<p>Duke gave me no financial aid but USC gave me a full scholarship. I'm in the Marshall School of Business at USC, and while USC does provide many special opportunities for its business students and has the Trojan Family associated with it, I don't feel like a business administration major (I'd have to get either that or an accounting major as a student in Marshall) is necessary to do business. In fact, I'm not 100% set on business, so in that respect, Duke would be better because it'd be a better environment for me to explore my options - I'm interested in econ, public policy, and even kind of want to be a trauma surgeon (scared of the med school path though). Location wise, I prefer USC, because the crime rate doesn't scare me and there's tons of places off campus to get off to when I'm bored of campus. I'm from SoCal so I love the weather and everything here. That said, I think that Durham would give me more perspective. After having gone to both Duke's and USC's overnight host programs, I got the impression that Duke and its students provided a better intellectual atmosphere, which is really important for me (and I loved the class on Buddhism and Sexuality that I sat in on); it was much more intense than what I saw at USC, and I happened to visit both during finals/midterms. Also, while people at Duke weren't exactly unfriendly, I found USC to be a friendlier place. I got into Thematic Option at USC, and plan to do the Focus program at Duke if I decide to go there. I didn't exactly fall in love with Duke, but overall I liked it much more than USC. I just don't know if I liked it enough to justify making my parents pay full tuition (and they'll have to take out some loans - I'd hate to do that to them). I'm planning on grad school, too. I have ten days to make the decision, so any additional insight would be invaluable. Thank you!</p>