<p>“The reason I’m so invested in this is that I chose Duke over a full ride at UT-Austin and a direct admit from McCombs.”</p>
<p>You picked a specific area where Duke clearly beats Texas. I suppose you were interested in economics/finance and Duke is a great training ground for it, as is Dartmouth. If you were interested in engineering, it would have been foolish to go to Duke over a full ride to UT-Austin. If you were instate to a school like Michigan, it would also be foolish to spend that much extra money to go to Duke for either economics/finance or engineering. Same thing with Berkeley. A school like Michigan has virtually no academic weaknesses. Very few schools, Harvard included, can make that statement. Academically Michigan is very strong in many disciplines, it just rarely is strongest in any single one like HYPSM are. Michigan isn’t quite in their league as an overall academic institution. It is however in the next rung down, along with quite a few others including Duke. I have no problem saying that Duke is an academic peer of Michigan. I just never hear anyone from Duke that says the same thing about Michigan. However I can understand your angst and suppose if I had paid well over $200,000.00 for my private undergraduate education, I would like to think that my school is better than any public.</p>