To gain perspective on Brown CS, google Andries van Dam. (I do feel like a broken record on that one.) I wouldn’t say that any of those schools have a “better” CS department. They are all different – and I think the bottom line is that studying CS at any of those schools will lead to success. Among the general public – and that includes CC – Brown’s CS department is not well known and so doesn’t get the kudos it deserves. But CS concentrators at Brown definitely get jobs at all the major companies.
I_wanna does a great job explaining Brown philosophy. I agree that for the most part you should be weighing other factors. (And I also don’t understand a lot of what thenextcolbert is saying.)
I think if you want to live in the south after college, then Duke might have an edge over Brown. Because of sports, Duke has better name recognition. I don’t know enough about Wall Street and Silicon Valley recruiting to know how Duke does there – Brown students do extraordinarily well, assuming they major in the right things (econ, CS, applied math are examples), do well in classes and have a good resume.