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<p>Unfortunately, if you talk to those who don’t attend Duke or any Ivy/Ivy-ish school, they’ll think that those schools are just full of rich people. That’s because historically, that was the case. Duke is trying hard to shed that image and usually does some sampling now and then to see how it’s going. I’m pretty sure the aforementioned schools are doing the same. Like I said earlier:</p>
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Plumazul, you seem to be under the impression that Duke selects ONLY rich students. This could not be farther from the truth. If you actually READ that article from The Chronicle that you keep posting everywhere, you’ll notice that it’s supposed to open conversation. What the article is noting is that it is difficult to pull students from socioeconomically challenged backgrounds for three reasons:</p>
<p>1) The more-well off the student, the more likely they are able to have the educational resources to get into a school like Duke. It’s not like richer kids got in because they are richer, but rather because they have resources to help them succeed in high school; those high school successes, in turn, makes them appealing to Duke as candidates for admission.</p>
<p>2) Kids who are more socioeconomically-disadvantaged tend not to apply to Duke in fear that they may not afford it. That’s why Duke is trying so hard to push and advance financial aid and spread the word that it IS possible to afford a Duke education even if you are only making $40,000 a year.</p>
<p>3) Duke is need-blind. Admissions officers cannot actively recruit underrepresented minorities (financially) because they have no idea whether you can afford Duke or not.</p>
<p>This is by NO means a Duke specific-problem, which you seem to be imaging it is. All of Duke’s peers (except maybe HYP) have this problem because the exclusivity and price of these schools (e.g.; Duke, Penn, Columbia, UChicago) seem to scare away kids who can’t think they can afford it. If you take data from those four schools, the student bodies will undoubtably have similar socioeconomic backgrounds.</p>
<p>And lastly, it is unfair of you to compare Duke’s financial aid to that of Harvard. Harvard is 288 years OLDER than Duke. This means that Harvard has had MUCH more time to develop the enormous endowment that it has (one only rivaled by one other institution: the Vatican Church). Duke is getting there, but because it is a younger school compared to ALL (I repeat: ALL) of its peers, it’s going to take a while to have the endowment of HYPS.
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