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Brodhead Discusses Early Admissions, Developmental Admits

President tells Academic Council limited use of early admissions makes sense

President Richard H. Brodhead said Thursday the university would not follow Harvard's example and end early admissions, saying Duke's limited use of the process to accept qualified students who clearly want to enroll made sense.

"The idea of early admissions goes back to a time when there was a small number of people who knew what school they wanted to attend and were so qualified that it made sense to not make them wait for a spring decision," Brodhead told the Academic Council. "That is the original, defensible position of early admissions.

"What happened was from that idea we ended up with a national landslide of early decision applications. Instead of people using it as it was originally meant, there was a lot of strategizing and gamesmanship. And some schools played it back, essentially a situation where a university would ‘pretend to want you if you would pretend to want us.'"

Brodhead said he believed that eliminating early decision would not end the stress and gamesmanship that can accompany admissions decisions. He acknowledged that early admissions often favors wealthy students who have more tools to prepare for admissions.

"But will eliminating early admissions solve this problem? No," Brodhead said. "Unfortunately … [advantages of wealth in admissions] has to do with deep realities in this country. It will not be ended by eliminating early admissions."

On the other hand, Brodhead said Duke remains committed to the original intent for early admissions. "We have held to that legitimate vision of the program. We never go above 30 percent, and often it is closer to 25 percent, of all admissions. We will reserve early admissions for people who are convinced they want to come here and are clearly qualified."

At the council meeting, Brodhead was also asked about a new book by a Wall Street Journal reporter detailing elite universities' use of developmental admits – the practice of admitting students of wealthy families who could potentially donate money. The book includes information on the practice at Duke dating back to when Terry Sanford was president.

Brodhead defended the early use of developmental admits in helping Duke build the resources to achieve the "outrageous ambitions" that Sanford set. Its current use is more restricted, but has not been eliminated.

"It would be naïve to say that any university should pay no attention to a family's ability to help the university," Brodhead said. "The question is how much, what is the weight we will give this? We don't want this to be a dominant factor."

A family's ability to donate to Duke is a "plus factor" used in admissions; others include alumni legacies, faculty children, minorities, internationals, athletes and residents of North and South Carolina. No factor would ever allow an unqualified student to be admitted, nor would any single factor dominate the admissions decision, Brodhead said.

"We will never allow a plus factor to weigh more than the student's qualifications," he said.

However, he said there will be some cases where developmental admits can bring value to the university. He defended its limited use as helping the university achieve important goals that it might not otherwise meet. He noted that Duke spent more than $120 million in financial aid expenditures to attract many worthy low-income students.

"You have to ask, how did we end up in a position to do that?"

The final decision on all admissions issues is left with the dean of undergraduate admissions.

Brodhead said there was one vestige of the program from the Sanford era that he ended when he arrived at Duke. The so-called "Provost's Round" -- where the provost met with the admissions director to review final admissions decisions -- was eliminated.