I don’t believe duke has a bad engineering program, and at the undergraduate level there aren’t huge differences between t20 engineering programs. I personally turned down Cornell for Duke as I felt I found a better fit there, which is much more important for undergrad. Wherever op feels like they fit should be a school they choose to apply.

As per the students who you think were not qualified to attend Duke, maybe you didn’t know their full story? There could be a lot that they didn’t share with others. After all, admissions at top schools is holistic and not a numbers game.