We are debating between Rice and UPenn. D wants to go to UPenn…prestige is driving her decision but we as parents think Rice is a better fit for her as she will be on the premed track. Plus Rice is much cheaper considering the scholarship she received.
Thanks for giving such great input on Rice. I will show her your post.
I recommend visiting! Unfortunately they no longer do an overnight, which was what sold her.
I would love an official waitlist Duke thread. 
So, we visited Rice and the Hogwarts residential college system seemed pretty cool. It was the first tour we went on and my D22 really liked the campus and a lot of the information she learned during the tour. They actually reached out to my D22 several times, but in the end, she did not apply because it is a 30-minute drive from home (with Houston regular traffic), so she figured if she was accepted, she was unlikely to attend. Similar to your D, it came down to Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, and in place of Rice - it was Duke and Swarthmore. So we hit accepted student days at JHU and Duke in one weekend. But my D22 fell in love with Duke at the accepted student day - she wanted to sign the papers before leaving (we still had to head to JHU at that point) When we went to the JHU admitted student tour, she was torn (it was our 3rd visit to JHU and she loved it and the students who gave the tour did a great job - but the weather at Duke was perfect and sunny, 3 days later at JHU it was freezing and rainy, and then Baltimore was having actual teenage riots at the wharf - so overall, those played into her decision. She decided JHU was more of a grad school place. After that trip, we cancelled trips to Chicago and Atlanta for Northwestern and Emory accepted student days - because she was pretty much decided on Duke and didn’t want to complicate the decision any further.
Duke doesn’t have a true Residential College system, but Duke now has the QuadEx system which is supposed to be like a Residential college system - but its new (I think next year will be the third year) and not quite as organized as the Rice residential college system. Freshman live on East campus in whatever dorm. They do move in a week earlier than everybody else for orientation week where they begin to bond and form a family - however during orientation week they break into various groups that you have to select beforehand (There are like 20 orientation week groups to choose from, I think you have to rank your top 3 choices - the sooner you submit, the more likely you get your choice) - they do have a lot of fun. Also, as freshman they can apply for something called the Focus Program (they have a website for information on this too). If you are accepted into the Focus program, it will determine which dorm they get placed in, otherwise it is random - the Focus Program is not required - my daughter applied to that program at the last minute (the deadline is in May or June), but it has had a huge impact on her first year and beyond. (Some Focus areas: Cognitive Neuroscience and Law; Ethics, Leadership & Global Citizenship; Global Health; Medicine, Ethics & Health Policy; Science and the Public; Thinking Through Music and the Arts - there are like 20). I can give anybody more info about this - but if you have already decided on Duke and your child is debating whether or not to apply for Focus or wondering what it is - feel free reach out to ask questions. I highly highly recommend it. Sophomore year students move to West Campus, but they stay with the same people who lived in their dorm. You can read about Quadex on the Duke website. They will stay in that same dorm again junior year. Senior year they can move off campus if they choose, or choose Duke on campus apartments or stay in the Quadex system. I’m doing a terrible job explaining it, but I don’t know too much about Quadex.
My D22 has no regrets about choosing Duke - it actually was not one of the schools initially on her radar and when we did our cross-country road trip to visit colleges, we ended up not making it to Duke (although it was planned) because of Covid - the person who was going to give us the tour cancelled, and we were exhausted by that point. It was supposed to be our last stop, so we just took a different route and headed home. It wasn’t until her interview she that really started to get excited about Duke because the interviewer did such a good job and engaged her as a human and not a list of generic questions and then she fell in love with the campus when she first saw it on admitted students’ day (Blue Devils Day).
They are truly both awesome choices - so your child can’t go wrong.
Rice is a very nice campus in a nice part of Houston
Duke is a beautiful campus, Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area of North Carolina is very nice and has seasons - but still has a pretty moderate climate. North Carolina is pretty beautiful too.
You are clearly from Texas, so you know what Texas weather has to offer - if you are from Houston you know what Houston weather is like and you know what Houston is like (flat, non-descript, swampy, hot, urban sprawl) (I live in the area so I can say this)
Duke might not turn out to support every football game - although did you see the football season they just had? It was pretty great, so they just might start turning up for football. But basketball is a whole different matter with the Cameron Crazies and tenting for tickets…
If your child wants to get out of Texas or away from home, can’t go wrong with Duke. But definitely go to Blue Devil Day and see what you think. Actually, just occurred to me that we are going to be there during Blue Devil Days weekend…
Oh, about that curve… yeah - not so much. At least not in my daughter’s classes so far. Not even rounding up. My D22 is pre-med every other day… They don’t have to declare a major until second semester sophomore year and, while she is following a pre-med or pre-health track at the moment - pre-med or pre-health is not a major. I don’t think Duke has an uber competitive vibe (engineering may - I don’t know) - that isn’t to say it’s easy. I think you need like a 3.95 to make Dean’s List in Trinity and a 4.0 in Engineering - but i think the vibe is relaxed. Part of the reason she decided to not go to JHU was also that it is supposed to be extremely competitive and even in their school paper they refer to it as the place where fun goes to die. This was kind of evident on admitted student days - at Duke students were relaxing in the quads playing frisbee in the sun. At JHU they were heads down rushing to class, talking to non one.
Thank you so much for all this information!! This is all extremely helpful. Duke sounds really great 
That is really nice to hear that they aren’t curving the grades in a negative way, though I take your meaning that the classes are tough. 
My child is thinking about majoring in chemistry and I was curious about class sizes for intro level pre med classes (chemistry, calculus, bio, etc)?
