Why Was My Son Deferred from Duke ED?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t understand why a parent would provide so much identifying information about their child on here.

I did not try to reveal his identity, I think only people who know him in real life would be able to identify him from this information

That's what the PP is trying to say...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Highly unlikely there is anything wrong with his application. But institutions have priorities we don’t see. Also, you have to consider the applicant pool from his school. Did anyone else at the school get in ED? What did he list as a potential major? Does it align with APs, electives and ECs? Based on what you listed seems like a political science or humanities major?

No one else got in ED from his school (I don’t know how many people applied). He listed public policy as his first choice major, with statistics as his other option. I think his academic record and extracurriculars definitely align well with public policy, but for statistics it’s more based solely on his academics since he didn’t pursue anything like research or math competitions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t understand why a parent would provide so much identifying information about their child on here.

I did not try to reveal his identity, I think only people who know him in real life would be able to identify him from this information

That's what the PP is trying to say...

I’m sure anyone who knows him well enough to identify him knows he’s not been accepted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The profile looks like your son was honestly spread a little thin and shows a fair amount of privilege (see interning for a Member of Congress). Maybe there wasn't enough demonstrated passion or genuine interest displayed in the application since it looks like the joining and leading are all over the place focus wise. Was he good at bringing things together and discussing impact (on him and the work/group)? If not, it could have come across as trying a little too hard to specifically build an application profile (which hopefully wasn't the case in reality for your son).

I'm sure he'll find a great place though! Schools that are especially eager for high numbers (like USC) will continue to throw $$ your way and I'd be surprised if he didn't get into somewhere like Duke or another top 15 school too (Chicago is one I think might like his profile from this area). It will work out, you'll just have to wait a little longer!

Thank you! That’s a good point, perhaps admissions couldn’t see a clear narrative for him. Which is completely fair because he would be the first to admit he’s still not 100% sure what he wants to do long-term. But we’ll live with that because I believe the process of trying different things and discovering what he likes has been valuable for him, and I wouldn’t change that for the college process. I imagine he will try a wide variety of things in college too rather than having a clear and narrow vision.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

That was my first thought too. "Is he a white preppy boy?" They've already got those.

Ever see a Duke men's basketball home game? That's 75% of the student crowd!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So I am confused… if he was deferred ED he might still get in on regular admission is that right??
Or is it now unlikely?
Or was he admitted by other schools ED and has to tell them yes or no before the Duke regular decision will go out?

Yes he is deferred and can still get in, but we were hoping he would get accepted ED and be finished with the process. And he did not ED elsewhere, I believe you can only choose one place to ED

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your son sounds amazing so congrats on the great options so far! But you have to remember Duke has like a 4% acceptance rate and that includes the hundreds of athletes, legacies, and big donors who have a backdoor into Duke each year. People like Jamie Dimon, Jerry Seinfeld, etc. are notorious for having paid large sums in the past to get their kids into Duke, so you can expect similar situations happened this year too. Also Duke is known to take deferrals seriously unlike some other schools so your son still has a decent chance!

Thank you for the kind words. We did understand Duke is one of the handful of most competitive schools in the country beforehand, but we felt our son was on a good track given his entire package. Our son’s counselor also told us he’s a good enough candidate to be competitive for any school, so we thought early decision would communicate the strong interest he has in Duke

[Anonymous]

What full ride has been announced to UNC? Morehead is not out yet. OP is a troll.

This. It's such an obvious lie spun to stir up the PP racist leaning post and sentiment.

[Anonymous]

OP move on. It’s a lottery. Still may get in RD. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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!

Take the UNC scholarship. He will probably enjoy college better there than at Duke, and I don’t think Duke is bad at all.

The UNC scholarship is definitely awesome. We told him we’ll pay for him to go where he wants though and Duke is his dream

Would it be weird to do UNC undergrad and Duke for grad school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What full ride has been announced to UNC? Morehead is not out yet.

UNC gives many, many academic scholarships including unnamed ones. Morehead has a special interview process, you are uninformed. Our daughter 2 years ago got scholarship along with EA acceptance

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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!

Who knows for sure? But is there anything authentic about him? All of that stuff seems pre-packaged for a college app.

That was my thought. And, how much work did he actually do as time-wise it would be impossible to have all those A's, three sports, volunteer at least weekly for the non-profit and library, etc. I wonder if some of that looks fake at some point.

He did not fake anything in his application, he just worked very hard. And he plays two sports not three

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Yes we are white but our son is adopted and is ethnically Chinese

WTF kind of answer is that? PP asked if he's white and YOU SAID YES. He's not white though. He's Chinese American. Wow, I feel so sorry for your son.

I think this may be bunk. Given the well documented preference for male children in China, it seems highly unlikely that a healthy, non-disabled male child would be given up for adoption to a white US couple. Similarly, Asian Americans rarely give up children for adoption. Perhaps the comment about giving away too much information spooked the OP and s/he is trying to obfuscate the facts to conceal her child's identity.

[Anonymous]

My kid has a friend there. On paper, he sounds EXACTLY like your kid. Therefore, you can assume my kid's friend got lucky and yours got unlucky. (Except he's not unlucky because he has all those other great acceptances!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your son sounds fantastic - but, as I tell my kid, there are 10,000 other fantastic kids also applying. I also think the DMV is more saturated with those kids than most other areas, and these schools are also looking for geographic diversity.

I'm curious what scholarship your son received already from UNC? I was under the impression that they have disclosed financial aid awards, but no merit scholarships yet.

It was just called “Carolina Scholarship” and it came with the acceptance. We didn’t even know it existed and he said he didn’t apply specially for it, he just received it