this kid sounds pretty cool…
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I am not sure I agree with this point…many Ivy competitive kids who are rejected or deferred in early action/early decision might throw their hat in the ring with the top tier Duke, Vandy, Northwestern, Tufts schools on a second go around…
Fair enough but keep in mind there will be WAY more applicants for RD and much fewer spots (500-600)…so need to be even more super stand-out after you take out the recruited athletes who will just get the front-of-the-line pass in RD.
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DS Deferred
GPA: 4.65 W (school does not weight)
SAT/ACT: 1550
Two-sport varsity athlete
15 APs- AP Scholar w/distinction
A bunch of other good ECs
Legacy
Still bummed I got deferred! Wanted this so bad. Attended so many info sessions because of how interested I was!
Oh well…gonna get some RD apps done and hope for the best. No school was like Duke for me. A perfect blend of school spirit/community with academics💔
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Accepted!
4.0UW, 4.7W, 13 APs (4 currently taking; all 5s except for two 4s)
Biomedical engineering major
No hooks
Great ECs
International awards
Research
Good essays
Midwest/South
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There is no basis to say such a thing, there is no way you could know what all US colleges are doing with all applicants. Please do not take it personally if you are rejected or deferred. Even for US applicants, admissions to elite universities is extremely competitive. For international applicants, even more so.
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I recommend kids submit all their AP scores. It shows you followed through and took the exam. You challenged yourself. 3s are passing, so you don’t need to withhold them.
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Sorry to hear that. I’m sure the legacy thing stings a lot☹️
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Thanks for the kind words. Yes, the legacy thing certainly makes it all the more painful.
Deferred
GPA 4.0UW/4.93W- school does not rank
ACT 35 composite
APs- 13 total; AP Scholar w/distinction
Commended Scholar
Varsity Team Captain
4th place national finish/1st in state in writing contest
Good ECs
The legacy thing stings for sure. I’m with you @BeefStew2. I’m taking it a lot harder than he is right now. One thing I will say is that I’ve started to see the Insta announcements from my fellow alum friends…not that this makes it easier but the admitted legacies have DEEP ties - as in, both parents went to Duke, applicants’ older sister or brother went or is at Duke. In other words, the ties are very strong. I’m sure the kids are exceptional as well.
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i spent all last year looking thru these cc + reddit threads, and my sat score and ECs were on the lower end of ppl who got in in past years. i was accepted today - and it was a LOT of luck IMO.
different colleges are looking for different things, and there is SO much outside of your control. what if u did soccer in hs but the duke AO knows that there are alr too many kids in the soccer clubs at duke? what if u played the trumpet in HS but the AO knows that the duke music department doesn’t need another trumpsist in the duke symphony orchestra and the duke music dept is full because two trumpists got in last year? what if the AO didn’t have enough coffee before reading ur app? what if the duke AO had to read 50 applications a day and only got to skim part of ur “why duke”? there is so much luck involved.
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stats please? any hooks?
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1530, 4.0 UW, 4.6957 W, intended major: mechanical engineering. 6 5s and 3 4s on APs, currently taking multivariable calculus and linear algebra and ap physics (and a few other APs i can’t name on the top of my head). ranked 3rd/~500 seniors. legal intern for a duke alum who’s an attorney in my area (he wrote me a recc letter), friends with a duke prof for my instrument (im not interested in pursuing a music major and i was clear about that in my arts supp), but the prof told me she would ‘advocate’ for me in the internal recommendation system for arts supplements. loved my interviewer (we bonded so much, even tho they don’t work in the engineering industry anymore), and he was fairly impressed by my ECs? i had a few state-level awards and im nationally ranked in a niche stem debate event. currently president of a niche stem competition club at my school, the math honor society, and a npo that my friend started (she’s at stanford. our npo has helped 100+ students from around 4 countries and 9 states:) also attended governor’s school (semi-selective) in my state for math where i studied topology (which has applications in engineering) and philosophy (and the intersectionality of philosophy and math, which was a big part of my “best academic experience” duke essay). my recs were both probs pretty good (my ap chem teacher loved me and told another ap teacher in front of me that i was the “most diligent student i’ve ever met” and my other recc was from a teacher who’s the sponsor of the niche stem competition club that i do). i don’t feel comfy rating my essays, i poured my heart into them + started in may, but essays are pretty subjective in general.
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Perhaps this is specific to your sport but my kid and every other Duke athlete that was recruited was told to apply ED and that is what my kid did and got their official acceptance way earlier than the normal ED notification date. So I believe that in general the recruited athletes are in fact part of this first round.
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rejected 
but it’s okay; i’ll be happy somewhere else
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stats please. I was deferred
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Honestly asking for stats isn’t gonna do much. You don’t know exactly why you were accepted and can’t change your stats now.
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Thanks. Amazing stuff. Would you have submitted Aps, if you had 1 5, 34s and 4 3s, like I hvae. I didn’t submit them