<p>My daughter recently met a young man who will be attending DUKE this fall on what he claims is a full ride sports scholarship. I will not say which sport, as to obscure his identity. D, who was rejected by DUKE and still a little miffed even though she had ruled it out after her visit, asked what kind of scores he had. Well, he claims to have scored a 20 on his ACTs. Is this possible? If so, what possible justification could there be for admitting him let alone giving him a scholarship? How could anyone possibly expect him to survive academically?</p>
<p>For the most part, I think if you are amazing at a particular sport, the school will make exceptions. Usually the coach of a team has the power to vouch for a student, and if the sport is very big or if the school is big on sports as Duke is, then the school will do quite a lot to keep you. I’m not sure, but I think a 2.0 GPA, or C+ average, is good enough for most prospective college athletes. I’m not sure they care so much about the academic survival; it’s not too hard to take an extremely easy course load.
Again, I’m NOT SURE. I’m not an expert on this.</p>
<p>It’s not out of the realm of possibility. I believe one basketball player a few years ago had HS GPA in the 2.0+ range and ACT in the teens. </p>
<p>It’s not something that I like about Duke but I can understand the importance of sports. When it comes down to it, valedictorians are a dime a dozen, but truly elite athletes are hard to find. It is worth the compromise? Duke seems to think so.</p>
<p>Seems like a good reason for your daughter to be pleased with her choice. Duke’s obsession with sports is one reason I’m dubious about encouraging my own daughter to apply: I’m uncomfortable with the idea that a subset of the college is there to provide the rest with entertainment and a spurious and vicarious sense of esteem.</p>
<p>It’s not just entertainment, they get some benefit out of it too…like…multimillion dollar professional athletic careers, name recognition, etc. </p>
<p>Anyways, Duke isn’t all about just sports. Sure it’s part of campus culture just like fried chicken is part of southern cuisine, but Duke is still one of the top research universities in the world and there are all kinds of people doing amazing things there. If you don’t like Duke, it’s fine, but to say that it’s categorically a bad thing without having really experienced it just make you seem close minded and elitist. </p>
<p>I mean, if you look at it from the perspective of the basketball recruits, Duke is recognizing that they have a rare talent that happens to not be academics and that Duke (even though it’s a top ranked school academically) can still provide an environment and the opportunities for them to develop that talent. Therefore, Duke is offering them a place where they can grow and make something of themselves. That sounds like pretty much every student at Duke, except that many of them are there for academic reasons. </p>
<p>So I say live and let live as long as you are happy with your choices.</p>
<p>He wont survive academically. He’ll bounce after a year to play for the Knicks</p>
<p>For his sake he better be a basketball player.</p>
<p>There are only two sports where somebody with a score approaching that could get into Duke - basketball and football. (Perhaps with the caveat that an exception *might *be made for an athlete who is in the top 10 in the nation in his/her given sport.) It’s not fair to paint all athletes at Duke in the same brush. For the most part, they ARE top students and have very high GPAs and test scores. They should since they account for 10% of the student body. Coach K obviously has some major pull with the admissions office, but Duke still routinely doesn’t accept top basketball recruits where the staff doesn’t think they could succeed academically. Two occurrences of this type of rejection recently occurred. One individual chose to enroll at Georgetown (obviously, also a very solid school, but it has even more lax admissions for b-ball than Duke) and the other to UConn.</p>
<p>Duke prides itself on its student-athletes. Coaches certainly have a say with the admissions office and depending on the level of the athlete, students with subpar academics can get admitted in certain circumstances. Just as as individual with perhaps subpar academics but a nationally renowned musician could get into Duke - they’ve demonstrated a unique skill that brings diversity to the university.</p>
<p>In the end, most student-athletes at Duke are also great students. Perhaps not up to the exact same lofty standards as other Duke students, but closer than they are at most schools. Duke has the highest athlete graduation rate in the country for a reason. For basketball and football, academic standards are on a completely different (lower) level than for other sports, but Duke still has more academic hurdles than the schools at which is competes athletically in those sports. Stanford, for example, is basically the same in this regard (as is Notre Dame, Northwestern, etc.).</p>
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<p>THIS.
IMO Duke is among a handful of household names of academically-strong schools. Due to its amazing athletics Duke has garnered a level of name recognition that other amazing academic schools will never enjoy (e.g. Wash U, Emory, etc.). Duke leads the nation in number of lottery picks in the NBA draft (16), and I believe its strength in basketball and athletics in general is beneficial to all parties. Athletics make the school more spirited and well-known and the college experience more full and well-rounded. Those benefits are worth accepting some kids with lower test scores for, especially since they contribute so much to the Duke community. JMO.</p>