<p>4 Years Cross Country, co-captain next year
3 Years Indoor Track, co-captain next year
3 Years Outdoor Track, co-captain next year
4 Years Marching Band
2 Years Academic Team, T.V. Team, Captain
4 Years Maryland Math League, Class of 2007 Cahampion as a Freshman, Sophmore, and Hopefully Junior and Senior</p>
<p>Awards</p>
<p>Hopefully NMSF, with a 226 in MD
Hopefully AP Scholar
Lots of Varsity Letters
Various running awards
Various miniature Painting awards</p>
<p>Also: how is the intellectual atmosphere at Duke? Do people with nerdish tendencies fit in, or is it dominated by preps?</p>
<p>darkruler I would say you have a solid chance. Write great essays, show passion that you wanna attend, obviously if you do ED they know it, but adcoms wouldnt mind hearing about why duke is the best place for you!</p>
<p>Since you are applying ED, I give you a 65% chance. </p>
<p>To answer your second question, Duke isn't very intellectual. You will be fine if you have "nerdish tendencies," but you probably won't be in the mainstream. That may or may not matter to you. </p>
<p>Although I would have preferred more of an intellectual atmosphere, nearly all other aspects of Duke are very good, especially the education/professors.</p>
<p>I get the idea that Duke has a good balance. Of the people I know who are going there, none of them I would consider to be "nerdish" at all, but they are all very passionate about different areas of intellectual interest. Like myself, I get excited about related rates and sequences and series and chemical reactions and physics equations but I'm also fairly preppy and like to have a good time.</p>
<p>There's no way will the 720 keep you down, considering the 1590 combined in the other sections. Still, you are a junior, and I've found that SAT scores can magically increase over time. If you were willing to sit down and memorize a comprehensive list of vocab (Barron's list comes to mind) you could probably boost your score 50 or so points. Since top colleges always consider highest individual subsection scores, you have nothing to lose by retaking the SAT in fall of your senior year.</p>
<p>I wouldn't worry about the 720. I know a girl that got into Duke ED from my hs with an 1870. She was 1st in her class and student body president, but I still thought that was low for Duke. I am from NC, so maybe being in-state helped her out.</p>
<p>Your background looks pretty similar to mine - and I got in ED. Just show some passion for what you do in your essays and explain how you want to be a part of these activities at Duke as well. I mean, I don't know if that's why I got in, but I doubt it hurt. As for the co-captain business, I'd say just write "captain" - because if your school is like my school, we had multiple team captains on all sports teams. Therefore I don't see what's wrong with putting down solely the word "captain."</p>
<p>And I find Duke a more accurate representation of the real world (if there is such a thing). We aren't just preps, or jocks, or sorority girls, or pre-med/law/i-banking. We're a delightful amalgam. If you hear a conversation, it isn't someone just trying to be pretentious or give off an aura of pseudo-intellectualism (of which I'm not a fan). I'd rather not get sucked into conversations that primarily serve as an opportunity for someone to advertise their intelligence - that's why I enjoy my time here far more than when I visit friends at Harvard.</p>