<p>Mboyle - how d'ya know that the Yale website is not the one with the incorrect data? Anyway, the NYTimes chart is based on a fairly small group (3000 seniors) and the national numbers could probably vary by 10 points or so . Whether the split is 60/40 or 49/51 is not that big a deal - a swing of 4 or 5 people in a survey sample would move the stat. It's not like a million people get into both. </p>
<p>Likewise, there's no question that Duke loses applicants to Penn and vice versa and the actual split might be 66/34 Penn/Duke or it might be a little more even.My gut is that Penn would win more than 1/2 the time, but this still means that Duke gets 3 or 4 out of every 10 double admits - if they got 5 would the world be any different? In the end, for those lucky enough to get into such a 2-way, the important thing is which is the school that is right for YOU, not some number on a chart. Even if the split was 90/10 statistically, some people who would thrive at Duke would be miserable at Penn (and vice versa) - it's all about the fit for YOU and not just numbers.</p>
<p>If you are already in a NE boarding school you probably have a pretty good sense of what Penn would be like in terms of people, average level of religious belief, etc. The only difference is that because Penn is so much bigger, instead of 5 people in your group you'd have 50 or 100, enough to form a real community.</p>