Hello, I am a sophomore at a private high school. My dream school is Duke University in Durham, NC. I have not taken my SAT or ACT yet, but I believe I am well prepared. In my freshman year (last year), I took all rigorous honors courses with honors advance math and Spanish. I had an A- average and got one semester B. My unweighted GPA was about 3.6 and weighted of 4.6. This year, I’m in all rigorous honors courses and one AP. As the semester is coming to an end, my average GPA is about the same as 9th grade. In all places I’ve been too, it says a Duke applicant should have a good UW GPA 3.7-4. I am very active in important extracurriculars and I’m an All-State tennis player on Varsity Tennis, and much more. What are my chances of making it regular decision?
Absence of Standardized Test scores, as well as an absence of half of one’s high school career thus far makes it hard to determine such “chances”.
You are being a bit broad when you “much more.” Does this “much more” contain helpful extra currics that you enjoy and excel in? What do you think you want to study? What is your ethnicity? If you are a regular applicant, you should probably have a GPA within the 3.8-4.0 range, and a score of 1550+. If you are a recruited athlete at a place like Duke, your GPA may be able to slip past their admission office if everything else is there.
Their admission rate is very low. Try your best at school and standardised tests and apply.
You’re off to a great start. Keep working hard. Getting into Duke is not easy. But here is what you can do to maximize your chances:
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Grades: Get top grades in the most demanding curriculum possible. They generally look for students in the top 5-10% of their class. The absolute GPA itself doesn’t matter much, but your ranking is more important. If your school doesn’t rank, they will try to estimate your class rank based upon historical data.
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Test scores: standardized testing is also very important. If you don’t have any hooks (URM, first gen, etc) then shoot for scores at the 75th percentile. Google Duke Class of 2021 profile for the test scores you’ll need.
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ECs: do extracurriculars that you’re passionate about. Try to avoid looking like everyone else who applies. As you can imagine its no easy task to select 1700 students from a pool of 40,000+ applicants. So anything you do will need to stand out from your peers.
If you are all-state, have you considered contacting the Duke Tennis coach to see if he/she would support you?
As a tennis player, I can tell you “All-State” means nothing to the Duke tennis coach…The Duke team expects high USTA national rankings, participation in Nats at the Zoo, potentially ITF matches like the Easter Bowl, etc. Excelling in high school tennis at the state level certainly can help your candidacy as an applicant to Duke, but you’d know if you’re at the level to be a recruited athlete. It’s a very high hurdle. I’d guess most recruited tennis players don’t even participate in high school sponsored tennis because the level of competition is not high enough (exceptions of course apply). Duke does have a fantastic club tennis team though, that is still decently competitive and plays matches against other schools within driving distance (and once every four years, flies somewhere for club nationals, which we won one year!). So, yeah, some good players on the club team.
Yes that is true. It was a bit broad. I am in many extracurriculars in science and policy. I would like to major in that, but it is a very common major for applicants. I’m Indian-American. I think I am excelling in extracurriculars as well as being class president. Just got to nail my SAT and ACT and increase my class rank. I don’t think my school has class rank nor is there many applicants in my school to Duke. So is my 3.65 enough to pass through GPA standards?
3.65 is on the low side. Keep in mind that as an Indian American you’ll be facing tough competition.
do colleges more at UW gpa? because my weighted gpa is 4.5
Yes they focus on the unweighted GPA. Reason is that each school weights differently.