Everyone who was accepted join the Duke 2021 Facebook group also!! So exciting!!! >:)
Hey guys 
congrats to everyone who got accepted and I believe in those who got deferred with hear some great news in April! I am applying regular and had a question about the personal essay⊠is it a good idea to write about my experience with bullying and how itâs affected me and my personality or is that too much of a sob storyâŠ?
Rejected. It kinda sucks, but honestly Iâm just glad the stress is over with. I love Duke but it was definitely a reach for me.
Congratulations to everyone who got accepted. Everyone who was rejected or deferred just know that everything will work out fine and as cliche as it sounds, when one door closes another one opens.
Where are all the RDers at??
@oneandonlyx Iâm an RDer
Deferred so Iâm RD too nowâŠ
RDer right here! Yâall sending before the 20th?
My daughter is RD. She has already sent in her application to get in the queue for interviews.
RD here as well. Planning to submit my application tonight!
I am accepted!!
Hey guys, another RD applicant here. I applied three days ago but still havenât received a link for the application portal. My other universities responded within 2 days, so I am slightly worried⊠Should I be?
@currypotato donât worry, I received mine after 4-5 daysâŠIâm also a RD applicant, if youâre wondering.
Are you allowed to send in the optional letter of recommendation after you turn in the app on the 20th? I want someone to write an additional rec for me but they wonât have it in before January.
Anyone else not write the optional essay???
@marbles24 I wrote something about culture, but I wrote about culture on my common app essay as well, so Im not sure if I should keep the optional essay. Back to my first question, can I submit additional letters of recommendations after I submit my app on the 20th?
Sorry if this was already mentioned (Iâm new to this thread), but what time is application due? 11:59 EST or my local time? I live on the west coast.
RIP I feel bad that I didnât answer questions yesterday, because everybody asked things yesterday for interview deadline and now my advice is useless. @DreamforIvy, for future reference, itâs your local time. It will display on Common App as ET (so will say Dec. 21) but youâre good as long as itâs before 11:59 PST.
I did not write the optional essay⊠People told me, âOptional means requiredâ and I was like, lol no; optional means optional. I feel like itâs best answered if you have a truly resounding story about something life-changing. I know that my community has shaped who I am, but I feel as though itâs the cumulative sum of my experiences that really created ME, rather than any specific person/place/thing/time that I could feasibly write about in 250 words. (Basically, I donât think any one thing has changed me so much as every single bit working together, and so the prompt didnât really apply to me.) Man, those short essays really kill me-- Iâm a big-picture type of person who likes to say really dreamy, generalized things and give it some âoomphâ with a bunch of synthesis of ideas. No room for that in 150 words of Why Pratt, Why Duke 
@marbles24 I was accepted ED into Pratt and I did not write the optional essay! I also did not receive an interview; donât let either of those hinder you from feeling like a strong applicant to Duke.
Hey Guys. Need some help. I was sick during my final A Level exams, so couldnât get good grades. However, all my high school internal exam scores are straight As and As and predictions were all As. Do you think Duke will consider those scores if I send them through? Now, I think I would have gotten in on ED if I had sent the internal scores in time. But, deferred.
I graduated from high school in August 2016.
Daughter at Duke did not write the optional essay, admitted RD.