Penn and Duke are more similar to each other than Dartmouth is to either of them.
I’d pick Duke over Penn CAS for the following reasons:
- Smaller size (more emphasis on teaching) as reflected in the US News ranking of "best undergraduate teaching" http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/undergraduate-teaching
(Duke is top 10, Penn isn't)
- No competition with Wharton for jobs. Why would employers hire at CAS when they can hire at Wharton instead?
- Nicer campus (I've spent a lot of time on both campuses and I don't think it's even close but this is obviously subjective)
- Better sports (may or may not mean much to you but it does unite the student body!)
Also, forget about all this Ivy league nonsense. Over half of the students who have been admitted to both schools choose Duke over Penn. http://www.parchment.com/c/college/tools/college-cross-admit-comparison.php?compare=duke&with=upenn
In fact, Penn is often mistaken for Penn State (a state school that is not nearly as selective as Penn is) while Duke has incredible prestige in the US and abroad due to its outstanding medical research and great sports programs.
The “lower” Ivies (not Penn necessarily) often use their affiliation as a crutch. It gives them an excuse to be complacent. Dartmouth and Brown would be fairly unremarkable schools if they weren’t “Ivies”.
Would you pick Dartmouth over Stanford because it is an Ivy?
This thread is being completely dominated by nonsensical statements made by Penn students. Duke was the only school in the US to allow muslim students to practice their faith in the open. It was one of the first schools to allow Palestinian activists to rally. Where are you getting this “Duke is intolerant and overtly religious” nonsense from?
Duke’s departmental rankings in certain disciplines may be marginally lower because it is a much more undergrad focused university (and departmental rankings typically focus on graduate school).
Also, I don’t know where the Penn students are getting their information from. Here are a few rankings of math departments (as an example):
http://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/search?subject=mathematics&name=
^ Duke is ranked 22 spots ahead of Penn.
Duke has more than twice as many Rhodes scholars as Penn does (the Rhodes is the highest award an undergraduate can receive)
http://www.rhodesscholar.org/assets/uploads/RS_Number%20of%20Winners%20by%20Institution_1_15_16.pdf
Duke has a significantly higher endowment per capita (without including the $1 billion that Duke is entitled to receive from the independent “Duke Endowment”)
Two Duke faculty members have been awarded Nobel prizes in the last 4 years. The last time a Penn professor won a Nobel prize was 14 years ago. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/lists/universities.html
Duke has more highly cited researchers than any school in the world not named Harvard, Stanford, or MIT.
http://hcr.stateofinnovation.thomsonreuters.com/
Penn is a fantastic school but don’t let people attempt to convince you that Duke isn’t.