<p>Yes, I know the statistics. Around 30% are accepted when applying Early Decision and 10% are accepted during Regular Decision. Even the Duke website says there is an advantage in applying early.</p>
<p>Duke is my number one choice, but I do not want to pay $60,000 a year! There are a ton of schools out there that I could potentially get 20k-full tuition scholarships (U of Miami, Tulane maybe, U of Puget Sound, U of San Diego). I want to explore those options too. But I can't if I apply early decision to Duke. Plus, what if Duke accepts me but offers me no money (I definitely do not qualify for financial aid, but I don't want to pay 240k). </p>
<p>So I want your opinions. What would you do? (Not what you think I should do.) Would you take the chance and apply early decision, or would you go after the chance of receiving scholarship money at other schools?</p>
<p>If you don’t want to pay $60,000 per year, then Duke can’t be your “number one choice.”
If I had this dilemma, I definitely wouldn’t apply ED to Duke. I’d go to my state flagship instead.</p>
<p>That is actually true, although I hate to admit it. Thank you! </p>
<p>My dilemma is that I am only looking at out of state schools. I live in Idaho and I’m not putting down UI or anything, but I can’t study what I want here. </p>
<p>I agree that if you actually don’t qualify for financial aid and don’t want to pay full fare, then applying to Duke ED is unwise. Having said that, do you definitely know that you won’t qualify? Did you check out Duke’s net price calculator? <a href=“Net Price Calculator”>Net Price Calculator;
<p>A lot of upper class families don’t realize that Duke does offer aid pretty high up in the income bracket. Coming from Idaho definitely is appealing for a lot of schools out East who want to say “we have students from all 50 states” although Montana would be better than Idaho. 
You can get out of ED under majorly extenuating circumstances if you can prove you can’t afford it, but if you don’t apply for, and don’t qualify for financial aid because your family is wealthy, saying you don’t want to pay isn’t going to cut it.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>I actually never tried the calculator for Duke. Supposedly, it would award me 14k, making the cost 47k. Of course, they could also give me nothing. This is stressful.</p>
<p>What do you want to study? How much can your family afford to pay per year?
In your case, I’d apply to Duke RD, not ED, if I am concerned about financial aid.</p>
<p>I want to major in biology with a concentration in evolution or marine sciences or major in environmental sciences. </p>
<p>The ED acceptance rate isn’t 30%. It’s 25%. </p>
<p>Also, if you can afford to attend Duke but you choose not to fork out $240,000 then you’re pretty much out of options as far as Duke is concerned (unless you’re incredible enough to win an AB). </p>
<p>My suggestion is to give the NPCs a whirl for the schools on your lists, Duke included and see if you are eligible at all, or even close to qualifying for financial aid. If you are not, and if you absolutely know that the costs of those schools are out of range, applying to those with no merit awards is not a good idea unless you think there is a slim chance some money will fall out of the sky for you. As far as Duke goes, there is a teeny chance that this will happen because Duke does have some Merit Awards, as opposed to, say, Georgetown or Harvard or any other schools that have none at all. But the chances are very small of getting those awards, and you won’t know until after the ED commitment date if accepted whether you get the award. So with such a onerous stipulation, no, you are not an ED candidate for Duke or any school that does not give out merit awards with their ED acceptances. </p>
<p>There are those who would turn down full tuition scholarships elsewhere to go to a great university such as Duke. I’m not in that camp and would suggest you apply RD and explore those scholarship options. The price of tuition is simply not justifiable, particularly if you have plans to go to graduate school. Last year my work hard/play hard daughter had sights on Duke and Vandy and thought about ED, but applied RD to explore scholarship options and got full tuition merit awards at Miami and USC (as well as offers of admission to both Vandy and Duke). She is now a happy and more financially solvent Trojan. Don’t know what your results will be, but why limit your options?</p>
<p>Bellizeme: Before you do anything else, please understand that: (1) Duke provides MAJOR need-based grants to middle class students and (2) Duke scrupulously honors NPC results (presuming the inputs were fully accurate). Therefore, bluedog’s basic advise makes a lot of sense. If you really want Duke – and if you do not, you absolutely should not apply ED – you’d be crazy not to ascertain if you can afford attendance with the assistance indicated by the NPC. </p>
<p>Wait, so are the NPC actually pretty accurate? Maybe within -/+ 3k?</p>
<p>Yes, at Duke there are quiet accurate, IF the data you input is scrupulously correct. </p>
<p>Be careful trusting any calculator though, because in my case it wasn’t. The various school calculators calculated a decent bit (although not much) for me and in reality I got nothing. Maybe I didn’t fill it out right, but I wouldn’t base any part of your ED decision on the calculator but rather assume you will get next to nothing just in case you do. Just my opinion based on my own personal experiences though. </p>
<p>@TopTier I’m sure you meant ‘quite’ accurate 
We’ll chalk that one down to auto-correct!</p>
<p>The NCPs are usually pretty close for schools like Duke IF you don’t have an unusual situation like a family owned business, some international situation, NCP, unusual investments, </p>
<p>Don’t apply ED, unless you are absolutely certain you love Duke enough to pay 240K. I knew I wouldn’t. Apply RD, and see if you get lucky enough to win any of Duke’s merit scholarships. I’d suggest applying EA to schools like Uchicago and MIT, and see how it goes. Or SCEA to Harvard/Yale/Stanford. At least you aren’t bound to the school and have some degree of freedom in deciding. </p>
<p>FYI, Duke generally will release ED selectees from their matriculation commitment, if they can document the correctly submitted NPC’s results were significantly inaccurate. </p>