https://talk.collegeconfidential.com/t/duke-is-overrated/472381

"Despite a beautiful campus and excellent basketball, Duke is overrated academically as an undergraduate institution. Greek life predominates the social scene, and there is little that Durham has to offer socially, culturally, or educationally. The student body, although diverse geographically, is homogeneous in terms of attitudes, values, and style with suburban preppy types prevailing."

"I attended the university for 2 years before transferring to another institution. My freshman year was excellent - freshman have their own campus which promotes a lot of co-mingling between the class. Academic quality was fine - STEM classes were excellent, but I found that the liberal arts classes were populated by athletes looking for an easy A, and professors that were looking for papers that agreed with their worldview, rather than a unique critique. The facilities were top-notch - excellent gymnasiums and sports facilities, great libraries, beautiful campus, etc. On campus food is top notch. Durham is pretty poor of a city - lot of homelessness outside the campus that will ask students for money as they go buy groceries. The university is full of students that were top 5% in their high school, or top division 1 athletes. However, not only is the school very academically competitive, but it is socially competitive as well. I found that freshman competed with each other to get into the best fraternities/sororities and selective living groups, and used their social standing as a measuring stick for their worth as a person. Not being in a fraternity or selective living group was social suicide, as the social scene after freshman year was driven by the group that you were a part of, which was very difficult to break into from an outsider (even if you were friends with these people as a freshman). It's extremely lonely to be without a dedicated base of friends in sophomore and junior year, which causes about 50% of the class to be pretty socially isolated. However, being in one of these groups promotes burnout, as keeping up with intense classes, job recruitment, and fraternity/SLG life can be exhausting. Just beware of these things before attending the university, and understand that you will likely have to join greek life to have any real fun at the university."