<p>Which is harder to get into?</p>
<p>Unquestionably, both are excellent universities; however, Duke’s selectivity and stature are generally considered to be slightly more “elite” (and I really dislike that term) than Vanderbilt 's.</p>
<p>The two have almost the same acceptance rates and median sat/act scores. Equally difficult to get into.</p>
<p>As we say here at Vanderbilt, Duke is the Vanderbilt for ugly people.</p>
<p>They’re pretty much equally selective at this point. Duke used to be significantly tougher to get into, but Vanderbilt has changed so dramatically in just the last five years that any measurable difference in selectivity between the two is essentially gone.</p>
<p>Edit: I’ve seen a lot of Dukies on here claim that Duke is still considerably more selective. If that is the case – and I highly doubt that it is – then it likely will not be for long. Vanderbilt received 3700 more applications in this season than in the last; its popularity is increasing rapidly, and it may not have yet reached the point of diminishing marginal returns in this regard ;).</p>
<p>Ten years ago the answer was Duke. Today they are about equally impossible to get into. The class of 2016 may place Vanderbilt as more difficult to get into. Both are great “elite” schools. Both offer the entire college experience and both are attracting more and more students from all over the country and the world.</p>
<p>Well I applied this year to both for fall of 2012. I applied to Duke early decision, my dad went to Duke for undergrad and Law school, and I had other connections. </p>
<p>I applied to Vandy regular decision, with no connections whatsoever, completely on my own merit.</p>
<p>I was deferred then rejected from Duke.</p>
<p>I was accepted to Vandy off the waitlist regular decision. </p>
<p>I have come to strongly dislike Duke after this whole process, not solely because they didn’t take me, but because how the admissions office has treated me (not responding to calls, emails, letters of appeal) especially when I have strong family ties to the university. I would like to say that both Vandy and Duke are equally selective, but it’s weird to me that I didn’t get into Duke ED, which this year had a 25% acceptance rate, and I was a legacy, but I did get into Vandy off the waitlist regular, with no hook or connection whatsoever. I guess I have Vandy to thank for realizing my potential, I don’t know what Duke was thinking.</p>
<p>Comparing the two schools: Duke right now has slightly more prestige, but Vandy is on the rise. You’ll get incredible educations at both schools, but what makes me more excited about Vandy is the social aspect. After doing more research and talking to more people, Duke has changed over the past couple years into a school where kids are in the library most hours of the day, many don’t go to basketball games anymore, etc. It’s become cut-throat. On the other hand, Vandy, while still providing an incredible education, is much more collaborative, and you have A LOT of fun there. So when I look back on this process, I couldn’t be happier with the outcome. I am so excited for Vandy, and if I were to get into Duke today, I am almost positive I would still go to Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>I find dander’s expereince interesting and similar to my own. I am a Duke alum (graduated 20+ years ago) who has children who are in the midst of their own college application process. Vanderbilt was not even a consideration for me back when I was applying. However, my family visited both Duke and Vanderbilt this past spring, along with the accompanying interactions with Admissions Offices. My impression was that Vandy was far more welcoming and impressive than Duke and made me much more excited, as a parent. I could expound at great lenght about the details of this statement and would be willing to if others would find it helpful. However, an apt summary might be that even as a Duke alum, my current preference would be for my children to attend Vanderbilt (although Duke is still a close second).</p>
<p>
So, you felt like you deserved special treatment from Duke just because your parents went there? I looked up your academic profile and you would have been below average at both Duke and Vanderbilt based on SAT/ACT scores so I would be glad if I were you that you even got into Vandy.</p>
<p>I’m a recent Duke alum (2011) and I have no delusions that my kids “are entitled” to get admitted there. It’s my special experience and I will cherish it forever but I wouldn’t mind if my offspring forged their own paths should they not be accepted to Duke. It’s a badge of honor to get into a place like that and its not to be expected.</p>
<p>I hope I didn’t come across as rude but I hope you learn not to rush to premature judgments based on your own preconceived notions of “your potential”. Duke has more qualified applicants than they know how to deal with.</p>
