For the third consecutive year, Duke's regular decision acceptance rate is in the single digits—coming in at 9.4 percent for the Class of 2019.
At 7 p.m. today, the University released admissions decisions online to more than 28,000 applicants—and for 2,650 of them, the news was good. An additional 69 students who were deferred from the early decision process were accepted.
This year's acceptance rate is up slightly from last year's record low of 9 percent. The number of regular decision applications dipped slightly, from 29,300 last year to just more than 28,000 this year.
"Nationwide we’ve stopped seeing that sharp increase [in applications] that we saw from about 2008 to 2013 across the board. I think for most schools that has settled down," Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Christoph Guttentag said. "We never want to be static, we never want to rest on our laurels. We’re in that environment where smart and talented students are being recruited by a lot of wonderful universities. We are not going to take anything for granted.”
This year's early decision process admitted 815 students, filling a record 48 percent of the total class. The proportion of the class admitted early has steadily increased over the last decade—going from approximately 30 percent in the mid-2000s to nearly 50 percent today.
"We try to balance having a significant, meaningful group of students for whom Duke is a first choice with a significant presence of student who chose Duke after having had lots of options," Guttentag said. "I like the balance of where we are. I don’t expect that to change dramatically in the next few years. It does mean students who apply regular decision face a particularly selective process.”
The University tends to study the racial, ethnic and geographic diversity of the class after students enroll at Duke—rather than after they are admitted—but the Class of 2019 looks as if it will be "very similar" to last year's in terms of demographics, Guttentag said.
Students from all 50 states were accepted, with California, North Carolina, New York, Florida and Texas offering the most admits.
Regular decision students have until May 1 to make their final decision. Prospective students will be able to attend one of three Blue Devil Days sessions on campus throughout the month of April.
"Even with the challenges of all the construction, I think the students who are visiting for Blue Devil Days will see Duke not only as it is but as it will be once they arrive,” Guttentag said.
This article was updated at 11:11 p.m. Thursday.
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