, if there is an additional adult (only one) who knows you well (and was not one of your original recs), have them write. (The office will be inundated with calls etc. on students' behalfs.) Anyone writing at this point must be willing/able to commit time to this effort. Additionally, his/her letter must be candid about who you are personally and what you can contribute to the Duke community. As an example, I wrote to Christoph one time for a Duke WL candidate. My letter contained information about how she had coped with a tough family situation. Framed the information within the context of how she could bring people together. She was eventually admitted and did exceedingly well.

3. On another WL note, I once did an extensive study of WL candidates who were admitted and their academic performance relative to regular admits. The WL kids outperformed their counterparts. (BTW, I did the study as a teaching tool for our younger professional staff.) We also did an informal canvas of the backgrounds of those who volunteered to help in the admissions office. The WL candidates were disproportionately represented.

Best of luck with wherever your path takes you.

[Highlander]

Yes I might, but they will not let me know until June. All college deposits are due May 1 and housing plans few weeks later. So It would be such a hassle and $$ to switch.


Look at it this way - is it worth a couple hundred dollars to confirm a spot in UNC's class? If you get through on a wait list at another school, you forfeit the $, but you always have a spot. Given that Duke is well over $50K per year, that's a pretty small investment to forfeit.

I did the same thing at NC State, and had planned to go there until I was accepted at Duke in late spring...

[sagegrouse]

Yes I have. It just depends on how I start off at UNC. What do you recommend me sending to Duke to ensure them I am still strongly interested?

Thanks for everyone and their insight. Providing great advice to consider.

Call the admissions office and speak to a counselor. Tell them directly.

The other thing I heard was a kid on the waitlist at Wake who decided to enroll in ROTC, and the unit commander got him admitted. Wow!! Double wow!!

Also, are you likely to be competitive in a varsity sport?

sagegrouse

[Native]

Wake, Davidson and UNC. Waiting for Wake's financial package.


FWIW, my grandfather teaches at Duke's Fuqua School of Business and was actually a former Dean — he once told me that Duke graduate school admissions loves applicants from Davidson. Every time Davidson plays in Cameron there's a ton of red and white in the graduate student sections.

Granted, you shouldn't base your entire choice on that, but my point is that there's always graduate school.

[devildeac]

My daughter starts med school there in August. I have a pair of Duke scrubs I will loan her. I'll let y'all know how long she stays out of prison:rolleyes:.

[throatybeard]

I took two classes at UNC through the consortium that predated Robertson. I always felt like I was fighter pilot who had been shot down behind enemy lines.

My teachers at Carolina were a somewhat hapless grad student who I've since heard improved A LOT, and a world-class syntactician who later repaired to his homeland of Germany.

At any research university, you're going to get some OK teachers and some really amazing ones and maybe a small number of lousy ones. Teaching is not valued or rewarded at research universities, by and large, but for this emerging classification of teaching professors. Thinking that you're going to get a markedly different quality of teaching at Davidson vs Duke vs UNC is just not accurate. Even liberal arts colleges like Davidson are requiring a lot more research. By and large you're going to see faculty whose incentive structure penalizes spending time on teaching. And a bunch of them still will spend a lot of time on teaching because they love it.

The one difference between schools w/r/t to teaching is that some research universities are much more serious about getting senior faculty out in front of the Undergrads. When I was a kid, the book was that Duke and Princeton did a better job of that than most of the rest of the private schools in the top XX. I had some amazing teachers at Duke and some pretty pedestrian ones. I say this estimating them as my current self as 35 and as faculty--I'm not reporting my evaluation of them when I was 19.

The top XX is a pretty insulting notion to people who work in this field, BTW, because getting jobs in Higher Ed is so insanely selective that there are amazing faculty at just about any four year school you've ever heard of. When I was at Mississippi State, we had the top dude in the world on Faulkner. At UMSL, we've got the top dude in the world on Literary Darwinism. Neither is/was the most popular teacher in the Dept, though the students and faculty massively respect both. Is it Duke English? No, but the delta is a whole lot smaller than the public thinks.

