Buy the KP laptop.
1. The service people will fix it on campus if you buy it through them. Can you say "Make a ticket."
2. DOIT is going to take your computer, and re-install windows and other acts of black magic. In the end you'll have a throttled computer that can do less than my iPad. You don't want that happening to some spiffy thing you built.
3. Seriously, DOIT turns your computer into a paper weight. Firefox crashes if I try and open a new tab. I can only watch youtube videos on Firefox but everything else that is flash I have to view in IE, iTunes will force restart my whole computer if I try and buy music, it gets old, the computer I'm typing on in going in the dumpster before I walk out of the gate.
4. If the software doesn't destroy it, taking it to sea will, and you'll be thankful you have the warranty and support. If you computer breaks at sea DOIT will mail you a new one.
5. DOIT changes the rules as they go. Sometimes chrome is okay sometimes it isn't, flash drives maybe, sometimes, who knows? sometimes this...sometimes that. If you show up with your own computer and it isn't perfectly to spec they'll make you buy the school issued one anyway. "But this meets all the requirements on the website!" you say. They won't care, you'll still be buying the dell.
Buy the dell. Don't argue with
@beyond on this. I bet you can count on 1 hand the number of people who don't buy the dell package.