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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.[/quote]

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

Well my AA son with the same and even more states also did not get in last year. He did, however, get into Northwestern, Berkeley and a great crop of others. It is what it is. On to the next.

Really helpful if people would look at the trend of YouTube videos where current college students petition to look at their admission files. The reasons they thought they got in NEVER match why they got in. In fact, all the but the VERY best 5% of students are often stunned at how mediocre admission people thought they were. It's eye-opening and blows everything that people talk about on these posts out of the water. It's luck --period. Black, white, smart, whatever. It's luck.[/quote]

Well it's not just getting into these places but getting out.  Everyone carries on about the hardest part of elite college is getting in but that is not really the case.  These places are full of aggressive academic machines and it is really hard to do well.  The environment can be pretty brutal and they need candidates that can thrive in that [/quote]

100%. Sometimes not getting in can be a blessing in disguise for certain individuals. OP, by going to UNC your son can avoid the difficult competition of hundreds of valedictorians and perfect scorers competing for the same grades and opportunities at Duke. That could end up helping your son stand out![/quote]

If a student is aggressive, mature,  competitive, tough and resilient then a place like Duke can be a great fit.   In that case go for it.   But for a student that still needs to mature and develop some strong coping strategies for an unforgiving environment, it may not be a good experience at all.[/quote]

I think that some are exaggerating the academic environment at Duke--speaking as one very familiar with several recent graduates. Duke can be an academically demanding, but students can get by with average intelligence and average work.[/quote]

Ok.  If get by is the goal then fine.[/quote]

"Get by" students, unless they are hooked, are going to struggle to get admitted to places like Duke.  That was a different time."[/quote]

+1 the “get by” students at duke now are almost always hooked by legacy, strong connections, feeder school in North Carolina, etc. The average non-hooked student now at Duke is probably incredibly strong. I’ve seen some of the kids Duke enrolls from my child’s HS in the past few years and they’re as good as it gets academically. [/quote]

NP here. I agree with this, I’ve now been in NY for many years but occasionally still browse here. The smartest family I know in NY has 2 “unhooked” sons who are recent graduates of Duke, and as undergrads they were taking majority graduate classes, both graduated valedictorian of competitive HS where my son is currently an upperclassman, etc. Particularly the older son is a genius and the brightest kid I have spent time around - I don’t understand his work but it’s in quantum computing. He’s the type that would have been a top student even at Harvard. I don’t know the story of why he chose Duke (I know he’s not on scholarship or anything) but if kids like that are in the student body it’s bound to be very competitive and difficult to stand out there[/quote]

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