My S has applied though it’s definitely his stretch. 1480/33/4.9 W-GPA. I have a couple of questions:
His main strength I think is his SOS. How heavily does that figure into admission? I say it's his strength but maybe not relative to the outstanding candidates Duke gets. But AP's in 9th and 10th grade (1 was a 4 rest 5's) the 2 years of college classes. 2 calc,2 chems,2 physics,stats,programming etc.
2, How much,if any , of that credit will Duke take?To be honest Duke has been on our back-burner due to the ultra competitive nature and those realities and price. But really after it’s all said and done it will be cheaper than what he gets from the state schools. ( unless he falls into one of the great scholarships but that is akin to getting in Duke) .
Duke will take only TWO credits for AP/college courses towards the required 34 credits to graduate in Trinity. In Pratt, you can have an unlimited number of AP credits, but the requirements are such that it doesn’t help you to graduate early since there are so many engineering courses required that nobody could have possibly taken in high school. Duke wants people to graduate in four years reliably – there are so many people coming in with 8+ AP credits, that if they made it unlimited, there would be a lot of people leaving after three years.
“SOS” = strength of schedule? Meaning course rigor? It definitely factors into admission. There are six primary factors and rigor is on its own. From http://admissions.duke.edu/application/overview:
So, Duke definitely wants to see that you’ve challenged yourself academically, but also wants to see that you’ve responded to that challenge and done well. 1480/33 is in the competitive range of Duke applicants; no idea what a 4.9 weighted GPA translates to, but it sounds like almost all A’s. Obviously, there are thousands of qualified applicants that do not receive an acceptance, so it’s a crapshoot, but based on those numbers and the fact that your son has challenged himself tremendously, I would think that he’s a competitive applicant. Good luck.
Just to add on-- if you are planning on graduating in four years, while only two credits are used for “credit,” all of the credit is used for placment (so it’s not ‘wasted’.) So another chemistry class may count to place out of intro general chemistry, etc.
In addition, a couple of people I know do graduate early, and it is possible to use more pre-matriculation credits (AP/early college credits), known as ‘acceleration credits.’ More information can be found here: http://trinity.duke.edu/undergraduate/academic-policies/graduate-early, and this really addresses the number of courses needed to graduate early (again, which is a separate issue from placement, as ALL classes may be used for placement).
There are also very specific rules for the early college credit-- a lot of programs won’t count, but some will!