Duke admitted 2,230 high school seniors through the Regular Decision application cycle to the Class of 2026.
Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Christoph Guttentag wrote in an email to The Chronicle that the acceptance rate for those who applied Regular Decision to the Class of 2026 is 4.6%. Of all those whose applications were evaluated in March—which includes those who applied Regular Decision and those who were deferred during Early Decision—the acceptance rate was 4.8%.
This represents a slight increase from the Class of 2025’s record-low 4.3% acceptance rate for Regular Decision applicants, but is lower than the Class of 2024’s six percent.
“This will be an exceptional entering class,” Guttentag said in a press release. “We noticed in particular their commitment to their communities and to the environment. I think Duke will gain a particularly engaged, active and diverse group of students.”
Of the 2,230 admitted students, 2,120 applied through the Regular Decision pool, while the other 110 were students deferred in the Early Decision round of applications.
“One thing I was struck by in this year’s applicant pool was the number of students who indicated an interest in environmental studies,” Guttentag wrote. “That’s more anecdotal than data-based—we haven’t counted prospective majors and compared to previous years. But it certainly seems that more students are expressing an interest in environmental science and environmental studies.”
Duke considered a total of 50,002 applications for undergraduate admissions this year, up about one percent from last year’s application pools. Of these, 45,941 were Regular Decision applications, a slight increase from the 44,133 who applied through Regular Decision last year.
Despite the small increase in the number of applications, Duke offered admission to over 200 more students this year than it did last year.
“There are [approximately] 200 more students admitted this year because last year’s entering class had about 160 students who had taken a gap year,” Guttentag wrote. “We reduced the number of students in both the Early Decision and Regular Decision process last year to adjust for the fewer places that were available for incoming first year students.”
The University maintained its test-optional policy for undergraduate admissions through the 2021-2022 application cycle. Guttentag wrote that he expects Duke to continue the policy for the 2022-2023 application cycle.
The most represented states among admitted students are North Carolina, California, Florida, New York and Texas.
Students who accept their offer of admission will join the 855 students who were admitted during the binding Early Decision round. This makes for a total of 3,085 students being invited to join the Class of 2026, bringing the overall acceptance rate to 6.2% according to Guttentag.
Admissions decisions will be released at 7 p.m. Thursday.
This is a developing story and may be updated as more information becomes available.
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Adway S. Wadekar is a Trinity junior and former news editor of The Chronicle's 119th volume.