Legacy letter from Alumni Relations

Colleges and Universities A-Z Duke University
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<p>Yesterday my wife (a Duke MBA) rec'd a letter from Duke's VP of Alumni Relations. Basically the letter stated that the Alumni dept was pleased that our D had applied to Duke, etc, etc, and that she's already on their "radar screen". It gave the name (and email address) of the person in the Dept assigned to be our D's "advocate." Should we assume this is par for the course, or be encouraged?</p>

<p>FWIW, we wanted our D to apply ED, but she really wants to go to Caltech, MIT or Harvey Mudd. I assume legacy ED's have a fairly high acceptance rate.</p>

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<p>I got the same letter yesterday (my dad was an M.B.A.)!</p>

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<p>Legacy ED acceptance rate is about 70%. Legacy overall is about 50%. Not sure RD rate. But Duke definitely tries to take care of its alumni’s children…The application automatically gets read by an additional person in the admissions committee.</p>

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<p>I believe legacies at Duke are evaluated within a separate group altogether.</p>

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<p>Bluedog,</p>

<p>Legacy acceptance rate for class of 2013 was 36%, not 50%, you even said so yourself:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/duke-university/798891-how-much-does-being-duke-legacy-applying-early-decision-help.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/duke-university/798891-how-much-does-being-duke-legacy-applying-early-decision-help.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Kind of scary how much misinformation gets spread around. If you are a legacy and have a child approaching their senior year in HS, Duke sends you a letter basically saying - “hello alum, we know from our records that your S/D is in the HS class of XX”. They also will inform you about the Alumni Admissions office, and the Director of Alumni Admissions, Carole Levine. Kind of a warm “remember us”…“we’d like your S/D’s application” as well. </p>

<p>As for acceptance rates, you can look at the discussion in the thread that alt_living linked to for more information.</p>

<p>Duke DOES NOT evaluate legacies in a separate group. However, your application will be read by an extra evaluator (3 vs 2 reviews for non-legacies). I believe that this is discussed in the Guttentag video interview that has been linked here several times.</p>

<p>FYI - Duke had about 900 total legacy applicants for next year’s incoming class - about 250 of them were ED. Not sure how many of those 250 legacies were admitted, though.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the infomation and comments. We’ll keep our fingers crossed.</p>

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<p>@atl_living. Oops, you’re right. My mistake. Guttentag definitely told alumni that the legacy acceptance rate overall for Class of 2013 was 36%. I don’t know what I was thinking when I said the above. About five years ago, it was closer to 50% but has declined since then. Legacy definitely helps ED applicants a lot more than RD, and the legacy ED rate is considerably higher.</p>