I'm fantastic at teaching and service* and maybe barely adequate for my current school at research. There were 125 applications for my current job. They did a search for a poet at MSU. There were like 250 applications. Not Duke. Not Princeton. Mississippi State, the sort of place Duke fans snottily dismiss as "not an academic school." We're talking about run-of-the-mill state schools where the kids average a 24 ACT. If you're at a four year school anyone has every heard of, the faculty are amazing by and large. And the faculty are amazing at some of the ones you haven't heard of. You probably haven't heard of my school. We've got the Darwin dude. A guy with 20 books just retired. The Dept Head has won a Guggenheim for his work on Kazin. We've got one of the top Irish Studies people in the world. Dept Head's wife has written more books than he has, mostly on Southern Lit. Most of the Fulls have about five books and most are pretty good teachers, from what the kids tell me. There's a guy who is a teaching professor and has won multiple awards for being like basically the best teacher at the dang school. I could go on, but I have immense respect for my senior colleagues, and almost all of them are amazing. And nobody but Lavabe on this board ever heard of this school until I came here and started talking about it. Well the St Louis folk. Rasputin, Kexman.

When I was a student for ten years (1994-2004) in three different degree programs at Duke and NC State, I had every possible permutation of [great/lousy] [senior research faculty/junior research faculty/grad students]. (The teaching professor category hadn't really emerged at that time).

My advice to the OP would be simply, which school do you like the best? Go there. It's undergrad. If you're talented enough, you can be the best student at Campbell and then sex up your pedigree in graduate/professional school. As for other considerations--cost, prestige, culture--those are largely separate from the quality of teaching you'll get at any of those three schools. If you're worried about which schools the top I-banking firms hire from, that's it's own concern. But you're not going to get wildly better teaching at Duke than at Carolina or Davidson, if at all.


* - that sounds arrogant, I know. Sorry. Teaching is a very humbling profession and I'm a very insecure person, so if I can admit that I'm really good at something, it's probably true.

[sagegrouse]

I took two classes at UNC through the consortium that predated Robertson. I always felt like I was fighter pilot who had been shot down behind enemy lines.

My teachers at Carolina were a somewhat hapless grad student who I've since heard improved A LOT, and a world-class syntactician who later repaired to his homeland of Germany.

At any research university, you're going to get some OK teachers and some really amazing ones and maybe a small number of lousy ones. Teaching is not valued or rewarded at research universities, by and large, but for this emerging classification of teaching professors. Thinking that you're going to get a markedly different quality of teaching at Davidson vs Duke vs UNC is just not accurate. Even liberal arts colleges like Davidson are requiring a lot more research. By and large you're going to see faculty whose incentive structure penalizes spending time on teaching. And a bunch of them still will spend a lot of time on teaching because they love it.

The one difference between schools w/r/t to teaching is that some research universities are much more serious about getting senior faculty out in front of the Undergrads. When I was a kid, the book was that Duke and Princeton did a better job of that than most of the rest of the private schools in the top XX. I had some amazing teachers at Duke and some pretty pedestrian ones. I say this estimating them as my current self as 35 and as faculty--I'm not reporting my evaluation of them when I was 19.

The top XX is a pretty insulting notion to people who work in this field, BTW, because getting jobs in Higher Ed is so insanely selective that there are amazing faculty at just about any four year school you've ever heard of. When I was at Mississippi State, we had the top dude in the world on Faulkner. At UMSL, we've got the top dude in the world on Literary Darwinism. Neither is/was the most popular teacher in the Dept, though the students and faculty massively respect both. Is it Duke English? No, but the delta is a whole lot smaller than the public thinks.

I'm fantastic at teaching and service* and maybe barely adequate for my current school at research. There were 125 applications for my current job. They did a search for a poet at MSU. There were like 250 applications. Not Duke. Not Princeton. Mississippi State, the sort of place Duke fans snottily dismiss as "not an academic school." We're talking about run-of-the-mill state schools where the kids average a 24 ACT. If you're at a four year school anyone has every heard of, the faculty are amazing by and large. And the faculty are amazing at some of the ones you haven't heard of. You probably haven't heard of my school. We've got the Darwin dude. A guy with 20 books just retired. The Dept Head has won a Guggenheim for his work on Kazin. We've got one of the top Irish Studies people in the world. Dept Head's wife has written more books than he has, mostly on Southern Lit. Most of the Fulls have about five books and most are pretty good teachers, from what the kids tell me. There's a guy who is a teaching professor and has won multiple awards for being like basically the best teacher at the dang school. I could go on, but I have immense respect for my senior colleagues, and almost all of them are amazing. And nobody but Lavabe on this board ever heard of this school until I came here and started talking about it. Well the St Louis folk. Rasputin, Kexman.

