nmr

It sounds like everything about the programs are equal, so you should base your decision off of where you'd rather be. How far is your family from Duke? Will you be traveling by plane, car, train or bus to visit? I am going to school at Duke right now, and I frequently make the trip home to MD to visit my family by car, and I wish I could be closer. But Duke is a wonderful place, so I chose to come here. As far as education, research and career, you are making a good decision either way.

The University of Maryland is one of the worst cities a college could be in, College Park, MD, which is very close to both very nice places (Capitol Hill), and very bad places (Anacostia), which is just the nature of things within the capital beltway. Going there, however, isn't nearly as bad as you would think, because the campus is usually locked down pretty tight at night, and is relatively much safer than the surrounding city, and if you're smart (take the saferide, leave campus by 8PM), there's no reason you ever have to feel unsafe there. The campus police department does a pretty good job of keeping the campus safe. I went to the University of Maryland, and it's in a densely populated and very expensive place to live, but it's really not so bad. There are places to live a few miles from campus that might be affordable on a graduate stipend, and there is a subsidized apartment building next to campus for phd students, with a 1-2 year waiting list, that is really affordable and generally safe. And of course, if you can arrange a room mate, there are 2, 3 and 4-bedroom complexes that are very reasonable when the rent is shared. Don't rent a house in the city, that's for undergrads. It's really a nice school, and a nice campus, I'd hate to think it wouldn't make the list just because College Park is so crummy. I don't know anything about your programs, just wanted to add one student's prospective of UMD. Good luck.