“Overall, Duke is FAR more comparable to Harvard and Stanford than GaTech and Michigan.”
IsaacTheFuture, first of all, Georgia Tech and Michigan are not comparable in most ways. GT is, almost exclusively elite in Engineering and CS. Michigan, on top of being elite in those fields, is also elite in other disciplines, such as the Social Sciences, the Humanities, the Life Sciences, Business, etc…GT is certainly elite, but it is a speciality school. Michigan shares more in common with Cal, Cornell, Northwestern, Penn, UVa and UCLA, UT-Austin, Duke etc…
“…and this is coming from someone who lives in Atlanta and bleeds gold and navy blue.”
Your coming from Atlanta naturally explains why you would think that GT is comparable to Michigan. And in what it does offer, it most certainly is. But Michigan offers much more. And their campus cultures (academically, intellectually, socially, even politically etc…) could not be more different. It also explains why you think that Duke is equal to Harvard and Stanford. Regional bias based on familiarity is perfectly understandable.
But in most other parts of the country, Duke is not considered “FAR more comparable to Harvard and Stanford than it is to Michigan”, unless you are referring to high school students, in which case, I agree with you. But if you are referring to people who actually hire college graduates, or graduate schools who admit undergrads into their programs, then Michigan are Duke are generally lumped together.