<p>It "sounds" uber-preppy? Exactly where did you get that gem of information from? I hate when people form opinions of a school without visiting or even knowing much about it. (As a German speaker, I also hate the use of "uber" in English conversation.) There are plenty of preps here, true, but there are also quite a few normal people. The "not overwhelmingly party-going" criterion could be a problem. That doesn't mean Duke students aren't intense learners inside and outside the classroom, though.</p>
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incollege88:
Obviously when you're at a school with as talented and bright a student body as Duke you are going to have many intelligent and broadening conversations with kids from all different backgrounds, beliefs, and interests. I have discussed issues involved in politics, gender, sexual orientation, materialism, religion, race, nationality, history, and any combination of them all (and more things I'm probably forgetting) with people whose unique perspectives have taught me so much about my own beliefs and challenged where I stand on a lot of things. However, conversations mostly revolve around issues people actually identify with or have a unique perspective on. When I visited friends at Brown and Yale people were having very abstract, cerebral, pseudo-intellectual conversations that seemed to be more about stroking their own egos than learning something. In a couple cases, their conversations didn't even make sense and actually seemed quite foolish--one revolved around the difference between the words "omniscient" and "ubiquitous"; another which inaccurately attempted to explain a mechanical/physical phenomenon in terms of chemical bonds (completely incorrect). I would hardly classify those forced conversations as "intellectual." At Duke, although you won't find many people attempting those kinds of useless, elitist, quasi-intellectually masturbatory conversations, you will find a lot of kids who have amazing and interesting backgrounds and a whole lot of intelligence who are willing to talk about things that actually matter...