Chance Meeeeee I'm getting worrieddd

Colleges and Universities A-Z Duke University
1

<p>I was reading the ED Thread and found that some 2400s and valedictorians were rejected.
I originally planned to have Duke as my safety school, but this has now gotten me extremely worried. Please let me know about my chances for RD:</p>

<p>[ b]Objective:[ /b][ list]
[ *] SAT I (breakdown): 800M/720CR/800W 12 Essay
[ *] ACT: might take in September
[ *] SAT II: 800 Math II, 800 Bio-M, 790 Chem
[ *] Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 4.0 UW/4.7465W
[ *] Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable):only released up to top 5%
[ *] AP (place score in parenthesis): Micro (5), Macro (5), Biology (5), Chemistry (5), Eng Lang and Comp (5), APUSH (5), Statistics (5), Calc BC (5)
[ *] IB (place score in parenthesis):none
[ *] Senior Year Course Load: AP CompSci, AP Spanish, AP Literature, AP Psychology, Honors Advanced Math Concepts, AP Physics B. ALSO, taking a math course from Princeton and part of Columbia's Science Honor's Program (pretty prestigious)
[ *] Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): NMSQT Commended, National AP Scholar</p>

<p>[ /list][ b]Subjective:[ /b][ list]
[ *] Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): soccer (3 years, 1 year captain), Mathletes team (captain), Chess team (1st seat, captain, treasurer, 4 years), FBLA (placed 6th in nation last year for Business Calculations), Model UN, Fed Challenge (captain)
[ *] Job/Work Experience: Internship at UMDNJ (research), published several papers, National Honor Society, Spanish Honor Society
[ *] Volunteer/Community service: Robert Wood Johnson Hospital (~70 hours), First Aid & Rescue Squad (~150 hours), Rockathon (fundraise for different causes) (48 hours)
[ *] Essays: most likely excellent, one about First Aid & Rescue Squad OR Internship
[ *] Teacher Recommendation: Chem teacher (good/excellent), History (excellent), Precalc (excellent)
[ *] Counselor Rec: okay
[ *] Additional Rec: from mentor from UMDNJ
[ *] Interview: hoping for the best </p>

<p>[ /list][ b]Other[ /b][ list]
[ *] Applied for Financial Aid?: no effect
[ *] Intended Major: Biology
[ *] State (if domestic applicant): NJ
[ *] Country (if international applicant):
[ *] School Type: class of 438
[ *] Ethnicity: Indian
[ *] Gender: Male
[ *] Income Bracket: no effect
[ *] Hooks (URM, first generation college, research, etc.): internship and published papers?</p>

2

<p>You thought that Duke was your safety school before, and now you’re “worried”? ***</p>

3

<p>I might recommend adding 2-3 more safeties, just in case, but I honestly think that you’ll be fine.</p>

4

<p>safety school? wow you are pretentious…wait a minute, you’re from jersey! now it makes sense</p>

5

<p>haha thanks guysss</p>

<p>what other schools would you recommend adding as safeties besides Duke?</p>

6

<p>Maybe Harvard.</p>

7

<p>Lets hope a college adcom sees think and link you with your volunteering hours.</p>

8

<p>Harvard seems a little too easy for him. Might I suggest Princeton? I think you have the potential for a full-ride there.</p>

9

<p>Lol (10char).</p>

10

<p>Despite your great scores, this is still a reach for you because of the high caliber of the south asian applicant pool.</p>

11

<p>Using Duke as a safety school is ill-advised because plenty of people have good SATs and I don’t see anything extraordinary in your resume other than maybe those published papers if they are actually of any significance.</p>

12

<p>^Agreed. Your “safety school” shouldn’t be Duke.</p>

13

<p>I dont think you will get in… </p>

<p>Because:
Your SAT CR is too low
Your SATII Chem is far from perfect
You are URM, Duke hates URM…</p>

<p>so, you should stop worrying. ;)</p>

14

<p>Sorry - but I need to make a negative comment … </p>

<p>How can someone (notably an intelligent young man) seriously ‘expect’ to get into a school like Duke? </p>

<p>ashwinb, if you took the time to read a few threads in cc, you’d know that getting into ANY of the top schools is almost like a lottery! Grades don’t guarantee you anything!</p>

<p>My son had an SAT of 2390 (single score) and SAT II of 2400 (Math, Phys, Chem), and he skipped a grade and grew up in 4 different countries with 3 different languages plus he had ECs like you - and still he got denied from MIT, CalTech, Harvard, Yale & Stanford (he did get into Duke, though)… A good friend of his (lower grades) got rejected at Notre Dame, but got into Harvard ???</p>

<p>I’m not saying that you won’t get into Duke (your grades ARE good), but you need to realize that if you don’t have anything in your application that really shines or stands out, you might easily get denied … and if your ‘cockiness’ shines through like in your 2nd post in this thread I can guarantee that you’ll be denied … ^^</p>

15

<p>Dude. Just relax a bit haha. Let me just stress along with everyone else that Duke is a “reach” for EVERYBODY. Christoph Guttentag, Dean of Undergrad Admissions at Duke, told us at Blue Devil Days that Duke rejected 1200 valedictorians this year, so nobody can say it’s a safety. I don’t mean to scare you, but please, don’t ever say “what other schools would you recommend adding as safeties besides Duke?” </p>

<p>Safeties should be state public schools that you have observed a lot of kids from your school the past three years get into, and you pretty much know what on average you need to get in, based upon what they got to get in. For schools like Duke, where 85 out of 100 applicants get denied admission, it’s not fair to say it’s a safety school, regardless of if whether or not you have a 2400 AND a 4.0 GPA, because those are ONLY 2 out of 6 factors that admissions officers look at- not just at Duke, but everywhere else too.</p>

<p>I wish you all the best, and I do hope you get in, but you can’t take anything for granted in the college application process. You’ll be really surprised 8 months from now as to where you do get in and where you don’t.</p>

16

<p>now that i think about it i might apply ed to duke they have an amazing premed program and i really liked their campus when i visited</p>

<p>how much do you think applying ed would increase my chances</p>

<p>and what exactly are 6 things that they look at</p>

17

<p>Use this website- admissions.duke.edu
It shows you stats from the Class of 2013 and the statistical differences between ED and RD. Also, in the “Who We’re Looking For” Section, it lists the 6 main criteria for admission.</p>