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Agreed, this should be the first step.</p>
<p>I second the Wake Forest suggestion. Wake is one of the smallest of the national universities, and it’s really more of a LAC-university hybrid. In fact, it has fewer large classes than some of the top liberal arts colleges. Beautiful campus, extraordinarily friendly students, tons of school spirit. </p>
<p>As noted in the original post, BC is the other private university that comes closest. </p>
<p>Not liking the USC suggestion. USC feels nothing like Duke. California schools have a very different vibe.</p>
<p>I like the suggestions of Tulane, Miami, Richmond, and especially Davidson, which is in many ways a LAC version of Duke. Rhodes is fairly similar as well except for a lack of D1 athletics and a stronger undergraduate focus. Furman might work too.</p>
<p>If you happen to be from NC, UNC Chapel Hill is strikingly similar to Duke in a lot of ways. (Given that UNC is the oldest founded public and much older, perhaps I should say that Duke is in many ways similar to UNC.) It offers cross-registration with Duke, and a bus runs between the two every 30 minutes. There’s a fair bit of academic and social mixing between the two, and obviously the two battle it out as athletic rivals. UNC’s campus is much more eclectic and less formally laid out than Duke’s, but it’s nevertheless rather attractive, and Chapel Hill is obviously a great college town. </p>