<p>I visited Duke and am in absolute love with everything about it.
But I don't know if I have a great chance of getting accepted.
I plan on applying to Pratt for biomedical engineering; early decision.
I'm going to be a senior this year</p>
<p>Here's my stats:
female, ranked 3 out of 415
GPA: 4.0 out of 4.0 unweighted; 4.45 weighted
SAT: 750 math, 750 cr, 760 writing
SAT II: 710 math II, 680 chemistry
APs: 3 world history, 4 US history, will be taking latin, us govt, comparative govt, and english composition in may...</p>
<p>Other stuff:
varsity cheerleader for 3 years, captain
varsity gymnast 4 years, captain 2 years
varsity cross country 1 year
varsity track and field 2 years
Sophomore student of the year (academic)
15 all-academic awards for sports
12 varsity letters
William and Mary Leadership Award, attended conference
latin club
national honor society
national art honor society- i plan on submitting a portfolio</p>
<p>*i've taken all honors/AP courses available to me since freshman year, and have maintained straight A's.</p>
<p>I just read your previous posts to make sure you're a real person since you're one of those people that has stats that are "too" good. Haha, are you using your mom's or dad's account?</p>
<p>Anyway to the point: I think you know as well as anyone you have an excellent shot at Duke (and Pratt) because of your great GPA and high test scores. The only thing left to do is to make sure you have good recommendations from teachers and write a few compelling essays, which shouldn't be a problem. Something that people like to do in their apps is to make sure they are well rounded (obviously) but also stand out in one area in some way (your passion). You could definitely do sports or art or something else.</p>
<p>One warning about ED, which you definitely should know already, is that its a hard thing to get out of. Before you apply make sure you definitely want to do it and have considered the financial aspect. Good luck!</p>
<p>yeah, i'm using my dad's account.
thanks for all of your tips, i appreciate it :)
one question about early decision, if you have any answers- if my parents absolutely CANNOT afford it for some reason, can i decline the offer? or is duke not going to care? the website says that the only way you can get out of ED is for "financial reasons", because it's binding. im just worried that im going to pay 48k a year... no fun.</p>
<p>The chances of you being able to decline Duke's offer for financial reasons is almost void. Duke meets 100% of demonstrated need. So basically the only way they'll let you out of the agreement is if you are able to show that they didn't meet your demonstrated need, which I'm guessing is a very, very, very rare mistake on their part.</p>
<p>okay.
so lets say my dad makes 150k a year.
were middle class and live in a suburb, my mom doesnt work.
my parents dont think that we demonstrate much finiancial need in the eyes of duke, even though i have a sister who'll be in college in 3 years as well, and my parents want to eat in the meantime. lol</p>
<p>Yeah. Maybe after your sister is in college, you'll get more aid, but duke isn't gonna be too helpful with a family of 4 making 150k/year with only one child in college. If that's the case, it's probably your best bet to apply RD. If Duke offers you no money, you still won't be able to get out of your ED agreement.</p>
<p>Believe it or not, in Wash DC it is. When you deduct my Dad's commuting costs (he drives 90 miles round trip to work in his paid off 2002 Ranger with 130K miles, Mom has 2003 Expl with 100K+), mortgage, insurance, food, electric, yada yada yada there's not much left to pay for a Duke education. If we lived in Montana or Alabama, I would say no way.</p>
<p>kamaro, I think you stand a really good chance of getting into Duke RD.
However, if you really want to go to Duke- I'd apply early if its not financially risky.
I would try to send an email to Financial Aid to get an idea of what sort of aid you are going to get from Duke.
I have a twin, we make less than 150k/yr and I didn't get any financial aid from Duke.. (my twin's going to state school so I'm the jerk creating financial burden..)</p>
<p>I think our family situation at the moment is fairly similar to yours, except I live in Minnesota and our cost of living is much lower than yours. I didn't get any financial aid from Duke, and I don't know how much of a difference living in Virginia is going to be. As optimistic as I would like to be, I feel like it might not be what you're hoping for honestly, making applying ED probably not the best course of action unless you're able to talk to the FinAid people to get some idea.</p>
<p>On the other hand, as I've said above, you stand a very good chance of getting into Duke with good essays and recs. This is still true for RD. I can tell you that item by item, you can build a better application than I did and I still got in, so take that into perspective when making your decision. Applying to schools with a financial hindrance is hard... feel free to PM me if you have more questions.</p>