<p>Can current Duke students or potential applicants comment on the following? Thanks! </p>
<ul>
<li>What are the overall strengths of Duke's Economics program?</li>
<li>Does Duke offer any merit scholarship to incoming freshmen, and if yes, and is separate application required? </li>
<li>For National Merit scholarship finalist, if they decide to choose Duke as first choice, how much merit scholarship is granted, if any?</li>
<li>Does Duke have excellent orchestra program(s) for non music-majored students? </li>
</ul>
<p>My son was an Econ major in the Duke Symphony. The Symphony has a great espirit de corps…and a very fine conductor. They often collaborate once or twice a year with professional musicians and opera singers as well. Rehearsals are long and reasonably scheduled for the majority of students who are non music majors and most do not practice between rehearsals much except for the top chairs, which are usually seats with quite talented people in them. There is a once a year competition and one student is featured in a full performance as a result. There are tons of super competent players in the Symphony who took lessons all their lives but no longer have time for music as a front seat activity. The Symphony performs and rehearses on East Campus near freshman life. During most of his time at Duke, my son took lessons with a Ciompi Quartet musician. The members of this quartet offer great mentorships to students of every level of player skill. My son is no savant but music is a great joy for him and he picked up a couple of courses in the department over four years time. He also attended incredible venues that Duke Performances offers all year to the Triad…many names who normally play the greatest halls come to Duke. The Symphony takes one trip together annually for a cancer hospital fundraiser in Beaufort SC which is very much enjoyed by all. You can watch youtube videos on this by simply going there and putting in Duke Symphony.
As to Economics as a major…it is very popular at Duke as it is at many universities. It is not a marketing/business degree but there is a “certificate” you can get in marketing. Econ at Duke is more like Econ at the Univ of Chicago and it is very much math and theory oriented.<br>
You wil find the answers to all your merit scholarship questions on the Duke website. Need scholarship is very generous with a no loans policy. Merit scholarship is very very competitive and most people who were awarded these chairs had very unusually interesting/promising cultural and public service histories. Most of Duke’s students have the academic qualifications for merit awards at most institutions, so it is difficult to predict.</p>
<p>Duke does offer merit based scholarships to freshman and there is no need to apply for these. Everyone who applies to Duke is considered for these scholarships.</p>
<p>The problem is that these are VERY competitive. About 2-3% of the incoming class receive merit based scholarships. Duke does not do partial scholarships with these students, anyone who is granted one of these scholarships receives a full scholarship (books, tuition, food, housing, summer grant money for summer school, etc). </p>
<p>The economics program is very popular at Duke. Like the poster above me said it is very math/theory oriented. Many econ majors minor in math because you are required to take a fair amount of math in order to obtain your BS (rather than BA). And obviously, there is strong recruiting at Duke. From banks to consulting firms, to graduate schools, you can find everything you need.</p>
<p>Duke doesn’t give any money to National Merit Scholarship finalists or winners. If they did, they’d be giving it away to a large percentage of the incoming class…</p>
<p>For Econ major, what are the courses available to freshmen in terms of Math and Science?</p>
<p>My S has taken AP Calculus BC as a junior, and is currently taking multiple variable calculus (hardest math class according to him) and linear algebra as a senior, will his AP classes be credited?</p>
<p>Trinity allows incoming freshman to use AP exams to cover 2 credits towards graduation. A lot of people use that as Math 31, 32 (Calculus). Multivariable will give him placement out of Math 102 or 103 and Linear Algebra will give him placement out of Math 104. This is assuming these classes are not college credit. If its college credit your son would get credit and placement. Most likely he could take Differential Equations or Statistics. He has all the hard math he needs for an Econ major, but simply needs some Stats courses to take upper level Econ courses.</p>
<p>Multivariable and Linear Algebra, since they are not AP courses, fall under the Pre-matriculation Credit policy of the Trinity College of A&S if you want them considered as college courses. Basically the course has to meet the following criteria to receive credit:</p>
<p>1) were taken on the college campus;
2) were taken in competition with degree candidates of that college;
3) were taught by a regular member of the college faculty;
4) were part of the regular curriculum of the college;
5) were taken after commencement of your junior year of high school;
6) were not taken on a study abroad program completed prior to matriculation at Duke–restriction does not apply to transfer students if such credit was granted at the former institution;
7) yielded a grade of B- or better;
8) were not pre-calculus or English composition courses; and
9) were not used to meet high school diploma requirements.</p>
