<p>What type of people do they really look for?</p>
<p>I am a student who is more of a leader than a 'student.' I really like Duke.</p>
<p>Duke looks for instate minority (but not asian) valedictorians who have perfect SAT scores and have cured cancer and won the nobel peace prize. :-p</p>
<p><em>Smirk</em> curing cancer is overrated. Who hasn't done that? <em>yawn</em></p>
<p>It depends on what you mean by "not a student".</p>
<p>For example, among the top few schools, Duke is not a particularly intellectual school -- it is full of very smart people, true, but our student body is very professional school and workplace geared, unlike a school like (say) Chicago, which is going to be very graduate school geared -- aiming to churn out professors and intellectuals.</p>
<p>While Duke is probably more likely than, say, Dartmouth to accept some very small tradeoffs in academic predilections in favor of leadership ability, this is among a pool of the best students in the country. Being a well-rounded, socially active student isn't going to make up for a 1700 SAT with a 3.3 GPA.</p>
<p>My impression is that Duke really likes students who are different from the typical 2400SAT-valedictorian-4.0 GPA types. They have this really cool description of what they're looking for on their admissions website: students with "bumps". If they really see that you have a passion for what you do and can contribute something to the school, they will be willing to overlook ranking, test scores, and GPA to a certain extent (unlike schools like Penn, for example). I was ranked 50th, had a 32 on my ACT, and didn't have a 4.0 -- and I still got into Duke regular decision. And I'm also Asian, which means I definitely didn't have an advantage in that area.
Then again, like Bluedevilmike said, you probably can't have a really mediocre transcript either.
Just remember that no one can really predict who gets in where, though. Still, the advice can help.</p>