<p>Oh, the Duke jab is merely this:</p>
<p>It seems that most other grads of top 20 universities are more than happy to say that all of the top 20 universities offer great educations, and that while some have specialties that others don’t, and while the environment / culture at each may be different, that you generally can’t go wrong with any of them. They don’t have a need to try to elevate their own university above any other; they have their own personal preference and pride, but hey, it’s all good.</p>
<p>The Duke people (Dookies? whatever) have a tendency to rank everything in a really finite way, as if there were any kinds of major differences between being (say) #8 and #11 or whatever, they seem really overly impressed with their own prestige, and they seem really anxious for everyone to bow down to their grand Duke-ness. It’s just really odd. Really, <em>Rice</em> isn’t the place that looks worse when you’re so very anxious to point out that not every single person in the US has heard of it. It just makes <em>you</em> look small and ungracious.</p>