<p>All of these criteria must be satisfied according to the PMC policy for credit to be considered. And you have to send in your college transcript, and 2 additional forms, one of which goes to your high school for certification and the other goes to the other college for certification. If the multivariable and linear algebra were taken as part of a high school curriculum, the credit is probably not possible and you’d have to settle for placement which should be easier to get. </p>
<p>Are there any science courses required for Econ major students? He took AP Physics B and AP Biology and got 5 on both on AP exams. At his senior year, he is currently taking AP Chem.</p>
<p>The link above should have info about AP policy and links to specific credits awarded for different courses. However be aware that unless early graduation is the goal, only 2 AP credits are allowed to count towards graduation. Most would probably recommend that one of those 2 be for AP econ as I hear the intro econ course at Duke (Econ 51) is considered a weed out course and should be avoided if possible.</p>
<p>I agree with SBR. Econ 51 is a real weedout course and probably your son should go into Econ 55D. You can still use placement to get into more advanced classes. I know the T-reqs require quite a few classes across multiple disciplines.</p>
<p>context: Duke’ econ is very similar to U of Chicago’s econ curriculum in that it’s taught in a very math and theory oriented style, unlike some universitys where the econ major is taught more like an undergrad business major. [/translate]</p>
<p>^ Except for possibly Cornell and Penn, most of the schools ranked between Chicago and Duke (there are so many of them) offer more “math and theory oriented style” economics.</p>
<p>Regardless of “context,” Duke is still ranked 19th for economics.</p>
<p>EDIT: although if prospective students/parents have questions about stuff he’s bringing up, feel free to ask about that here or in another thread. But just trying to address a ■■■■■ point-by-point is an exercise in futility… :)</p>
<p>Sooo IG is never going to stop trying to hijack threads. So stop letting him. Ignore his posts and just continue with the topic.</p>
<p>midwestDad, as the others have said, Econ 51 is supposed to be pretty hard. Like the other intro classes, it’s very theory/math-based. But once you get past those classes and start taking electives, they become more applied. But even so, there are few finance or accounting courses. But there is a certificate in Markets&Management which a lot of students go for.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if you can call Econ 51 “math based.” It’s obviously “theory” based like any intro econ course should be. I’m also not sure if it is THAT hard compared to other econ courses. It just SEEMS hard because the curve is pretty bad and it’s the first economics course that a student takes a freshman in college- and econ is hard. I came to Duke with everybody telling me how hard and horrible 51 is, but a lot of people who take that class came out with As after putting in the effort. Having said that, however, if possible, I still suggest skipping 51 and going straight into 55. You won’t lose to much from doing that, as you will have two semesters of microecon to finish and an intermediate macro anyways. There is no reason to waste your course credit.</p>
<p>Also about one of the comments above- when they say you can count only two AP scores towards graduation requirements, I think that’s referring to the total 34 credits that you need to have to graduate. I don’t think it applies to AP exams you use to skip intro levels.</p>
<p>As for the statement about Duke econ curriculum being very theoretical and etc., I actually disagree. For some reason Duke econ department has significant focus on finance/accounting (soon they are gonna create a finance minor and a finance concentration within the dept). </p>
<p>As to interestingguy’s ■■■■■■■■ comment on Duke econ being #19- again, that’s graduate rankings. For subjects like econ, it is safe to assume that the “caliber” of the department is pretty much equal to that of the school as a whole, because you learn pretty much everything through in-class instruction and the higher the level of the students, the deeper the course material. It’s not like if you go to U Chicago econ, you are learning the secrets of econ theory that only the professors at U of C know. Of course, if you are super ambitious economics students and is considering taking bunch of grad-level courses as an undergrad so that you go straight to phD (in which case you can take advantage of some of the resources of a “better” economics department), it’s a little different story. If not, it simply doesn’t work like that and otherwise I would have chosen some of other schools considered to be “better ranked” in econ (U of C, LSE, UCB, NU, and Cornell were some of the schools I got into).</p>
Oh I will…you see the rich and well-connected always get what they want. Thanks for also admitting that the Duke degree is worth having vis-a-vis your tone of resentment.</p>
<p>Enjoy that HYPSM degree that will land you a small cubicle in some corner of some floor of some New York City skyscraper that one of my father’s friends probably owns, where you will be doing repetitive monkey Excel work for a 100 hours that even a mildly ■■■■■■■■ third grader wouldn’t find challenging, only to get fired after not being promoted for two years.</p>