<p>I hope you have a successful career at Vanderbilt and I hope your family can come to peace with Duke’s decision and your dad never forgets the great opportunities the university provided him.</p>
<p>Ok, I have a couple things to say:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I don’t think I deserve special treatment. I am saying that legacy applicants are given an advantage in the process especially if one is applying early decision, as I did. I thought it was interesting that even though I had those connections, whether or not I deserve the advantage or not, I wasn’t admitted early decision, but I was admitted to Vanderbilt, regular decision, which is just as selective.</p></li>
<li><p>I don’t dislike Duke for not admitting me. I know how competitive it is, and I know that every school is looking for someone different. I have come to dislike them because of how they have treated me with regard to their significant lack of communication. I sent a letter of appeal to the Dean about a week after my rejection (April 4), (this was before I got into Vandy) and I never got a response. I sent a followup email about 2 weeks ago and still haven’t gotten any response. I was saying that I would think if they care about relationships with applicants who have family ties, I would at least get some response. I dislike them for their seemingly lack of care for their applicants. It’s now been more than 2 months since I sent a letter of appeal and I never got a response–I think I deserve to be a little more than frustrated at that.</p></li>
<li><p>I have no idea what academic profile you “looked up”, because I got a 33 on my ACT and a 34 superscored, which is right in Duke and Vanderbilt’s range. Yes, my GPA was lower than average, but definitely not bad, and if you actually looked at my full resum</p></li>
</ol>
<p>If everyone who applied and was denied sent an appeal, don’t you think they’d get annoyed? Obviously everybody didnt, but they are working to fill their wait list and get people off that list, not talk to rejected students. There’s just not enough time. </p>
<p>Duke is slightly more prestigious, but they are definitely peer schools.</p>
<p>danders617…interesting experience you had there. I know of two other students (children of friends) who had almost exactly the same experience. Legacies, well qualified for both Duke and Vanderbilt, rejected ED at Duke, admitted off waitlist at Vanderbilt. Two explanations come to mind: 1. Duke has become just a wee bit indifferent to individuals, and begun to focus on their own grandiose larger social purpose, a habit that comes with the territory for self-important schools. They certainly admit scads of students with much lower profiles than the two kids I know of, but they reserve that discretion for themselves, and it is anyone’s guess if that discretion is well used by the AdCom. members. Vanderbilt also does this, but to a lesser extent.
2. Vanderbilt is more focused on “objective” criteria, and also admits so many of the very highest scorers that they lose quite a few of them to “higher” ranked schools, allowing them to admit a larger number off the waitlist.
By the way, both kids I know of are thrilled with Vanderbilt, and would not trade their school for Duke at this point.
Congratulations to you! You’ll love Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>@patriotsfan-- no offense, but that is a pretty pathetic argument to say that the admissions office doesn’t have 15 minutes over the course of MORE THAN TWO MONTHS to consider my appeal and reply with something as simple as “Sorry, we are unable to change your decision. Good luck in the future.” Don’t tell me that you honestly think they don’t have the time. I wouldn’t be saying this if I just sent my appeal a week ago…but more than two months? come on. they have the time.</p>
<p>@oliver007- Thank you I am more than excited! And I completely agree with you. I know more about Vandy’s process than Duke’s, and especially since Vandy doesn’t have a supplement I do think they are objective, which is weird because my GPA was the weakest part of my application. But I’m glad that Vandy saw me as more than a 3.5 GPA, and looked at what I had to offer in other aspects.</p>
<p>Once your denied there’s really no changing things, I doubt they want to get involved in students who they didn’t see as students they wanted (many of whom are still great students, not a knock on those kids at all) pleading their case post denial. If one was wait listed, I’m guessing they would hear back (and on the duke page many people have had personal conversations with their adcom about the wait list)</p>
<p>I’m sorry you got denied, but I don’t see the point of the admissions office talking to you after a denial when they have other work to do. Imagine if thousands of kids did this, it would just take too much time.</p>
<p>How about the fact that I talked on the phone with my regional counselor the day after getting my rejection and she recommended to me that I appeal if I wanted too. Appealing is a legitimate process at Duke. Yes chances that your decision will be changed are very slim, but if my counselor told me about appealing, it’s obviously Iegit, and I think two months is enough time.</p>
