For eager high school seniors, the wait is finally over.
The University offered 3,094 applicants the chance to join Duke’s Class of 2015 yesterday. Combined with the 645 high school students already admitted under Duke’s binding early decision program in December, a total of 3,739 seniors have been admitted this year. The acceptance rate for regular decision applicants was 10.8 percent.
Overall, including the 29 percent early decision acceptance rate, the admissions department extended offers to 12.6 percent of applicants, representing a 2.2 percent decrease from last year’s overall acceptance rate. In addition, 2,300 students were offered a spot on the waitlist, which is 1,000 fewer than last year, admissions officials said.
“This was an incredibly challenging year, both for the applicants and for the staff of the admissions office,” Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Christoph Guttentag said in a Duke news release. “We wanted to ensure that every application received a thorough review, while being aware that we had a limited amount of time to do so.”
In an interview, Guttentag said the department is hoping for a yield rate in the mid-40 percent range and is aiming for 1,705 incoming students—a slight decrease from last year’s large class of 1,750.
“We always have an exact target,” Guttentag said. “We don’t expect to be able to hit the nail right on the head, but we always like to have a number that we’re shooting for. The size of the student body and the size of the class is determined by the Trustees [and] the Allen Building.”
This year, Duke received 29,689 applications, which represents an 11 percent increase from last year’s pool and a 46 percent increase from three years ago. This year’s high number of applicants required the admissions department to hire more first readers to get through applications more quickly and efficiently. The swell of applications also affected prospective students as some experienced technical difficulties logging on to the online portal where decision were posted. While some were able to access their decisions at exactly 6 p.m., others had to wait almost an hour until they knew Duke’s final answer.
“It was the longest two minutes of my life,” said Aneesha Sehgal, an accepted student from Cary, N.C. “I’ve been a Dukie since I was born, so it’s in my blood.”
Among those offered admission, California and North Carolina are the most represented states, followed by New York, Florida and Texas, Guttentag said. He added that overseas would be considered number two in the list if it were considered one state.
“In the ways that we measure whether [the incoming class] is geographically diverse, whether it’s by citizenship, ethnicity, all the different imperfect ways that one measures diversity, I expect that this class will be pretty similar to the classes that preceded it,” Guttentag said.
Duke’s admissions decisions were released one hour after Ivy League schools released their decisions, though Duke does not consult those schools when determining its release time, Guttentag said. Compared to Duke’s 12.6 percent admit rate, University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University and Cornell University recorded 12.3 percent, 6.2 percent and 18 percent acceptance rates, respectively.
Melissa Chieffe, an accepted student from Ohio, said she was surprised by Duke’s low acceptance rate this year but understands given the rates of peer institutions.
“[The admit rate] is lower than I thought—that’s pretty crazy—but I’ve seen other news stories and it seems like a ton of schools have really low acceptance rates this year,” she said.
Cheiffe and her peers have until May 1 to decide whether or not to becoming a Blue Devil. For those who want to learn more about the University, Blue Devil Days, a recruiting program for admitted students that showcases Duke’s academic and extracurricular opportunities, will be held four times in the coming month: April 11-12, April 14-15, April 17-18 and April 25-26.
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