<p>I agree that one drawback to Duke is the seeming lack of a real college town surrounding it, or at least around the part of campus you see on the tour. Secondly, I think you received some excellent advice in post #7–now’s the time to be more specific in your investigation of the two schools. What is likely to be your major? If you don’t know, can you at least narrow it down to liberal arts vs. math and science? If it’s the latter, I’d say Duke is the better choice. If the former, it’s a trickier call. In addition, think about where you plan to work after graduation and if either school might give you an avantage in that geographic market. </p>
<p>Lastly, in defense of your father, rankings and name recognition do indeed matter for job and grad school placement and Duke simply has a better name–period. He is probably thinking of your long term benefit, and is of the opinion that you are attending college primarily to learn and that details like the college town are not very important. I can tell you that a lot of my son’s state school friends who majored in the same area he did haven’t found jobs, whereas he and his classmates from a much higher ranked private institutions have super jobs. Not saying you can extrapolate, but in a tough economy quality can give you an edge.</p>