Why Was My Son Deferred from Duke ED?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is he a white male from this area? If so, he's a dime a dozen. It's a bummer but it sounds like he has a lot of good choices.

Yeah being white at a school that is no more than 15% URM is such a huge disadvantage. If there’s one URM on campus you just won’t be happy will you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because when thousands of qualified kids apply, decisions become arbitrary. Duke also favors certain high schools.

Duke definitely favors certain high schools. And they VERY strongly favor legacies, children of connected people, donors, etc. Duke might be one of those schools that you have a better shot at during RD because all these preferred candidates come through ED.

+1 Google Maude Bunn of the Bunn Coffee Maker family fortune.

[Anonymous]

Could it be yield protection? Maybe they think a child with your son’s qualifications wouldn’t choose Duke since they would likely get in at an Ivy. Schools like Duke don’t like to be seen as a safety to the Ivies.

[Anonymous]

Highly selective schools have more qualified, meaning perfect, students than space available. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Anonymous]

I wish my daughter got into those schools..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not looking for sympathy but any insight would be appreciated. My son was told he would be a good candidate for Ivy League/Duke by his school counselor and applied ED to Duke with a 36 ACT, near-perfect GPA, all 5s and 4s on AP exams, two sport athlete and captain of one sport, student body president, editor in chief of school newspaper, head student liaison for arts nonprofit, a summer internship with a congressman, leadership volunteering position at library with book preservation and restoration experience, good awards, etc. My son had multiple people look over his essays, including the optional ones (academic experience and agreements/disagreements prompts) and he received good feedback. We figured maybe there was something else wrong with his application (maybe a recommendation letter was unexpectedly weak) or that he should’ve gone for another school he liked that would be a bit easier to be accepted like Cornell or Johns Hopkins, but over the past few days he was accepted to UNC Chapel Hill with a full scholarship, USC with scholarship pending, and UMich all out of state. He’s still disappointed about Duke but the UNC scholarship is very enticing and he’s still in the running for Duke, although we’re not sure about the chances of being accepted after a deferral. Inputs are welcome!

Some possibilities:

- Technical problems kept his documents from opening properly.

- His application was at the bottom of a huge stack, because he applied very late, he applied very early or his name is Zheng, and the admissions gave up after getting part way through the stack.

- You're from North Carolina, and the admissions people thought he should go out of state.

- The admissions people know that he was offered the UNC scholarship, and they think he should take that scholarship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The short answer is the admissions committee just liked some other kids better and you’ll never know why.

This.

It is always a mistake to get too invested in one school.

Too bad adults do that because we are the ones who are supposed to help kids not do this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Could it be yield protection? Maybe they think a child with your son’s qualifications wouldn’t choose Duke since they would likely get in at an Ivy. Schools like Duke don’t like to be seen as a safety to the Ivies.

No

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Could it be yield protection? Maybe they think a child with your son’s qualifications wouldn’t choose Duke since they would likely get in at an Ivy. Schools like Duke don’t like to be seen as a safety to the Ivies.

Read the Thread Title - this kid applied Early Decision and was deferred. No yield protection needed for a binding ED applicant.

[Anonymous]

Snowflake parents :

“Someone rejected my child. I am so confused.

Can someone please explain what just happened?”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not looking for sympathy but any insight would be appreciated. My son was told he would be a good candidate for Ivy League/Duke by his school counselor and applied ED to Duke with a 36 ACT, near-perfect GPA, all 5s and 4s on AP exams, two sport athlete and captain of one sport, student body president, editor in chief of school newspaper, head student liaison for arts nonprofit, a summer internship with a congressman, leadership volunteering position at library with book preservation and restoration experience, good awards, etc. My son had multiple people look over his essays, including the optional ones (academic experience and agreements/disagreements prompts) and he received good feedback. We figured maybe there was something else wrong with his application (maybe a recommendation letter was unexpectedly weak) or that he should’ve gone for another school he liked that would be a bit easier to be accepted like Cornell or Johns Hopkins, but over the past few days he was accepted to UNC Chapel Hill with a full scholarship, USC with scholarship pending, and UMich all out of state. He’s still disappointed about Duke but the UNC scholarship is very enticing and he’s still in the running for Duke, although we’re not sure about the chances of being accepted after a deferral. Inputs are welcome!

Some possibilities:

- Technical problems kept his documents from opening properly.

- His application was at the bottom of a huge stack, because he applied very late, he applied very early or his name is Zheng, and the admissions gave up after getting part way through the stack.

- You're from North Carolina, and the admissions people thought he should go out of state.

- The admissions people know that he was offered the UNC scholarship, and they think he should take that scholarship.

This seems highly unlikely

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Snowflake parents :

“Someone rejected my child. I am so confused.

Can someone please explain what just happened?”

Entitled parents, you mean.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because when thousands of qualified kids apply, decisions become arbitrary. Duke also favors certain high schools.

Duke definitely favors certain high schools. And they VERY strongly favor legacies, children of connected people, donors, etc. Duke might be one of those schools that you have a better shot at during RD because all these preferred candidates come through ED.

+1 Google Maude Bunn of the Bunn Coffee Maker family fortune.

Wow, and there’s likely many more who have fortunes that no one has heard about or that has stayed away from the public eye

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Could it be yield protection? Maybe they think a child with your son’s qualifications wouldn’t choose Duke since they would likely get in at an Ivy. Schools like Duke don’t like to be seen as a safety to the Ivies.

It’s a nice attempt to troll but I’m pretty sure Duke wins the cross-admit battle against most Ivies, and they wouldn’t deny a student on the chance they might get into Harvard. Also, it’s binding early decision so if they accept the student that student has to attend. Ivies like Cornell and Dartmouth are much more worried about losing students to Duke than the other way around

[Anonymous]

Similar stats kids from our high school who got into top 10 usually have national awards, or published on well known journals, or nominated for presidential scholar, etc. I don’t see this in OP’s post.