Also, curious about Greek life and how big a part of the social aspect is it? How large a percentage of students participate?
Thank you again for sharing your student’s experiences!
I have two kids at Duke currently, both in the engineering school (Pratt). The intro level class lecture sections for major requirements are larger as you might expect, but the labs and discussion sections are much smaller. For example, the intro Chemistry class (CHEM 101DL) has two lecture sections scheduled for next semester, each with 250 seats available. But the associated discussion sections max out at 28, and the lab sections max out at 12. Fall 2023 course registration starts this week for upperclassmen, so if you go to DukeHub (here: https://dukehub.duke.edu) you can search courses for next semester and see how many seats are available for each class.
Duke still has Greek life, but from what I’ve seen and read, the popularity has waned a bit in the last few years. As a result of housing and rush changes for Greek and non-Greek selective living groups driven by the QuadEx initiative, most of the Greek organizations ended up choosing to disaffiliate from the University. There was a recent article in the school paper that estimated Greek membership at about 23% (here: https://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2023/01/duke-students-greek-life-fraternities-sororities-selective-living-groups-data).
I might be biased as neither of my kids elected to pursue Greek membership, but there seem to be plenty of non-Greek social opportunities to go around.
Thank you!
Wow! 250 spots in a class! Im guessing maybe the favorite professors have more kids signing up? Maybe if they choose an 8 am there will be less people
My child isn’t really interested in Greek life so that’s a plus for us.
Have your kids felt like they were able to get to know their professors in the larger classes? Did they attend office hours or anything?
Thank you for the links, we will check them out!!
Oh! How is the course selection process? And How difficult has it been to get the courses they’ve wanted?
I don’t think either of my kids made efforts to get to know the particular professors leading the larger intro classes they took (Chem, Physics, Calc) so I can’t really speak to that. One of them did struggle a bit with Calc and went to both office hours and a group tutoring program for help. So in our limited experience, there were plenty of resources for students struggling with a class.
There are plenty of opportunities to make connections with professors outside of class. My current freshman emailed a few professors last semester looking to work on research in a specific area and received responses, met with two professors, decided which project he preferred, and is now doing research under one of them as a freshman. Lots of opportunities like that – there’s a website called Muser (here: https://muser.duke.edu/) that posts research opportunities a few times each year, but there are lots of additional opportunities beyond those available if students reach out.
Course selection dates are by class (Senior > Junior > Sophomore > Freshman). Each class is then split into two groups based on student id # – half make selections first in the fall, and the other half goes first in the spring. My kids have not had any issues getting classes that they need to meet graduation requirements and normal progression in their majors. Obviously some classes are more popular than others, so some small popular niche classes may fill up before freshman registration opens, but both my kids have felt that there have been plenty of good options to choose from each semester.
Thank you- all of this information is super helpful
Hi- I was reading about the Focus groups in the website. Looks amazing. When do they apply? Then each Focus group has certain classes? For example Modeling in Economic and Social Sciences lists 4 classes (stats, political sci, and 2 Econ classes). A group of kids take these 4 classes together first semester? Is it hard to get in to a focus group?
Thank you so much for the information!
My daughter had similar stats a few years ago (high GPA. 35 ACT, etc). Four legacies: myself, both my parents, my step-father. My dad was also a professor there for his entire career. (Coach K wrote him a thanks letter on his retirement!) We bleed blue. Rejected outright. She wasn’t going to go because we would not agree to pay for the crazy price now, so there was no trauma. Legacy students are even more qualified than the average student applicant and they are crazy qualified. Legacy means a lot, but they could fill each class with nothing but deserving legacy applicants … just crazy times!
We’re torn between Duke and Cornell. Visiting both.
Most are not apparently. Is there something in particular about Cornell?
except that it’s an Ivy… My daughter is going in for political science. She wants to go to a law school, preferably an Ivy. Based on that, would you recommend Duke or Cornell for her undergraduate degree? I know Cornell is very good for Engineering, but Duke is better for political science/business. Say, if she wants to go to Yale or Harvard law, does it matter if she attends Duke or Cornell or would you say that one over the other would give her a bit of an advantage to get into the law school she wants. Also, for internships and other opportunities in her major, which of the 2 would you recommend? We’re very confused tbh.
In the same situation here, contemplating Duke engineering versus Cornell engineering!
D23 was accepted into Duke on Friday, very glad to learn after all her hard work and driven attitude with very little push from us as parents. After being waitlisted at Vanderbilt, denied at GA Tech, Friday’s acceptance was the highlight of this college season.
We were a bit surprised to see no financial aid offered from Duke. A few weeks ago, we were asked to submit IDOC information. Our CSS profile from a few months back indicated an expected family contribution of 39k, as we have other children in college. Has anyone else experienced a discrepancy between the CSS number and not been offered any aid? This is a deal breaker for us unfortunately. NC State Honors with a merit scholarship offer is in the drivers seat at this point.
Both seem like great options, but in terms of weather, location, campus culture, and journey back and forth from home - quite different. We are weighing the two schools too, and a few others. Things will probably become clear after the campus visits.
Here!
We are in a similar boat. S23 is down to three finalists: Duke, Rice and Northwesterm, though he is close to scratching out NW. He’s interested in Statistics, Applied Math and Economics. Loves the residential college at Rice and the cozy feel, but he is very familiar with Duke and is interested in sports. I suspect that in the end the choice will be Duke (has a stronger name and is slightly better in his fields of interest).