In the 2014
U.S. News & World Report ranking of undergraduate programs at doctoral granting institutions, Duke was tied for 7th.
[12] In the past twenty years,
U.S. News & World Report has placed Duke as high as 3rd and as low as 10th.
[110] In 2013, Duke was ranked 23rd in the world in the
QS World University Rankings[111] and 17th in the world by the
Times Higher Education World University Rankings.
[112] Duke was ranked the 14th-best university in the world by
Newsweek[113] and 31st best globally by
Shanghai Jiao Tong University's
Academic Ranking of World Universities(ARWU) in 2013, focusing on quality of scientific research and the number of Nobel Prizes.
[114] The Wall Street Journalranked Duke sixth (fifth among universities) in its "feeder" rankings in 2006, analyzing the percentage of undergraduates that enroll in what it considers the top five medical, law, and business schools.
[115] The 2010 report by the
Center for Measuring University Performance puts Duke at 6th in the nation.
[23] The 2011 Global Employability Ranking as published by
The New York Times surveyed hundreds of chief executives and chairmen from around the world and asked them to select the best universities from which they recruited, placed Duke at 13th in the world and 9th in the country.
[116][117] In 2013, Duke enrolled 139
National Merit Scholars, the 6th university in rank by number.
[118] Duke ranks 5th among national universities to have produced
Rhodes, Marshall,
Truman, Goldwater, and Udall Scholars.
[119] According to the 2011
Princeton Review's survey on "Top Dream Colleges" among parents, Duke ranked as the 6th dream university.
[120] Kiplinger's
50 Best Values in Private Universities 2013–14 ranks Duke at 5th best overall after taking financial aid into consideration.
[121] According to a study by
Forbes, Duke ranks 11th among universities that have produced billionaires and 1st among universities in the South.
[122][123] A survey by the
Journal of Blacks in Higher Education in 2002 ranked Duke as the #1 university in the country in regard to the integration of African American students and faculty.
[124] According to a poll of recruiters conducted by
The Wall Street Journal, Duke ranks 2nd in terms of producing the best graduates who have received either a marketing or liberal arts degree. Collegeatlas.com ranks the undergraduate liberal arts program at Duke 3rd in the nation, the ranking incorporates both research universities as well as liberal arts colleges in the United States.
In the research realm, Dr. Robert J. Lefkowitz, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator who has spent his entire 39-year research career at the Duke University Medical Center, shared the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Brian K. Kobilka of Stanford University School of Medicine, who was a post-doctoral fellow in Lefkowitz's lab in the 1980s. Duke graduates who have won the Nobel Prize in Physics include
Hans Dehmelt for his development of the ion trap technique,
[223] Robert Richardson for his discovery of superfluidity in helium-3,
[224] and
Charles Townes for his work on quantum electronics.
[225] Other alumni in research and academia include Turing Award winners
Fred Brooks[226] and
John Cocke,
[227] Templeton Prize winning physicist and religion scholar
Ian Barbour,
[228] MacArthur Award recipient
Paul Farmer,
[229] and former Dean of the Graduate School at Princeton
Theodore Ziolkowski
