anotherday

I’ve heard similar things about Michigan’s Applied masters. Also, keep in mind Duke‘s masters explicitly says you can do research and PhD prep, which even in the case you go to industry you can have a thesis and apply for research positions. These are great choices - congrats on your admits. Cheers!

I agree with the previous posters that both are great choices, you can’t go wrong. Another thing to keep in mind is that if you go for Michigan bridge masters and don’t get into the PhD (it seems from the website a bad grade might disqualify you from transferring to the PhD but I’m not exactly sure), you might be in a precarious spot because reapplying to PhDs in the next few years might be more competitive due to the economy (people apply to grad school at higher rates during recessions). so the security of 4 years fully funded with the cheap cost of living in Texas would be a smart choice to minimize risk. I would go for Texas a&m unless you can’t find more than 2 or 3 professors you’d be happy working with there.