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<p>Right, I’ve heard Guttentag in person (like he does in those linked comments) say, “You know anybody from Montana who wants to go to Duke? We’re looking!” Most high-stats, qualified applicants do not get admitted to Duke. A qualified applicant from Montana simply has a “hook” that makes them standout; it won’t get them admitted if they have shortcomings. </p>
<p>Having said that, Duke probably gets 10-15 applications from the two or three super low-representation states (by low, I mean approaching zero; they don’t care as long as they have at least one student from each state). So, we’re talking about 0.05% of all applicants, which is probably not even worth talking about! I agree that Duke isn’t looking to keep each geographic region about “even” and doesn’t care about geographic diversity as long as they can say “students come from all 50 states and # countries”… ;)</p>
<p>As for having state residency considered, that is probably talking more about residents of North Carolina who can get a slight boost (but, contrary to some beliefs, there is absolutely no quota or something in the charter that says Duke must enroll a certain percentage of its students from North Carolina - the charter does say it should “serve” the people of the Carolinas, but is ambiguous).</p>