Early Decision Applications Up 32% At Duke

Colleges and Universities A-Z Duke University
1

<p>just saw this press release... Duke ED applications are up 32% this year</p>

<p>The number of high school seniors applying to Duke University through the Early Decision process has increased 32 percent from last year.
Those who apply via this process know they want to attend Duke and commit to enroll at the university if they receive an offer of admission in December.
"Last year, we received 1,535 Early Decision applicants, which had been our second highest total,” said Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Christoph Guttentag. “This year, we’ve recorded 2,040."</p>

2

<p>Would you include the link please?</p>

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<p>I just found the whole article:
[Early</a> Decision Applications Up At Duke - Durham County - MyNC.com](<a href=“http://durhamcounty.mync.com/site/durhamcounty/news/story/43946/early-decision-applications-up-at-duke/]Early”>http://durhamcounty.mync.com/site/durhamcounty/news/story/43946/early-decision-applications-up-at-duke/)</p>

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<p>■■■</p>

<hr>

5

<p>admission rate is going to go down by like 10%</p>

6

<p>Here’s an article from Duke:</p>

<p>[Early</a> Decision apps up 33 percent over last fall | The Chronicle](<a href=“http://dukechronicle.com/article/early-decision-apps-33-percent-over-last-fall]Early”>Early Decision apps up 33 percent over last fall - The Chronicle)</p>

<p>33% actually, but close enough. :)</p>

7

<p>When I saw this, I freaked. But, one thing to notice is the states they highlight as having a lot of applicants…about 1000 of the 2000 ED applications to Duke this year came from North Carolina, New Jersey, Virginia, California, and International.</p>

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<p>So that’s basically bad news for everyone in those areas, and good news for everyone else?</p>

9

<p>Unfortunately, yeah.</p>

10

<p>That sounds quite similar to the distribution of the last one or two freshman classes, right?</p>

11

<p>Good news to me then >_></p>

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<p>I spoke with Christoph Guttentag today, he said they expect a similar rise in RD applicants - and an inevitable drop in acceptance rate. </p>

<p>Just don’t let that get you from applying, if you never take any risks, you will always be left wondering one thing; what if?..</p>

13

<p>Yeah, I expected a rise in applications but definitely not this much. I actually thought there might be less because of the economic downturn and all. Nonetheless, it seems that Duke has been rising in selectivity over the past couple of years. Just a couple years ago, the admission rate was over 20%, this year it might be less than 10.</p>

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<p>But here’s what I don’t get: who makes up this larger applicant pool? Does this mean there are more average people out there applying for Duke as a reach, or are there more highly competitive people (2300+ SATs, 4.0 gpa, lots of APs and ECs, etc) applying?
Cuz there’s a significant difference between the situations…</p>

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<p>Duke emphasized they weren’t looking for ‘perfect’ students this year, their brochure says they want students with ‘bumps’. I wondered if this was because, as they said, perfect students often proved to be boring, or just a ploy to get more applicants. Whatever it was, it worked.</p>

16

<p>Isn’t the relevance of this news better understood in context? In other words, is this a development unique to Duke, or is it happening across the board at other highly selective colleges and universities?</p>

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<p>It’s definitely better understood in context, but it’s hard to say at this juncture since most schools haven’t released figures. The only other school that I know of is Dartmouth at +3% since last year. So, Duke at +33% is looking pretty good, but a sample size of two isn’t large enough.</p>

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<p>To its benefit Dartmouth has been doing really well lately, down to a 12.0% acceptance rate last year I believe, so I wouldn’t count them out of a big RD increase either.</p>

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<p>@moxess I understand how thats bad news for people from those areas, but how is that good news for everyone else?</p>

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<p>It just means that this significant rise doesn’t mean an over-representation of people in your area. I’d rather be in an area with less competition, wouldn’t you?</p>