<p>Hello everybody. I was wondering what are my chances at duke??</p>
<p>3.45 uw g.p.a. 3.83w g.p.a</p>
<p>1210 SAT
610 math IC, 550 Writing, 590 U.S History
Top 18%
Great Ec's
Recs from instruction coordinator, principal, and alumni
african american male</p>
<p>By the way, i have taken 10 honors classes and 3 AP classes including ap physics, ap gov, ap u.s history</p>
<p>wow you are top 18%?! thats crazy my gpa is a 3.41 and im EXACTLY 50%, looking at your chances, you go to a weak school aparently, and your ciriculum isnt that great or your SAT Scores or anything stand out except your black and so your quota is lower than most other peoples so idk, if you were white (no shot)</p>
<p>no, my school is not weak. actually, it is one of the top schools in georgia. we have some of the best teachers in the system, and our average sat is like 1030. so we are not weak at all. i challenge you to come to my school and make an A in physics.</p>
<p>lol wow thats not very good at all, the national average is 1026, congrats you're 4 points above average, my school is 1157, so why dont you tell me again how hard your school is and if a 1210 is good. (which is 120 pts below the mid 50% range for duke)</p>
<p>i dont mean to be, cuz honestly if he was white, there would be no chance in hell, but since hes black i have no idea. and since his school isnt very challenging he wont score well in cirriculum choice, sat scores, or achievement. unless his essay is killer and his recs are the best in career its not looking good</p>
<p>my dukie friend said that african american females don't get much of an advantage but african american males get a big boost, so anything's possible. (she also said that many of the URMs that got in mainly due to being a URM have the hardest time because, no offense, lots of them aren't at the same level as the others)</p>
<p>I think the biggest thing you should worry about gatechboy is being able to cope with the amount and intensity of the work and about being successful at Duke. My friend mentioned above had a 4.0uw GPA at high school w/ 9 AP classes and a 1510 SAT and she says it is the most challenging work she has ever done and, gasp!, she even got a B+ in one of her classes. I'm not trying to discourage you from going to Duke, but if you gain admission you really have to step back and think "can I handle this?"</p>
<p>Good luck</p>
<p>Your SAT scoreS are even worse than mine. no offense. but a student that has ur scores in my school SHOULD and DOES only consider going to a college like UC, Riverside <em>if UCR is lenient enough to accept him/her</em>
again, no offense</p>
<p>gatechboy: Don't be put off by the nastiness in this thread. Hopefully Duke will judge you by your accomplishments and your character. I'm a parent and I sure wouldn't hire any of the individuals who've responded to you on this thread. You mention great EC's - I'd put more weight on those than some snot-nosed kid with high SAT scores. I went to an Ivy League school and believe me many of my classmates turned out to be losers.</p>
<p>I'm sure Duke is looking for socioeconomic balance and not just skin color. And the crap about how hard the work is at Duke - my son did the pre-college program there last summer - took Calculus with 90 percent of his class being Duke students - he got a B+ and did better than 90 percent of the Duke students.<br>
Abe Lincoln didn't go to Duke - taught himself the law - he turned out ok. Bill Gates didn't graduate from college - and Michael Dell (Dell Computers) started his business at the University of Texas.</p>
<p>bill gates is a horrible example, he got 1590 on the SAT and dropped out of HARVARD b/c it was costing him more money to be in college than it was worth because he was spending time studying instead of doing his thing.</p>
<p>I like the point though, every school in the country has atleast one very successful graduate... although better schools typically have more ambitious students to begin with.</p>
<p>gatechboy, good luck getting into duke, I admire your ambition... However, after being accepted ED by duke this year, and because I am in the bottom portion for test scores of the people that attend, I often question how hard the classes will be for me. PROBABLY HARD AS HELL. I am in the top 5 of my class, 1360 SAT, and I am questioning this. If you want to goto college and study your ass off 20hours a day just to get a C, (which is what I am prepared to do), then pursue Duke, but, if you arent, you will probably be more happy elsewhere.</p>
