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<p>This (from the OP) pre-emptively answered the question before the peanut gallery chimed in. I think the rest of the chatter that follows became, “Please validate my justification for liking one school over another,” which is totally fair.</p>
<p>Let me be perfectly frank in my personal bias: I do not like Duke as a school overall. I’ve spent some time there in a professional capacity and thought to myself nearly the whole way through, “Wow, people PAY for this? You’d have to PAY ME a LOT of money to GO here.”</p>
<p>However, I am not blind to the fact that a) there are bright, creative, interesting, outwardly cerebral, and yes, quirky undergrads at Duke, b) there are boozy, ditzy types at Chicago, and, perhaps most significantly to this conversation, c) I can sympathize when people’s reaction to Chicago is like my reaction to Duke.</p>