<p>I’m a parent. My oldest son is joining the Class of 2016 at Duke. I’m also a Duke grad. So is my husband. But guess what, we have both spent our careers at Harvard. He’s faculty and I do health policy research at the med school. I went ahead and registered just to offer you my overall opinions. (My son faced the same choice as you, btw.) </p>
<p>OK</p>
<p>Student Life:
Where Duke wins: student center, overall campus camaraderie, weather, sports teams, quite frankly sports facilities although some individual sports at Harvard might win but overall, Duke’s got better gyms/access, Durham is less small town that it used to be but you’re still not in a big city and you can stay in the Duke Campus bubble your whole 4 years if you are so inclined (I don’t recommend that, if you go Duke, make the effort to visit Durham.) </p>
<p>Where Harvard wins: The House system is rather awesome. What camaraderie you will feel at Harvard will be to your House probably more than to the university as a whole. If you prefer a big city feel, then you should go to Harvard. There is still a bit of a campus bubble at Harvard but it is impossible to spend your entire Harvard career completely on campus. You are also much more likely to meet random folks who aren’t connected to the university in anyway at Harvard than you are at Duke. Town-gown relations at Harvard are better than at Duke but that’s mostly because you’re surrounded by UNC grads. (More UNC grads living in Durham County than Duke grads in the whole state of NC.) I know that rivalry from the inside out as I grew up in Durham. There is nothing like it anywhere else. </p>
<p>Academics:
Really, it’s a wash. Harvard used to have an edge in the hard sciences but that’s harder to determine now, looking at PhD programs in the hard sciences, you’re fine coming out of either one. Duke has an edge in public policy and statistics, definitely. More Harvard faculty have Nobel prizes but most of their Nobels, at least in the hard sciences, are emeritus. If you have your heart set on a Rhodes Scholarship, I’d go to Harvard. Beyond that your chances at Harvard Med are better coming out of Harvard but your chances at Duke Med are better coming out of Duke. But both schools accept kids from both schools. There’s a joke among the doctors that I work with, the Harvard undergrads who went to Harvard Med (and sometimes also have an MPH from the School of Public Health), we call them, heck, they call themselves, Preparation H. But the docs that I work with at Harvard come from all over. Yes, most of the top researchers came from top medical schools but the undergrad institutions vary widely. And hey, I’m a Duke grad, although not an MD. My division also hires research assistants all the time who stay for a year or two then go on to medical school. Many of them go to Harvard Med. We seem to hire a lot of Brown University graduates as research assistants, don’t know why, although we’ve had both Duke and Harvard grads work with us. No UNC grads yet. Sorry, had to get that dig in. ;-)</p>
<p>Intangibles:
Harvard is Harvard. You go anywhere in the world and folks have heard of Harvard. That said, I work at Harvard with some very intelligent people. I’ve never felt lesser by saying I did my undergraduate studies at Duke, never. The smartest most impressive people I work with did their undergraduate work at Stanford. The smartest person I’ve ever met (not someone I work with) did his undergraduate work at Duke. Your peer group at Duke will skew more Southern and West Coast than your peer group at Harvard which will skew northeastern. I don’t know where you’re from and I don’t know how much it matters to you to expose yourself to cultural differences (there are cultural differences between New England and the South, big ones, trust me.) If you’re from the South or California, go to Harvard. If you’re from the northeast, especially New England, go to Duke. If you’re from the Midwest, take your pick.</p>
<p>So, why did my son choose Duke? He is likely to major in the same field where his father is Harvard faculty. He doesn’t want his dad as his professor. Can’t really argue with that decision. Plus he’s been raised on the glory that is Cameron Indoor Stadium. Harvard has a Duke guy as their basketball coach now, Tommy Amaker (a Duke contemporary of mine, we took Intro to Jazz together). Jeremy Lin or no Jeremy Lin, nothing compares to a game in Cameron. Hope some of this helps. If you’d like to email me with specific questions, I’ll do my best. Good luck. You can’t lose either way.</p>