Duke’s Acceptance Rate Completely Plummeted This Year - What Happened?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

My DC considered Duke as ED. Didn't go that route. Found out a classmate - school is lower-tier in FCPS - apparently got a full scholarship to Duke. She is URM and not sure about other factors. But DC was surprised because the girl wasn't seen as obvious Duke candidate.

Another obvious racist lie. Merit scholarship finalists at Duke aren't notified until March.

She may have gotten need based financial aid.

Nobody outside a family really knows a kid's profile. My kids are definitely not competitive for Duke but they both spent a lot of time on outside of school ECs that casual school acquaintances wouldn't know about.

+1 you can never fully know what someone brings to the table. Duke has their reasons and will have more complete information than anyone but direct family.

[Anonymous]

Duke’s sharp increase in early applicants might correlate to the sharp drop in Columbia’s early applicants - maybe for some reason people this year started liking Duke more?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Duke’s sharp increase in early applicants might correlate to the sharp drop in Columbia’s early applicants - maybe for some reason people this year started liking Duke more?

+1 It's also possible Duke stole some early applicants from MIT since they also had a drop

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Duke’s sharp increase in early applicants might correlate to the sharp drop in Columbia’s early applicants - maybe for some reason people this year started liking Duke more?

+1 It's also possible Duke stole some early applicants from MIT since they also had a drop

No you can apply to both Duke ED and MIT EA. SCEA is different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Duke’s sharp increase in early applicants might correlate to the sharp drop in Columbia’s early applicants - maybe for some reason people this year started liking Duke more?

+1 It's also possible Duke stole some early applicants from MIT since they also had a drop

No you can apply to both Duke ED and MIT EA. SCEA is different.

True, I wonder where all this extra applicants came from then? Princeton never disclosed their scea numbers, maybe kids opted for Duke instead of Princeton this year? You can’t do both.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Duke’s sharp increase in early applicants might correlate to the sharp drop in Columbia’s early applicants - maybe for some reason people this year started liking Duke more?

+1 It's also possible Duke stole some early applicants from MIT since they also had a drop

No you can apply to both Duke ED and MIT EA. SCEA is different.

True, I wonder where all this extra applicants came from then? Princeton never disclosed their scea numbers, maybe kids opted for Duke instead of Princeton this year? You can’t do both.

App numbers are really not that stable. Last year, we would have asked, where did Duke lose all those applicants. They went up this year, but were down the year before.

The more interesting question is why Duke chose to admit fewer ED than usual (800 vs somewhere around 880 most years). Maybe the answer is as simple as an expectation that RD will also see an increase in apps, but still, I'm curious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Duke’s sharp increase in early applicants might correlate to the sharp drop in Columbia’s early applicants - maybe for some reason people this year started liking Duke more?

+1 It's also possible Duke stole some early applicants from MIT since they also had a drop

MIT had a drop because they went back to requiring test scores. But it’s EA so can apply there and ED somewhere as well.

[Anonymous]

Chose Notre Dame over applying to Duke. Main Duke campus was beautiful but she didn't like the freshmen campus that required a bus at Duke at all.

[Anonymous]

Duke's acceptance rate this year is higher than in 2026...

https://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2023/04/duke-university-admissions-regular-decision-college-acceptance-rates-2023-class-of-2027

https://www.crimsoneducation.org/us/blog/admissions-news/duke-university-acceptance-rate/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Duke's acceptance rate this year is higher than in 2026...

https://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2023/04/duke-university-admissions-regular-decision-college-acceptance-rates-2023-class-of-2027

https://www.crimsoneducation.org/us/blog/admissions-news/duke-university-acceptance-rate/

Many schools are withholding their stats at this point. I'm surprised Duke still releases so much. I know their intent in withholding is good but I tend to believe that having more data is useful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Duke's acceptance rate this year is higher than in 2026...

https://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2023/04/duke-university-admissions-regular-decision-college-acceptance-rates-2023-class-of-2027

https://www.crimsoneducation.org/us/blog/admissions-news/duke-university-acceptance-rate/

That's probably not a statistical difference

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Duke’s sharp increase in early applicants might correlate to the sharp drop in Columbia’s early applicants - maybe for some reason people this year started liking Duke more?

+1 It's also possible Duke stole some early applicants from MIT since they also had a drop

It’s not rocket science, more kids made use of early decision this year across a number of schools.