Getting into Duke

[tecumseh]

I am a data guy and frankly as far as admissions to your dream college there is no good data on this that I am aware of. I would say therefore it is a positive strategy as long as you sign up for some meaningful experience like building schools in Haiti or something. IF for no other reason you get two bites at the apple. If you don't have the numbers it won't make a difference but if you fall into that fairly large category of candidates who could go either way how can a second bite hurt?

Add this to the fact that most college admissions people have a soft sport in their heart for community services and being multilingual (especially in todays world) and I do think if properly done it can help catch the eye of the admissions officer. Bottom line it can make your application stand out from the thousands of others smart high school kids.

Finally from personal experience I have seen it work.

[sagegrouse]

Can blame Thomas Wolfe and the Charlotte Simmons novel in part for a very unflattering view of Duke.

My son will probably be accepted next week to Duke but doubt he is going.

Here is a link quoting Wolfe: Dupont is not Duke. The lacrosse cultural sidebar in the story was eerie, but written before the events and non events in Durham in 2006. In fact, wrt lacrosse, the story could have been set anywhere. A member of the UPenn Board told me, before the truth had come out, that his view was, "There but for the grace of God, goes Penn." And he was a lax player there.

The corruption of the athletic culture, esp. the basketball program, at fictional Dupont does not resonate with what I know of Duke, K, the basketball players, and other aspects of the program.

Fiction is fiction, and Wolfe has taken considerable license in his setting and characters.

sagegrouse

[DevilHorns]

http://college.mychances.net/view/?id=2

data site.

[tecumseh]

My son surprisingly got rejected from Duke and got into U Cal Berkeley (out of state, great E Asian studies) and rejected from Stanford and got into Yale.

Now I know a lot of alums whine about their kids but makes me wonder about the power of legacy. My take on it if you want to play the legacy card you should really consider hard doing Early Decision as that states yes Duke is my first choice.

Still kind of odd get into HYP non legacy and rejected from Duke legacy.

[Bluedog]

The Chronicle has released a series of articles about Duke admissions in the past couple days, included quotes from Guttentag, that might be helpful to read:

http://dukechronicle.com/article/duk...als-admissions
http://dukechronicle.com/article/app...-review-system
http://dukechronicle.com/article/duk...oin-class-2014

[RPS]

My son surprisingly got rejected from Duke and got into U Cal Berkeley (out of state, great E Asian studies) and rejected from Stanford and got into Yale.

My youngest goes to Berkeley and loves it. His final decision was Berkeley or Princeton and he's glad he made the choice he did. PM me if he's seriously considering going to Cal and we can put the kids in touch.

Still kind of odd get into HYP non legacy and rejected from Duke legacy.

Note my daughter's story above (as an ED legacy).

[tecumseh]

Thanks BlueDawg that makes me feel better about my alma mater...if they lose this weekend it will be the karma. Sounds like they are understaffed in the admissions office.

I do feel that my son has a very unusual application and you need to understand JLPT and Japanese high schools as well as rural downstate Illinois high schools to understand it. Unfortunately I do feel that at Yale judging by followup letters they really understood his application and interests. Hope it wasn't anti Asian bias ..my son has blue eyes and blond hair but an Asian last name.

[House G]

My son surprisingly got rejected from Duke and got into U Cal Berkeley (out of state, great E Asian studies) and rejected from Stanford and got into Yale.

Now I know a lot of alums whine about their kids but makes me wonder about the power of legacy. My take on it if you want to play the legacy card you should really consider hard doing Early Decision as that states yes Duke is my first choice.

Still kind of odd get into HYP non legacy and rejected from Duke legacy.

I graduated from Duke and my oldest son did not get accepted. I know that his grades, board scores, etc. were good enough for admission so being a legacy was not helpful in his case. Sure I was disappointed. What I find interesting is that Duke always prides itself on the diversity of its student body but then states that the university shows no preference (with admissions) with regard to gender, race, financial status, amount of money given to Duke, state of residence, religion, etc. It is hard for me to reconcile these two things.