<p>i think we are not trying to be nasty. we are just trying to be REALISTIC!! Plus, didn't he ask us what his chances are? well, if everyone replies <em>sure u will get in</em> in this forum, then what's the point of creating a thread like that? isn't the O.P. trying to get other people's opinions?</p>
<p>i appreciate all the comments. i hope i get in to. i know that i will do good if i am accepted. i do not back down from a challenge. as a matter of fact, i love when people doubt my abilities so when i do succeed in something, it makes me look even better</p>
<p>yeah i think we are being realistic oib1, those examples dont matter because whether or not they went to duke or even went to school or graduated they were actually HIGHLY intelligent and could have gone anywhere. </p>
<p>anyways you know you would higher someone qualified over someone you like more, its more logical</p>
<p>Sorry, I didn't mean to be so harsh. But I've found in my work career that high scores don't necessarily mean success. And the SAT is a very artificial way to measure academic success. How many of you would want to go to a college where you were surrounded by one-dimensional people who all scored 1600's on their SAT's. Hopefully diversity doesn't just mean a mix of skin colors but a mix of backgrounds and cultures.</p>
<p>
[quote]
How many of you would want to go to a college where you were surrounded by one-dimensional people who all scored 1600's on their SAT's.
[/quote]
If you had a 1600, you'd see it differently.</p>
<p>Ugh. This discussion is making me sick. As a Duke student who scored in the 99+ percentile (1550) on the SAT, I readily acknowledge how silly and unrelated to intelligence the scores are. I know that my being upper-middle class and going to a school district that prepped us with vocab lists and the like helped, I know that my parents' higher educations helped, and I think it is extremely ignorant to look at SAT scores as absolute benchmarks for intelligence. I know kids here with 1600s who are not all that impressive and those with 1300s who have amazing intelligence and talents. </p>
<p>I have siblings who got in the 1100s on SATs and less-than-perfect GPAs and they're by no means dumb or useless, in fact I'd hire them as an employer over superficial, pompous and unoriginal asses with 1500s anyday--I think basically a lot of kids on these boards have a lot of growing up to do in realizing people's potentials and different types of intelligence. Duke admissions takes more into account than test scores and numbers, and I have seen plenty of cases of that here. </p>
<p>Regardless of the OP's chances at getting into Duke (and I do hope he gets in), he did not ask to be lambasted or made fun of. Nor is it productive at all to insult or belittle Duke students and the workload at the school, which is most definitely intense (coming from an overwhelmingly hard high school, I still have never had so much work in my life). Most of the posters on this board have no relationship to Duke (and hopefully never will) and so I think oib's comments were a little unnecessary, though his or her intentions were good.</p>
<p>In conclusion, I would like to see this discussion stop here. gatechboy, good luck in your college admissions. Thank you for not being a prick on these boards and displaying yourself honestly and confidently. I am sorry a lot of people don't have the decency to respond likewise.</p>
<p>i was wondering how much homework you have a day at Duke incollege88? and if you get the weekends off?</p>
<p>
[quote]
As a Duke student who scored in the 99+ percentile (1550) on the SAT, I readily acknowledge how silly and unrelated to intelligence the scores are.
[/quote]
In part, the problem is a 1550 today may have been achieved by taking the best scores over three sittings. That is not the same as someone who consistently aces the test. I'm not saying that applies to you, but people seem to lose this distinction.</p>
<p>well, guys, i know the SAT scores don't mean anything and it certainly doesn't and can't measure people's success. but how do you compare a person who grew up in US. (the O.P.) with Sat writing score of 550 with one who didn't speack any english until 4 years ago (an immigrant)with a Sat writing score of 640??? isn't it harder for the later to achieve what s/he has accomplished??? doesn't the later put much more effort into that??? i certainly ackowledge that there are different intelligence. but hard-working is definitely one of the characteristics college looks for.</p>
<p>but not "oh im gonna work hard my whole life and do nothing else" thats a bad atitude lol...this guy says he has good ECs I'd say that makes up for a few points...</p>