<p>Just received the news that 44% of the class of 2017 has been filled. Wow. Anyone able to round up a new set of admission stats? For example, the typical admissions rate is 19%. What if I originally had a 42% chance of getting in, how are the "odds" looking now?
Obviously, this isn't really a matter of "odds" and "chances," it's a matter of fit. However, anyone else want to look at this mathematically?
960 spots left for 29,000 obviously means admittance for 3% of the pool (if they keep with their intended class size).
Has anyone calculated anything else?</p>
<p>3% ?! Damn. Daaaamn. There seriously goes my chances haha how depressing</p>
<p>This has been posted a couple of times in different ways. Duke got 29,200 RD applications for 950 total spots. Another curve is around 25% of these spots are taken by targeted applicants such as student athletes. According to another Duke article a third of the applicants aren’t qualified and will be rejected on a first read. That still leaves over 19,000 qualified applicants. With a yield around 33% there will be less then 3,000 acceptances or a 15% acceptance rate against qualified applicants or 10% across all RD applicants. Insanely tough environment which makes chance questions impossible unless you’ve had Coach K in your living room asking you to come.</p>
<p>I know, right? Heart sunk a lot upon reading that.
The fact that it came from the Alumni office who was cushioning the blow to my father that it’d be especially hard for me to “continue our family’s Duke tradition” certainly didn’t help me feel better (considering they told him someone would be “advocating” for me, I’m sure they just want to keep him as a donor).
Very disappointing, but I suppose I haven’t fully given up yet</p>
<p>tennisforall- Thanks for all of those numbers, that’s what I’m interested in. I was wondering how many of those 29,200 were qualified, so that’s interesting to hear. I’m not exactly interested in my “chance,” persay, I just think it’s interesting to see how the numbers are breaking down. Thanks again!</p>
<p>Yeah I mean I know my stats are on the lower end definitely, but not completely out of range. And I also had a couple really unique ECs that I thought might boost me a little bit but Im pretty confident now that I wont get in but I mean I guess we’ll see! Realistically I’ll probably end up a lehigh or Bucknell. Although I’d definitely go to UVA or Notre Dame if I got in</p>
<p>While the chances of it happening these days may seem smaller than getting an airline seat upgrade, adcoms do look at a lot of intangible stuff. Who knows what might tickle their fancy and make them work extra hard to advocate for a particular applicant. I’m always of the opinion that if you are qualified, you are qualified and you have a chance.</p>
<p>That 19 percent figure is likely inaccurate; for the class of 2016, I believe it approximated 12 percent.</p>
<p>I have also noticed that some posters use “qualified applicants” and “competitive applicants” synonymously. I would guess that anyone whose ACT is in the 30’s and has a GPA of 3.7 is “qualified” even if they have no ECs or personality at all. Hopefully the number of applicants that are truly “competitive” is smaller than 19k.</p>
<p>Duke referenced qualified as not being rejected in the first read. What criteria admissions is using to determine what leads to a rejection on the first read I’ve never seen presented. Without knowing that who knows if qualified and competitive are synonymous. Duke is not going to accept the top 950 applicants based on stats or ECs. There will be a certain amount of athletes. They are very sensitive to yield and if they put themselves head to head with the top Ivies and Stanford on all accepted applicants their yield will take a big hit. They have to have a detailed matrix on yield based on different types of applicants and between Trinity and Pratt. If you really want to go to Duke apply and hope for the best. If the number that is truly competitive is 19,000 or 10,000 is irrelevant. The competition is intense and nobody knows until they are notified and nobody will be notified if they didn’t apply.</p>
<p>Competitiveness is IMO highly relative and fluid from year to year depending on how the class-shaping process turns out. Some years they may want more engineers and so Pratt applicants suddenly become more competitive than more qualified Trinity applicants. some years they may want more musicians. Some years they may want this or that. The process is opaque and ever changing. Thus I don’t think competitiveness is really a good standard or even a very defined one. To paraphrase, competitiveness is in the eye of the beholder.</p>
<p>Doubt that is accurate. First the stats of Pratt applicants are higher then Trinity on average. The EC’s for the 2 applicant pools while I’m sure equally impressive will be different. For Pratt they are looking for 205 students with no regard for Trinity applicants. The following per my older brother who knows pretty much everybody in admisisons at another top 10 college. According to him while the obo analogy may have some relevance it is very small. The number one admission strategy is the best applicants weighted by level of probability of accepting a Duke offer. How they go about this determination is part art and part science. They now students with X interests will have Duke at the top of their list. They know different high schools have a history of going to Duke. They look through the essays looking for Duke specific passion versus cut and paste responses. There are certain ways the essays are presented to the trained eye are very telling. While we see yield in total or between between Pratt and Trinity the elite schools have yield divided into lots of categories. The notion that admissions is a fluid process isn’t the case. It is actually a very systematic process that may look random individually but looks anything but in total.</p>
<p>Whether or not it’s accurate, it has been cited by Guttentag as a factor in admissions. Class-sculpting according to the Chronicle, while probably not playing a huge role, does seem to be one of the final filters with the possibility of reversing decisions and mitigating trends. I would venture to guess that this is done with very little regard to ECs or other factors that define the wider applicant pool as by that stage everyone will have similar qualifications.</p>
<p>[Application</a> increase overwhelms review system | The Chronicle](<a href=“http://www.dukechronicle.com/article/application-increase-overwhelms-review-system]Application”>http://www.dukechronicle.com/article/application-increase-overwhelms-review-system)</p>
<p>And I would hesitate to characterize this proces as “systematic”. If it was, people would have it figured out long before now. Admissions is a very lucrative industry. If there was a way to game it then I’m sure someone would have done it already.</p>
<p>SBR - Refer back to what my brother offered. He didn’t venture to guess. He brings an expertise that neither you or I have.</p>
<p>Idk who your brother is or what his connections are but as far as I’m concerned he’s not the final authority on admissions nor does he prevent me from having an opinion. My source is Guttentag himself.</p>
<p>With 2,618 posts you have offered an opinion to pretty much everything that’s been posted. I can see you are driven to get the last word and reference expertise beyond your status. Could that be because even though you have all those posts you opinion is never solicited.</p>
<p>Lol, pathetic riposte. This is an online forum. No one’s opinion is “solicited” neither yours nor mine nor your brother’s nor anyone elses’. People post to offer opinion and you and any other audience can take it or leave it. I shouldn’t have to defend my right to post and have a viewpoint. I would’ve thought all of this was obvious. Enough of this junk, I didn’t come here to get bogged down in an ego p!ssfest.</p>
<p>For whose benefit did you come here?</p>
<p>Mostly my own like most people here. I come here, look around, relax, talk about my alma mater, try to answer some questions, offer some opinions, discuss some stuff, try to paint Duke in a positive light where possible. No pretenses, no obligations, no pressures. And I try not to take myself too seriously and just derive some enjoyment out of it.</p>
<p>So wait…are RD acceptance rates really gonna be THAT low??? 10% is bad enough…</p>
<p>@Juvenis: if you are talking about the 3% figure then no. 3% is the proportion of the RD applicant pool that will ultimately enroll at Duke. Put it another way. It’ll only be 3% if every single applicant offered admissions decided to go to Duke. That’s never happened. Duke’s overall yield (both ED and RD combined) is usually in the low 40% range. </p>
<p>A better estimate would be RD admissions rate in the recent years which has hovered just shy of 10% I think and Duke usually doesn’t deviate much from year to year even if the overall long-term trend is downward.</p>