I'd like to add my 2 cents on the laptop issue, as a current first-year.
Duke tries to sell you a laptop by referring to all sorts of software that comes bundled with it, which you supposedly need but actually either don't or can buy very inexpensively from the people in the office here. For our class, the laptop was about $3000, and a number of my classmates have had problems with hard drives conking out, screens breaking, CD drives falling out, etc. To be fair, this extravagant price includes a Palm-type device too, but you don't get it until the beginning of the 2nd year, and the price tag is about $300, meaning the laptop+software+repair service is still extravagantly priced at $2700!
They peddled Dell laptops this year. They were 1.2GHz Pentium IIIM's, with 256 megs of RAM. For literally half the price, I got myself a brand new Compaq with a 1.4GHz Pentium IVM, also with 256MB of RAM, and more hard disk space. About 10% of my class opted to buy laptops on their own, and no one has had any major problems. On the other hand, I know of at least 5 people who've had major problems with the Duke Dell laptops. I honestly think these are refurbished models or defects or something, because the error rate has been strangely high. Then again, these classmates all got loaner laptops while theirs were being fixed, which is really nice.
I also heard that your grant money, assuming you're on financial aid, gets upped if you opt for the laptop deal. So it probably ends up not actually costing $3000. But I'd still caution against getting the Duke laptop.
Also, if you're buying a laptop, try to get a built-in wireless module if you can, or be prepared to buy a wireless card. We have a wireless network all over campus here (even in the Duke Gardens!), and most of our class has opted to go wireless because it's so convenient.
