<p>"...I realize there are 19,000+ applicants competing for less than 2000 spaces..."</p>
<p>It's 19,000+ for more than 3000 spaces. Duke accepts more than double what it enrolls, fwiw. </p>
<p>"im sure there are always these things happening, but the frequency of such events is very rare..."</p>
<p>Dinged at JHU, in at Princeton, yeah. But a Rice-Duke split wouldn't be unusual.</p>