A Look Back and a Look Forward for the Class of 2030

This will be the 20th class to pose for Duke’s iconic class photo. Men’s Basketball Coach Jon Scheyer, class of 2010, recounts that formative experience

The 2010 class photo
The iconic annual class photo debuted 20 years ago.

Nearly 1,800 new Blue Devils comprising the Class of 2030 will arrive on campus this weekend.

These newest additions to the Duke community will move in Saturday, August 15. Of the expected 1,786 first-year students, 1,428 will enter Duke within the Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, while the remaining 358 will be Pratt School of Engineering undergraduates.

This new class of first-year students represents 49 U.S. states and 62 countries outside the U.S. About 15 percent of the class – 277 students – are North Carolinians, and 48 more hail from South Carolina. 

"We look forward to seeing the impact this fall's entering class, the largest in recent memory, will have on Duke's campus and beyond,” said Kathi Phillips, interim dean of undergraduate admissions.

Duke’s newest students will be busy as soon as they arrive in Durham. Their introduction to campus includes Experiential Orientation, a 5-year-old program that introduces new students to immersive engagement, teamwork and the greater community through a series of team-based week-long projects. The program aims to give students an immediate community to lean on to ease the transition to college. 

In coming days, first-year students will also take part in a beloved Duke tradition: the annual class photo. This group will be the 20th to build out the digits of their graduation year for the iconic overhead photo; the first group to do so was the 2010 class. 

Among the students in the photo that day was freshman basketball player Jon Scheyer, who today, almost two decades later, is Duke’s men’s basketball coach.

“When you look back at the picture, it’s pretty special just to capture that moment because it’s the most special time,” Scheyer recalled recently. “Freshman orientation, your first week on campus, and it’s an introduction to the best four years of your life.”

Move-in day on East Campus – where all first-year students live – can be hectic. New students and their families are reminded to display their assigned parking placard while on East Campus. Students must print the parking placard emailed by Housing & Residence Life and place it on their dashboard before arriving on campus. The placard must remain visible at all times on Move-in Day.

Duke will have campus shuttle buses operating as well to get people from East Campus to parking garages, West Campus and locations for events later in the evening.

More information on Move-in Day is available here.