[Bluedog]

What I find interesting is that Duke always prides itself on the diversity of its student body but then states that the university shows no preference (with admissions) with regard to gender, race, financial status, amount of money given to Duke, state of residence, religion, etc. It is hard for me to reconcile these two things.

Uh, that is not true at all. The university never stated they don't consider those things. They most definitely consider most of those things. Amount of money given to Duke? Of course that matters. Guttentag stated that directly in one of the linked article. Race? Yeah, it influences decisions. The only things you stated that don't directly are financial status (since they don't know because it's need blind) and religion (and in most cases gender except females applying to Pratt might have an edge). Even in the case of financial status, they look at the average income of your zip code and the demographics of your high school to gauge what type of background you come from. That is also in one of those linked articles. They want to try to make the student body socipeconomically diverse. State usually doesn't matter, unless you live in Montana or North Dakota where not many people apply and they like saying they had students enroll from all 50 states every year. Having said that, none of these factors are sure fire ways to gain admission (except donating $1M+ !)

[Duke Mom]

Everything said in all comments is pretty much true, the one remark made that I would most emphasize is - have more than one "dream school." Give yourself lots of options in terms of colleges you would be happy to attend. For obvious reasons, don't set your heart on just one school.

Also, continue to take challenging courses and do well in them senior year.

Do something interesting this summer, it's ok if you need to earn money.

And...senior year, after you have visited several other campuses, if you still love Duke make sure to communicate that to your high school college counselor. Convincingly convey to your college counselor that you have visited lots of schools, you still love Duke and ... if accepted you would definitely attend. Sometime after your applications are all in - (this is moot if you apply early decision) - you might drop a brief but enthusiastic letter (typed & spell checked) to the Duke head of Admissions, describing how much you enjoyed your visit and campus tour (be specific about what you loved and why Duke is a great fit for you) and that if accepted you would definitely attend. Show the note to your HS Admissions person before you send it and get his/her approval for sending and for content.

Best of luck!

[RPS]

Everything said in all comments is pretty much true, the one remark made that I would most emphasize is - have more than one "dream school." Give yourself lots of options in terms of colleges you would be happy to attend. For obvious reasons, don't set your heart on just one school.

Interesting situation for a talented high school senior who is a family friend -- rejected by Princeton, Yale, Stanford and Duke; accepted by Harvard.

[Duke Mom]

Interesting situation for a talented high school senior who is a family friend -- rejected by Princeton, Yale, Stanford and Duke; accepted by Harvard.

Doesn't surprise me, it's not like the old days when the students with the best grades, SATs, and most impressive extracurriculars simply got into the best colleges. Now, each institution has it's own particular (not transparent) agenda and whether or not a qualified student will satisfy that agenda is not predictable.

Some (the good ones) high school college advisors do have "relationships" with certain college admissions heads. If a student can develop a relationship with their college advisor, has all the qualifications, and can convince that college advisor that a specific school is a great fit and if accepted would attend - then the college advisor can go to bat for him/her with confidence. It's far from a guarantee - nothing is, except maybe a 7 figure $contribution$, but can help.

Colleges are very "yield" sensitive, and they really want to feel that if a student is accepted there's more than a good chance that kid will attend. This can be conveyed by demonstrating interest though:

- The application. Our high school had students add an extra essay to every application - some colleges already required it, but if they didn't - each student wrote a convincing page about "why" they wanted to attend a particular school. Obviously, don't just reiterate the college's web site.

- Visiting the school - physically going and signing up for the tour. Some schools don't care about this, but others do. The HS college advisor will know which ones do care. Otherwise, if it's affordable, hedge your bets and go see each school applying to. For many reasons, this is a great thing to do. Makes one a more educated consumer.

- Writing an extra note to the Admissions Head - but only after many other schools have been seen (gives you more credibility). And only with the permission of your high school college advisor.

_ Communicating with one's own college advisor who can then, hopefully, make a strong push for you as a viable candidate.

