Then you need to budget for a full 8 years in university. If you are full pay at a private university in the US for 4 years, and then also do another 4 years of medical school, you are very likely to spend at least $800,000 and might spend closer to $900,000 before they call you “doctor”. You need to take as little of this as possible as debt. If you and your parents are not ok spending something over $800,000 on university, then it will be easier to save during your first four years (undergrad) rather than the last four years (medical school).
If budget is not an issue at all, then Brown and Duke are both excellent universities. Either one would prepare you very well for medical school. If you decided to take a different path (which most premed students do) then both will prepare you for a wide range of other possible intentions and potential careers. In this case I would apply ED to whichever school you think is the best fit for you.
In terms of maximizing your chances of getting to medical school, I doubt that your chances are likely to vary significantly attending any university ranked in the top 100 in the US, and very likely any school in the top 150 or even 200. Yes Harvard and Duke and Brown and Emory might get more of their undergraduate students into medical school compared to UNH or U.Mass Lowell, but a huge part of this is just the consistent academic strength and drive of the students who start as freshmen at each school in the first place. Any one excellent and hard working and highly driven student can do very well at a wide range of universities.
I am not a big fan of ED unless you have a clear first choice. If you do have a clear first choice, and if you are sure that you can afford it, then that is the school to ED to IMHO.
A standout EC for a highly ranked university is to do what you want to do, and what is right for you. Whatever you do, do it well. Treat people well (or at least fairly).
Perfect!
When you get into premed classes at any “top 200” university in the US course rigor is going to get tougher. On the most part as you get to higher ranked schools this is likely to be even more true.
In most cases highly ranked universities will also have quite a few highly competitive students. I still remember at MIT one time when I failed to write down the homework assignment in a freshman year physics class. I asked a “friend” who was in the same class. He said “I won’t tell you because you are competition and I want to do better than you in the class”. Fortunately two other actual friends overheard this conversation and told me what the assignment was. This is just part of life.