Hey guys, is it true that Duke gives a slight advantage in admissions to kids who are NC residents?
Just want to clear this up.
Thanks!
There have always been rumors that Duke wants to keep a certain percentage of its students from North Carolina (which they have always done) so it might give you a slight admissions edge. I’ve never seen that in writing, but a lot of people believe it.
Duke claims they “consider” state residency when evaluating candidates. This includes a slight bump for North Carolina residents as well as an advantage to those from states like Idaho where they want to say “we have students from all 50 states!” There is no quota that they must accept from NC though – people who say “there must be 15% from NC” are simply incorrect. James B Duke wrote in his original endowment that the school was to “Serve the people of the Carolinas,” so they try to instill some of that, but it certainly isn’t like a public school. So, yeah, they probably give NC residents a bit of a closer look as those students are also more likely to stay in North Carolina after graduation and it’s good to a have a decently strong alumni network nearby when everybody is so spread out all over.
Yes, it is written in the charter somewhere. But no exact percentages. I believe this extends to students from both NC and SC.
If you look at the Duke class profile - consistently about 11-13% of the incoming class is from NC/SC. So although its not a quota, there is clearly some sort of target # of students they are trying to recruit from these two states.