[tecumseh]

Colleges are very "yield" sensitive, and they really want to feel that if a student is accepted there's more than a good chance that kid will attend. This can be conveyed by demonstrating interest though:

We can blame this in part on US News and World Report which uses yield in it very influential rankings. Wash U in STL was/is notorious for rejecting kids who they assumed were using Wash U as a safety school. If you assume that highly qualified kids apply to several schools and that often it is like HYPS and sprinkle in a few others and then you look at the yield rates it does not add up. Clearly there is a lot of yield management being done. Duke and Penn and others do much of this with early D....guaranteed 100% yield. Penns class for 2014 was almost 50% D. Unfortunately this tends to put kids from less privileged backgrounds at a disadvantage.

[Duke Mom]

We can blame this in part on US News and World Report which uses yield in it very influential rankings. Wash U in STL was/is notorious for rejecting kids who they assumed were using Wash U as a safety school. If you assume that highly qualified kids apply to several schools and that often it is like HYPS and sprinkle in a few others and then you look at the yield rates it does not add up. Clearly there is a lot of yield management being done. Duke and Penn and others do much of this with early D....guaranteed 100% yield. Penns class for 2014 was almost 50% D. Unfortunately this tends to put kids from less privileged backgrounds at a disadvantage.

So true, such gamesmanship on the yield business (law schools do it, too). Can't stand those rankings. Really give them very little credibility. They're great for selling copies of US News & World Report. Always say, the best college its the one where you will be happy and thrive.

[Cavlaw]

Interesting to see a lot of credence given to high school advisors in this thread. Maybe it's because I was in public school outside of Chicago, but I pretty well ignored my HS guidance counselor in all aspects pf my college search. It just wasn't a helpful function at my school (which is/was a pretty darn good school, well regarded in the various metrics of measuing the unmeasurable -- national quality of high schools).

[tecumseh]

Kudos for Reed College who just said we are not going to play the game and they do not release data to US News and World Report. The Reed president makes a lot of sense when he criticizes the list a list which all college presidents hate but are nonetheless slaves to.

[Dr. Tina]

I was the first person in my immediate family to go to college, so I basically "winged it" when it came to figuring out the college admissions process. I talked with my H.S. guidance counselor some, but we didn't seem to have an official college counselor like the ones I'm reading about more often these days. I would have loved to go to Duke as an undergrad, but I didn't think it was a realistic goal. I graduated 4th in my class, had 1300+ SAT scores, and some extracurriculars, but I didn't think that would be enough to get into Duke. I also come from a low-income family, so I didn't think we would be able to afford it either. That was 13 years ago.

I graduated magna cum laude with a BA in Sociology from Ithaca College in 2001, and I have yet to go back to graduate school. I work as a teacher's aide in an elementary school and work another job part-time. I have thought about applying to Duke for graduate school, and have read about their M.A.T program on the university website. I'm still not sure I would be able to get in, though, because it seems so competitive.

So, I guess I'm just looking for some advice on the graduate school application process from Duke alum. I've been thinking about visiting the school either this summer or fall to see what it's like. I'd appreciate anyone's tips or insight! Thanks!

[hurleyfor3]

Kudos for Reed College who just said we are not going to play the game and they do not release data to US News and World Report.

Man, what are they smoking? Oh yeah, pot.

[tecumseh]

Man, what are they smoking? Oh yeah, pot.

Stereotypes are so fun for the simple minded (see Duke haters)
For an interesting read
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...rankings/4308/

[77devil]

My son surprisingly got rejected from Duke and got into U Cal Berkeley (out of state, great E Asian studies) and rejected from Stanford and got into Yale.

Now I know a lot of alums whine about their kids but makes me wonder about the power of legacy. My take on it if you want to play the legacy card you should really consider hard doing Early Decision as that states yes Duke is my first choice.

Still kind of odd get into HYP non legacy and rejected from Duke legacy.

Duke admissions officers make no secret of the fact that legacy preference is largely limited to ED applicants these days. In addition, they're pretty open about saying alumni giving is a factor in legacy evaluation. I have heard more than one say over the years "Duke helps those who help Duke."

My childrens' experiences fit the ED guidance. Their very strong profiles were very similar academically and otherwise. The one who applied ED was admitted. The one who didn't was wait listed.