<p>Did you call her again? Did anything major change? Appealing is a process (mainly for certain situations though) and thr chances are unlikely, but people are more willing to (and forced to) talk over the phone rather than email.</p>
<p>Say whatever you want about Danders but being cold/unresponsive to the son of an alum is not a good university policy. Family of alum obviously aren’t entitled to be treated well. It’s just good policy, assuming the university wants to maintain good standing with the alum ($$$$). By ‘treated well’ I just mean more receptive/responsive, not given some huge advantage in admission.</p>
<p>Anyways, anecdotes aside, The two schools have almost exactly the same acceptance rate and SAT scores. There are certainly Commodores who were rejected by Duke and plenty of Blue Devils who were rejected by Vanderbilt. </p>
<p>Though this doesn’t change that Duke is in Durham… cough</p>
<p>haha Pancake…re Duke is in Durham. Our Duke son also arrived the year of the lacrosse scandal which included a couple of guys on his hall forced to attend that party by the idiot seniors who planned it over spring break when everyone was gone on campus and the coach left town briefly, asking the senior captains to make sure that everyone was well supervised. Absolute horrors re the level of corruption in the local DA’s office at the time, the characters more florid than those in Bonfire of the Vanities… and quite the Morality Play from whatever angle you cared to view things. </p>
<p>Durham is no Nashville. Nashville is a complete package city for its size and scale re top quality culture, sports and constant events. Also Nashville loves Vanderbilt whereas in NC, there can be both strong pride and strong hostility towards Duke. </p>
<p>Duke son loves loves his Duke history and his Duke alum network which-- because of sports being so high profile at Duke… is sort of clubbish in many major cities. However, he was exceedingly jealous when he saw The Commons and the wonderful interactions Vanderbilt has with its host town Nashville. My sons are culture hounds and although Nashville is no Boston or NYC or DC, it is a wonderful 3rd Coast city in our nation.</p>
<p>Legacy is no longer a viable predictor at Vanderbilt either. Seriously. The entire city of Atlanta and the usual corridors from Alabama, Texas etc from Vandy’s past are full and I do mean full of alums whose children did not get into Vanderbilt even if they were fully qualified. I have tons of friends in Atlanta whose parents are shell shocked that Vandy was no longer an option to be counted on with a strong student plus legacy. </p>
<p>The Ivies have the same issues, where legacy is a factor but no longer a predictor. Best to spread out your applications and to hope for some luck re a good fit and admission. Also schools less selective than Vanderbilt are plentiful that offer top notch educations and students should all be looking at match colleges seriously. Vandy and Duke will remain reach collleges for legacies.</p>
<p>Yes, legacy at many schools is not what it used to be…unless there is a building named after your family.</p>
<p>Vanderbilt has gotten very difficult to get into and I would consider it at least as difficult as Duke. Vanderbilt was the only school that out right rejected my oldest son, who will be attending UVA and was wait listed at Chicago, Hopkins, and Duke (where my wife and I attended). He applied RD to all of these schools (except UVA – EA). </p>
<p>No hard feeling about Vanderbilt, which did accept several students from my son’s HS, including one who received a Cornelius Vanderbilt scholarship (to show you how fine the distinctions are in admissions at Vandy, my son had more AP classes, better AP scores, more academic awards from the HS, a slightly higher GPA, and had been to Vandy’s academic summer camp with good recommendations from his teacher there (a grad student at Vandy), while the other student had a slightly higher SAT (about 40 points) and better ECs including an awesome service project).</p>
<p>In any event, both my twins, who are rising seniors, will be applying to Vanderbilt this fall and my daughter will probably apply there ED. They will also apply to Duke. In comparing Vandy and Duke, which are very similar in so many ways, the one thing that sticks out in my mind besides Nashville over Durham is that while both schools have special first year living, Vandy’s is in a beautiful area of campus close to all of the action while Duke shuttles the students to East campus, which is a bus ride from Main campus, lacks air conditioning, and is not nearly as attractive as Main.</p>
<p>FACT CHECK- *1/3 of east has AC and more if one has a medical slip. Also, looking at the numbers, Vandy is very close to but not quite as hard to get into as Duke.</p>