Will Duke let us know if the waitlist is closed or not sooner? Feel like only a few are taken off this year’s list…
So there really arent any people being taken off the waitlist this year?
It sounds like they won’t know anything until May 15th-- this is from Duke’s Adm website. So maybe things will move for some of you next week. Good luck to everyone. I know this must be very tough waiting and hoping.
"How and when does the admissions committee make selections from the waiting list? Does
Duke rank the students on its waiting list?
May 1 is the reply deadline for students offered admission or offered a place on the waiting list.
Around May 15, when we have been able to process all responses to our offer of admission, we
determine how many, if any, spaces are left in our entering class. We then assemble the applications
of the students who have indicated that they wish to remain on our waiting list, and the admissions
committee reviews them again. At that point, we consider the makeup of the entering class
to determine the order in which offers will be made.
Since we use the waiting list to “fine-tune” the characteristics of the incoming class, and since that depends on who has already responded to our offer of admission, we do not rank students on our waiting list.
In the past few years, how many students have stayed on the waiting list and how many
have subsequently been offered places from those lists?
In the last several years, around 1,000 students a year have decided to stay on Duke’s waiting list.
We consider the waiting lists in Trinity College of Arts & Sciences and the Pratt School of Engineering
separately. In the last decade, the number we have been able to accept from the waiting list in
each school has ranged from a low of 1 to a high of 200.
Can you predict how many students will be admitted from the waiting list this year?
Unfortunately, no. We predict as well as we can how many students will accept our offer of admission,
but we need to wait until May 15 to process and analyze the actual responses. At that point we
begin to determine how many students can be admitted from the waiting list.
I suspect many on the wait-list (and their parents) may not fully understand a key fact about how it works. EVERY wait-listed applicant has already been evaluated as ENTIRELY qualified to join Duke’s Class of '19. Therefore, when an accepted student declines his spot in the Class – let’s say on 5 July, after a family tragedy or after an extended “summer melt” chain – Admissions DOES not have an available, prioritized sequence of wait-listed individuals (i.e., we take a first, b second, c third, . . . ).
Rather – and it’s critical to remember that a fundamental Admissions’ goal is to craft the “perfectly rounded class” – they attempt to replace the just-withdrawn admit with a wait-listed candidate who keep the Class “perfectly rounded.” This may well mean that if x withdraws his matriculation – and he was a left-handed, Pratt admit, oboist, from Portland, who won the States decathlon title, speaks fluent Portuguese, and recently immigrated from Fiji – some time will be invested to find THE wait-listed individual who optimally replaces x. [note: okay, the foregoing “attributes list” is intentionally over-the-top, however you get the idea.] This was appropriately referred to as “fine tuning” in post #42.
In essence, this approach is completely consistent with Duke’ holistic admissions concept. The university, first, ensures that every accepted/wait-listed applicant is academically/intellectually (and more) fully qualified and, second, builds that "perfectly rounded class one senior at a time.
@Dumpty (re post #41):
No, that’s not correct. While I do not doubt that 2015 has been especially good for Duke undergraduate admission yield – and, therefore, still fewer (always a very small number, anyway) wait-listed applicants will be granted admission – it’s not rare for a handful to be accepted even in August. To illustrate – and this is tragic, but realistic – admit x is seriously injured in an automobile accident in early-August and necessarily defers his matriculation until August, 2016. His spot will be filled from the wait-list (posts #42 and #43 provide some insight into this process).
I want to clarify that after I posted I realized the Duke Website I had pulled up was 2013 so my info in Post 42 is dated, but I think the principles must still apply-- esp after reading Top Tier’s posts of 43 and 44 above. If Duke had a high yield this year- which it sounds like it did --then they can’t take any students off the Wait-list until other students actually decline (probably getting off other college’s wait-lists, taking Gap years, etc.) Too bad we all don’t have crystal balls- with little Blue Devils in them! 
Thank you both @TopTier and @Beachmom23 for the responses. They really have cleared my perspective on things so far as regarding how Duke processes their waitlists. I guess I’ll just wait patiently until August if I have to.
Hi everyone, I need some advice - preferably from previous admissions officers, or just people who have experience with this:
My friend got waitlisted and I recently sent in an email with extra information about her (as a more personal thing); she doesn’t know about this email and I haven’t received a reply from the Admissions Office yet. Is this normal? Does Duke usually not accept these kind of things?
She may not receive a response. The Undergraduate Admissions staff remains quite busy (and, FYI, many of the application readers are part-time employees, who work only during the prime period of the annual admissions cycle, so staffing is reduced). As indicated in posts #42 and #43, she has already fully qualified for admission; now it is a question only of yield numbers and of Class of '19 fine-tuning. Unless these “sustained interest” and/or “lasted update” e-mails convey some REAL substance, they have VERY little utility.
It would seem difficult for Duke or any other university to “fine tune” or otherwise strive for the perfectly well rounded class when only a third of admitted students in RD accept. Seems more likely they try to fill in the gaps where they can with the waitlist. Now if you’re Stanford or Harvard with a more predictable class because of higher yield then perhaps this is somewhat doable…
Just received what seems like a mass email saying that they have concluded taking people from the waitlist.
I also just received an email stating that they are no longer taking anyone off the wait list. Bummer.
I too received that email, which Mr Guttentag starts with “I am very sorry to tell you that we are concluding the admissions process for Duke University this year, and that unfortunately we will not be able to offer you a place in our entering class.” At least the wait is over
Well, good luck to you all – There is value for the student in not prolonging this process, so, kudos for Duke admissions for making that call so early in May. Go fall in love with the school you are attending and flourish there – it all works out in the end :).
Any word on how many they took off the wait list?
My son also got one of those e-mails. I’m sorry everyone. Try to get very excited about the school you signed up for on May 1st - and if you are like my 21 year old son-- you will fall in love with it and be so glad you went there. Also, there is always Graduate school - or if you really want to – you can try to transfer to Duke next year. If you have been wait-listed they will probably consider you very seriously for Soph year! Enjoy the end of your Senior year and remember that life takes some very interesting turns-- so you never know where you may end up-- but i’t’s all for the best in the long run!!