When I was a student for ten years (1994-2004) in three different degree programs at Duke and NC State, I had every possible permutation of [great/lousy] [senior research faculty/junior research faculty/grad students]. (The teaching professor category hadn't really emerged at that time).

My advice to the OP would be simply, which school do you like the best? Go there. It's undergrad. If you're talented enough, you can be the best student at Campbell and then sex up your pedigree in graduate/professional school. As for other considerations--cost, prestige, culture--those are largely separate from the quality of teaching you'll get at any of those three schools. If you're worried about which schools the top I-banking firms hire from, that's it's own concern. But you're not going to get wildly better teaching at Duke than at Carolina or Davidson, if at all.


* - that sounds arrogant, I know. Sorry. Teaching is a very humbling profession and I'm a very insecure person, so if I can admit that I'm really good at something, it's probably true.

The other point I would make is that residential life really matters. When I was a grad student at Rice, I knew a lot of the undergrads who were townies, living at home in Houston and commuting to campus. It seemed to me that over 3-4 years they changed and grew up much less than the Rice kids living in the dorms, surrounded by their peers. And yet, having benefited from dorm life at Duke, I can hardly imagine what is was that was so helpful, in that we were mostly cutting up and drinking beer.

sagegropuse
'Actually, for accuracy, Rice has residential colleges, not dorms, and at least one faculty family lives and dines with the students'

[throatybeard]

The other point I would make is that residential life really matters. When I was a grad student at Rice, I knew a lot of the undergrads who were townies, living at home in Houston and commuting to campus. It seemed to me that over 3-4 years they changed and grew up much less than the Rice kids living in the dorms, surrounded by their peers. And yet, having benefited from dorm life at Duke, I can hardly imagine what is was that was so helpful, in that we were mostly cutting up and drinking beer.

sagegropuse
'Actually, for accuracy, Rice has residential colleges, not dorms, and at least one faculty family lives and dines with the students'

This is a good point. Duke's residential character is a huge part of its culture. Campus is your home.

[cspan37421]

The other point I would make is that residential life really matters. When I was a grad student at Rice, I knew a lot of the undergrads who were townies, living at home in Houston and commuting to campus. It seemed to me that over 3-4 years they changed and grew up much less than the Rice kids living in the dorms, surrounded by their peers. And yet, having benefited from dorm life at Duke, I can hardly imagine what is was that was so helpful, in that we were mostly cutting up and drinking beer.

sagegropuse
'Actually, for accuracy, Rice has residential colleges, not dorms, and at least one faculty family lives and dines with the students'

Is that a fair point of comparison though? It's no surprise to me that undergraduates living at home and commuting didn't mature as much as kids living in the dorms. They probably didn't have to take much responsibility. What about kids who lived off campus but not with their parents? I would imagine they might grow up even more than kids in dorms ... because they have to clean their own bathrooms, get (some of) their own food, etc.

I'm not saying there's no other benefit to dorm life - forging lasting friendships and bonds with your classmates is definitely easier that way - but I wouldn't think maturity would be more fostered than living on your own.

Just a thought from a Dukie who was 2 yrs in dorms, 1 yr in Central Campus Apts, 1 year off campus. Not in that order.

[sagegrouse]

Is that a fair point of comparison though? It's no surprise to me that undergraduates living at home and commuting didn't mature as much as kids living in the dorms. They probably didn't have to take much responsibility. What about kids who lived off campus but not with their parents? I would imagine they might grow up even more than kids in dorms ... because they have to clean their own bathrooms, get (some of) their own food, etc.

I'm not saying there's no other benefit to dorm life - forging lasting friendships and bonds with your classmates is definitely easier that way - but I wouldn't think maturity would be more fostered than living on your own.

Just a thought from a Dukie who was 2 yrs in dorms, 1 yr in Central Campus Apts, 1 year off campus. Not in that order.

It was a homily that I give from time to time. Let me elaborate --

I think it is the socia and intellectual interactions with a peer group that is probably more interesting than your younger siblings and your HS friends. In that sense, it does matter where you go to school. I would like to think that Duke offers a richer environment than most other schools due to peer-to-peer interactions, the general motivation of the students, as well as the measurable academic environment. Throatybeard made the point that faculties are outstanding in many schools and would expect the teaching to be equally good. I agree but offered a different slant on the college experience.

I was thinking more of intellectual maturity and development of social skills than of the lessons of self-reliance, although those are important too.

sagegrouse