<p>I don’t know how much it helped, but I can say that my regional adcom being able to put a face on the name probably helped with my application. </p>
<p>In my case, I was lucky that the adcom actually came to my school and talked to about 20 or so of us and I got to speak with her one on one afterwards. </p>
<p>But if you don’t have that chance, many adcoms are very receptive to communicating by email or phone and their contact info can be found on the Duke admissions site last I checked (could be gone now idk). Just introduce yourself and state why you want to talk to them (although I wouldn’t do that if you don’t have anything substantial to ask). I had to contact my regional adcom by email a month or two after the first meeting and she was very nice and went out of her way to get me an answer to my question.</p>