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OK, I went into the Apple Store. I felt like I walked into another world! It just was odd. Anyway, it was packed on a Tuesday afternoon. I looked around a little, but didn’t really know what to look for! I may go again, but in the meantime I( have emailed a couple of instructors who are in the animation department. Hopefully, I will hear something from them. I may have really messed up cuz I stopped in a Best Buy and there was an open box MacBook Pro for $1699 instead of $1999. I just couldn’t do it without knowing for sure. If it is still there tomorrow I may get it anyway. I am hesitant cuz I think Best Buy charges restocking fees and so on. Need to be sure of what I am doing and I am the queen of second-guessing myself. lol
Thank you all for your help. Not sure I understood everything that was posted, but there was a lot of great info here!

If you want to do a price comparison and see if you are getting what you think you are getting, use this link...

http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/

Then, at the top right, there is a “buy-it-now” link. You’ll be able to go through variations that affect the price, and then you’ll see if that machine you’re looking at is priced a lot lower than normal, or is simply a different variation that would be priced at that amount, anyway.

Variations in price will be size of screen (which is the size of the computer, too), MHz of CPU, amount of RAM, size and kind of hard drive, plus the variation between different models of the MacBook Pro as to some of the connectors and whatever else is inside the machine.

Specs and variations...
http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs.html
[click the different sizes, at top of page, and you’ll see the variations at the bottom of the page]

One thing I would say here, though. If you want to add more RAM that what is shown for the basic configuration, it’s probably a bit cheaper to add RAM from a good and reliable third-party source. I’ve used the same one (i.e., source) for the last 15 years or so. I should say this another way, too — don’t have Apple add any more RAM, other than their standard configuration. :-)

One more thing, I don’t know if you noticed from another comment that students that are enrolled in qualifying school can get a good discount on Apple computers. I can’t tell you the exact qualifying procedure, but it may be worth your time and effort to check into it and get a substantial discount this way.

And..., you won’t find any drastic differences in the price from one retailer to another retailer as compared to Apple, on the basic configured computer. So, if you find a drastic price difference, then there is something you don’t know (or don’t realize). It’s either that it’s not configured the way you think it is, or it has been returned and it’s being re-priced out of that consideration, or it was from last year (a close-out) and the newer models (this year’s) have different configurations and specs, so the older one may not be what you think you are getting (as compared to this year’s models). Now, any one of those reasons may be fine for you — but you should know what the reasons are and you should be able to decide it’s okay for you.

And a last thing here, and a more personal comment and opinion..., I would never buy anything from Best Buy, except the simplest things and only if it’s on sale for a drastically reduced price... LOL... They are the worst retailer ever, as far as I’m concerned. But, that’s me... :-)