9.9% Acceptance Rate for RD

<p>Duke</a> accepts 2,929 applicants for the Class of 2017 | The Chronicle</p>

<p>Haha, I love it!</p>

<p>Oh gosh. Now that’s scary.</p>

<p>How misleading. I was not going to post anything at first, because it’s definitely possible they had a 9.9% RD acceptance rate without fudging any of the numbers to break the 10% barrier.</p>

<p>But look at their graph. The listed acceptance rates from previous years all reference the overall rate, not the RD rate; the applicant numbers on the graph also reference total numbers, not RD numbers. And yet they list 9.9% – the RD rate – as the acceptance rate for this year, on that same graph. Seriously? Duke is actually trying to trick people into thinking they only accepted 9.9% of applicants this year?</p>

<p>@invasion
Well yes, the overall acceptance rate was ~11.4% (3650/31785), but the regular acceptance rate last year was indeed 11% (as the graph shows), while the overall acceptance rate was 11.9%. No propaganda there. The graph does in fact represent the RD acceptance rate for the last year.</p>

<p>Here’s a quote from a Chronicle article dated March 2012

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<p>EDIT: Hang on a second, you seem to be correct. The graph shows a 12.6% acceptance rate for the class of 2015, which is actually the overall (and not the regular) acceptance rate for the class of 2015. Here’s another Chronicle article:</p>

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<p>Could just be an honest mistake. I think we need to give the chronicle the benefit of the doubt. I’m sure they’ll rectify the error asap.</p>

<p>Invasion: I believe you may have taken the graph and the chart out of context. When Duke e-mailed the graphic to me on Thirsday morning, the accompanying text made it very clear that the acceptance rate was based on RD alone, while the number of applications were inclusive. Moreover, the major, applicable trends – not a couple of percent or a few dozen applications, one way or another – are what is significant both in the graphic and over the course of the last several admissions cycles.</p>