Duke Mails Admissions Letters to Applicants for the Class of 2011

Duke University will mail decision letters Friday to thousands of high school seniors from every state and dozens of nations who vied for admission to the Class of 2011.

 

 

But students who applied regular decision don't have to wait for the mail to learn whether they have been accepted to Duke. As it has done for the past four years, the Office of Undergraduate Admissions is allowing applicants to view their admissions decisions online through a secure, password-protected portion of the website. That began Wednesday evening.

 

 

This week's mailing brings the university's total offers of admission to 3,770 students, including 470 early decision applicants accepted in December, from an applicant pool of 19,170. The university expects 1,665 of the accepted students to enroll this fall. The admissions rate of just less than 20 percent is the lowest on record since the university began keeping track of data in the late 1950s.

 

 

"This was an especially challenging year for applicants to Duke -- and for the admissions office staff," said Christoph Guttentag, dean of undergraduate admissions. "We have seen a steady increase in applications for much of the last 10 years, and this year we came within 1 percent of last year's record-setting number of applications."

 

 

Almost one in six applicants with a class rank was ranked first in his or her class. Duke admitted only 43 percent of the 1,381 valedictorians who applied for admission. More than 1,300 of this year's applicants had SAT scores of 1,550 or above on the math and verbal sections of the test; Duke admitted 58 percent of these students.

 

 

"While it's easy to focus on academic qualifications when discussing our applicant pool, the selection process focuses very much on each applicant as an individual," Guttentag said. "Academics matter deeply to us, of course, but we're also aware that we are building a community here. There is much more to being a member of a community than good grades and test scores."

 

 

Records broken this year include the number of applicants to Trinity  College, the undergraduate liberal arts college (16,132), as well as the number of African Americans (2,190), Asians/Asian Americans (5,173) and Latinos (1,303) who applied.

 

 

The number of international applicants has risen steadily during the past few years, Guttentag added, noting that Duke had 2,292 this year. That is an increase of 13 percent over last year and almost a 200 percent increase in the number of international applicants in the last five years.

 

 

"We continue to recruit actively overseas, and we're pleased that Duke's reputation for a high-caliber education is spreading worldwide," he said. "Since the university expanded the financial aid program several years ago to include a number of international students, we've seen a steady increase in the number of students from foreign countries who are interested in Duke."

 

 

North Carolina remains the top state for admitted students, with 416 applicants offered admission, followed in order by Florida, California, New York and Texas. Admission was offered to 331 international students.

 

 

 "Although we won't know until May exactly who will be enrolling at Duke in the fall, I was struck by the diversity of accomplishment among the students we've admitted for this year's entering class," Guttentag said. "In fact, the applicant pool as a whole was an incredibly interesting, multi-talented and diverse group of students."

 

As in previous years, many of the applicants applied for financial aid. Duke will invest $55 million in undergraduate financial aid next year and is in the midst of a $300 million financial aid initiative to benefit undergraduate, graduate and professional education at Duke.

 

 

More than 40 percent of Duke undergraduates receive financial assistance from the university in the form of grants, loans and work-study jobs. The annual median aid package for the 2005-06 academic year was about $29,000. The cost for tuition, room and board for the current academic year is $43,075.

Duke admits U.S. citizens and permanent residents without regard to their ability to pay, and the university meets the demonstrated financial need for all admitted students requiring aid.