It's All Relative

When Erica Peppers started looking at colleges during her junior year of high school in New York, Duke University was not at the top of her list. The junior, whose sister Amy graduated from Duke in 2001, was drawn to Stanford, excited that she would have a chance to forge her own identity 3,000 miles away from her sister. But when the time came to choose where she'd be for the next four years, she accepted a spot at Duke.

When younger sister Christina started looking at colleges during her junior year of high school, Duke was not at the top of her list, either. At the time, she was excited about the prospect of staking out her indepedence at George Washington University--Christina is now a freshman at Duke. And like both her sisters before her, she is in Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority.

Before making the decision to attend Duke, both sisters worried they would be caught in the shadow of the one above them.

"I didn't really want to be Amy's little sister all over again," says Peppers. Christina recalls a very similar feeling, adding that for her, it was often just assumed she would follow her sisters to Duke.

Although both sisters initially had their hearts set on other schools, their feeling changed when they came down to visit the school. They both found that Duke was simply the right place for them, independent of their predecessor.

"You have this fear that there's only one kind of [person] and you're going to have to blend into that," says Erica. "But there are so many different types of people."

The University is filled with students who have family connections to Duke. Whether it's several generations back or simply an older sibling, Duke consistently draws subsequent generations from the families of its alumni. Many say they probably would not have applied were it not for that family tie.

The Peppers sisters say their older siblings were able to give them a solid idea of what to expect from life at Duke.

Guttentag says the admissions rate for children of alumni is roughly double that of the overall admissions rate. He notes, however, that this still means over half of applicants with parental ties are sent rejection letters each year.

"I always understand that the disappointment that alumni feel when we don't accept their child is a significant one," he says. "They've made a commitment to this school and it's a difficult thing for them to accept." He says, though, that alumni whose children have been denied admission are really no more likely to call his office looking for an explanation than other parents.

The fact remains that even alumni who have made significant contributions to the school, whether through finances or by donating their time, still have a good chance of seeing their children fail to be admitted.

"The admissions decision is first and foremost about the applicant," Guttentag says.

He adds that the Office of Alumni Affairs does get fairly involved in the recruitment of legacy students, running programs that introduce high school-aged children of alumni to the admissions process.

"The alumni office is interested in [alumni] thinking of [Duke] as much as a potential place for their children as they did for themselves," he says. The alumni office's goal is likely made easier by the strong feelings many Duke students have for their alma mater. Sophomore Dave Preston says he came to love Duke after visiting his sister Barbara here several times.

"The biggest thing that I've always told people when I talk about Duke is how unique it is," he says. "It's such a melting pot of people." Preston says when he has children he would have no problem encouraging them to attend Duke.

Dorsey Rickard, a junior whose parents both graduated from Duke's Trinity College in '74, would not mind continuing her family's run at the school, adding that she would definitely give her kids a positive impression of Duke when it comes time for them to apply to colleges. But like most legacies here, Rickard says when she has children she will not pressure them to attend the same university as her.

Sophomore Catie Liken's story is a bit different from that of the average legacy at Duke--she didn't come to love Duke through her older sister, but rather, with her. When her sister, Carrie--who graduated from Duke in 2001--began looking at colleges, Liken joined her in visiting several schools.

Liken says she fell in love with Duke even before her sister did, and when she began visiting her sister she fell in love with the school even more. Although they both attended Duke, Catie says her life here has been very different from her sister's, For example, the elder Liken enrolled in Trinity College, while Catie became a Pratt student. But she says she enjoyed the year she shared with her sister at Duke."I'd never trade the experience of having her here," she says.

Erica Peppers says although both she and Christina are in the same sorority as their older sister, there is not as much overlap in the lives of her and her siblings as one would expect. "If you put us all together in the same room, you would see how different we really are from one another," she says. But she adds, the fact that they all enrolled in the same school and joined the same sorority is a nice turn of events.

Although students with older siblings who attended Duke are often concerned about the difficulty in forging their own identities, it has definitely proven possible. Each come into their own, following different courses of study and leading their own independent lives.