My daughter has both on her list. We spent a weekend in each area and that helped her decide. She went with Brown. She liked the downtown area with the cafes and bars whereas Duke doesnt really have one. She LOVED the proximity to providence, Newport, and Boston so there is always something different to do on the weekends. Duke is close to Chapel Hill, which is nice but a rival so most kids won’t venture over. My daughter likes cold weather so that wasn’t a factor. Visit both and spend a couple days immersing yourself in the locations.

This is OP. Resurrecting this thread because decision is still out there. DC has visited both. But here's something I didn't ask because I wanted broader insight to start:

Does being an athlete (recruited) change the calculus in this decision? There are also 2-3 other schools in play (some with offers and some not), but these are the top choices (and offers are there).

DC has the stats to get in without athletics, although it would then be more of a lottery. But GPA and test scores are solidly in the middle of the current student profile. Honestly liked both very much, which is interesting because they do have different vibes, but both vibes are, in their opinion, great. If we had visited in January, I suspect this decision would be being made based on weather.

Anonymous wrote:Duke's decision to move their merit scholarship selections to after kids choose a school is going to hurt them (though I think it is the right move fairness wise). They had previously used their extra merit $$ well to attract students also considering other top schools.

Isn’t the point of a merit scholarship to attract the brightest students and sway them from other compelling options they have ?

Duke is a very good school. People outside "the know" do associate it more with basketball and less with elite academics than some would like. Many of those same people are also automatically impressed when you mention the Ivy League, which doesn't matter to me but does to some. The type of cocktail chat you are going to have about Duke is different, which isn't a bad thing. I'd rather talk basketball and ACC sports!

Duke's decision to move their merit scholarship selections to after kids choose a school is going to hurt them (though I think it is the right move fairness wise). They had previously used their extra merit $$ well to attract students also considering other top schools.

Students at Duke and Brown today are far more alike than they are dissimilar. Duke is not nearly as fratty and douchy as it may have once been. And Brown's reputation as some kind of pinko-commie-lefty haven for the purple-haired is far overblown. Both schools tend to draw from the same type of students - academically-motivated, fairly ambitious, social, a lot of private school kids, joiners rather than isolators.

Visit both. The campuses will have different vibes. Personally, I think Brown is a little run down and I don't love Providence. But it is an ivy in New England and that has its own mood - fairly close to Boston and NY, which many will like. Duke has a nicer campus. It's in the South but it doesn't really feel southern. It's probably a little more pre-professional than Brown. In either school, typical students will find their people. Duke, because of basketball and increasingly football, does have more of the traditional rah rah college atmosphere than Brown.

One thing to be mindful of is that for pre-med you'll want to go someplace where you can maintain a high GPA. Very important for med school. And students at Brown have the highest average GPA of any school in America. There's pass-fail. There's redoing tests and assignments. It's hard not to have an A average at Brown, which is good for the med school app.

Anonymous wrote:Brown has gone very left in recent years.

What years were these? If anything Brown was leftward in the 80s and has basically stayed in the same place (perhaps even gotten a bit more moderate in the face of the absurdly high achievement it takes for students to get in nowadays) as many other schools have gone left

When Brown did its historical Slavery and Justice Report almost 20 years ago, it was groundbreaking. When Loyola of Maryland - hardly a hotbed of leftism - is doing it, it’s part of the mainstream culture

Anonymous wrote:Can't go wrong either way.

To me the big pro to Brown is open curriculum. Pro to Duke is weather.

if he's pre med, open curric might not matter as much.

Nice thing about open curriculum is no core requirements. So a pre-med student can explore whatever they want beyond fulfilling their pre-med requirements. Huge advantage, especially for a pre-med kid who wants to explore other areas.

Besides things already mentioned -

Brown feels like a slightly more compact campus (compared to Duke) with some restaurants, coffee shops, etc. walking distance. And the ability to be in Boston on a 40 min train ride to visit friends or go further to see friends in New Haven, NYC etc.

Duke is a beautiful campus, but more spread out. Relatively small restaurant area (2 blocks long) in walking distance and freshman live in a different campus a bus ride away

Can't go wrong either way.

To me the big pro to Brown is open curriculum. Pro to Duke is weather.

if he's pre med, open curric might not matter as much.

My daughter got into Duke and Brown 2 years back and it was such a tough decision! Committed to Duke on the last day and is very happy there!

Anonymous wrote:The schools have very different feels. Please don’t decide by what others say. If seriously deciding between these, GO visit. Your DC will know within 10 minutes of being at schools which one for them- they schools are that different.

Said another way, both schools are great so go visit to see which matches your kid. Being at school will tell them.

The schools have very different feels. Please don’t decide by what others say. If seriously deciding between these, GO visit. Your DC will know within 10 minutes of being at schools which one for them- they schools are that different.

Anonymous wrote:Brown has gone very left in recent years. It is not impossible to have a contrary point of view, but it will not be fun or worth it for most students.

No. It is not a homogeneous blob. Maybe some louder left voices on campus, that's not the student body as a whole. My kid hangs with kids of all stripes. Many kuds aren't very political. Some interest groups have mire conservative kids as well. Everyone seems to get on ok.

Brown has gone very left in recent years. It is not impossible to have a contrary point of view, but it will not be fun or worth it for most students.