杜克是一所基本一直处在综排前十以内的学校。学习，运动都不错。地处南方，气候也相对没那么冷。如果不对东部醉心，对加州也无所谓的话，这所应该是其余地方中排名第一的学校了。
大家注意下面的图，看到了吗？ED的录取率是RD的3倍还要多。所以，如果真爱，必须ED啊。 到了RD阶段，竞争更加激烈了。
杜克主要归口两个学院一个是文理学院，另外一个是工院，从分值看，工院的难度明显要高于文理学院。虽然，杜克的工院排名并不算高，但是，工院在哪里都是难申的。没办法。
如果入学了，完美的师生比，小班化教育，科研的参与度都可以堪称完美。你看下面的介绍。
再看看申请要求吧，杜克提出不需要提交SAT和ACT的作文分数了。另外，面试是需要的，还特别指出，由于中国申请的人太多，大家做第三方面试交给他吧。指明了是initialview的，ED的话可以12月1日交，RD可以3月1日交。貌似给足了时间。至于其他基本一样，只有一个蛮特殊的，看下表中，First Quarter Grades， 要11月12日递交或者第一学期结束后递交。建议这个最好问下DUKE的AO，它可能是要你的期中成绩，建议和中学商量一下怎么处理，别漏了。
大家一般都喜欢问，谁录取了DUKE，啥背景，什么情况？告诉大家，其实不用问，网上都有，只要大家耐心找。孩子们很好的，所有信息都提供了，包括，标化，排名， GPA，AP，奖项，甚至他的活动，文书内容等等。孩子们在申请前也可以参考下，看看自家孩子有哪些和这些孩子的匹配度一致的。多看几个这种类似的学校，你也就知道学校的大概价值取向了，作为过来人我是孩子申请的时候才知道这些信息的，反思下，如果高一就知道这些条件和活动，按照这个规划，那该多好呀。下面是一个录取杜克的中国男孩的所有信息，我不翻译了，大家看英文。（这种信息找起来比较费劲，但是很有价值）
Decision: Accepted
Trinity College of Arts and Sciences
SAT I (breakdown): 1570 (800M, 770 R)
ACT: none
SAT II: 770 US History, 800 Math II (twice), 800 Chem (twice) (I was particularly stupid and took them twice each)
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.95
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): Top 20%
AP (4,5,5,5,5): Chem, Seminar, US History, Calc BC, Psych
IB (place score in parenthesis): none
Senior Year Course Load: AP Physics 1, AP Biology, AP Research, AP Literature, AP
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): Two Local ISEF Excellence, One third place Life Science
Subjective:
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): Science NHS (President), Gastronomy Club (President), Science Magazine for Elementary Schoolers (Editor), ISEF Research Projects, Jazz Band, Symphony Orchestra
Volunteer/Community service: Taught english for free at a Chinese government sponsored "weekend class"
Summer Activities: 9th UC Berkeley ATDP, 10th Self Studied Honors Chem, 11th RISE Boston University
Essays:
Common App Essay: This one was kind of a montage style essay where I took a few key defining events in my life and kind of strung them together to demonstrate my core value of studying science not just to learn more, but to share more. I tried to direct the essay and how I was portrayed not by highlighting how good I might be at math/science but by my dedication to helping other people understand math and science.
Duke Specific:Why Trinity?
This one kind of talked about the interdisciplinary approach Duke education took and kinda spoke to my status as a third culture child. Not anything particularly innovative but not anything mundane or repetitive either.
What Perspective?
This one was all about my music. I figured that since I had spent so much time in my extracurriculars highlighting my passion for science, my LORs would definitely all mention my science I wanted to highlight that I wasn"t just a nerd who studied textbooks nonstop. I told the story of how my experience playing music had allowed me to connect with Jazz Musicians completely in an improvised style the one year I was at Berkeley for the Summer.
Sexual Orientation?
Okay this might be controversial, but I actually did NOT talk about my own orientation. Since it asked "experiences with sexual orientation" I actually brought up my experiences of when I discriminated/attacked another person for their orientation. I wasn"t trying to be particularly edgy or cool or trying to claim a sob story, but I was (and still am) reeling from a really bad break up and felt the need to get it out there: that I had been really mean to someone for being "asexual". I don"t know if this helped me or harmed me, but I figured I would be really honest and tell them that I had made mistakes in my anger of attacking another person for being different.
Chemistry Teacher: 9/10 I was one of the very few juniors taking AP Chemistry at my school on top of that I always loved learning about chemistry. Even though I didn"t end up getting a 5 on the AP exam I still think she was a huge advocate for me and really tried to understand me as a person when writing my letter of recommendation. She asked in particular about things I did outside of academics solely for fun and we started talking about cooking shows (which I hadn"t known beforehand she enjoyed watching as well).
English Teacher: 9.5/10 He was one of those teachers that you couldn"t always tell what he thought of you but you knew that if he wrote you a LOR and he liked you it would be damn good. I only later found out (since he was fired over a scandal at our school) that he actually observed me in the classroom and spoke to my strengths as a natural leader that I hadn"t really discussed with other teachers and only mentioned in my essay. I think this may have been super beneficial as now you had a teacher backing up the claims I made in my personal statement.
Counselor Rec: 6.5/10 He knew me, but I definitely was not the closest to him, he knew I was a very strong science student and that I participated in a lot of community service centered around that science aspect but beyond that I was never the type to visit his office on a daily basis or talk for great lengths of time on subjects not directly pertinent to the college search/application process. Tl;dr he knew me as a student but not a person.
Additional Rec: none
Interview: 5/10 I think the interviewer liked me but it was a very shady interview since it was in his office in the East part of Shanghai and there were a few other applicants there which he initially started us all off with a group interview.
Country (if international applicant): China
Intended major(s): Chemistry/Biology/Environmental ScienceSchool
Type: International
PrivateEthnicity: Chinese
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: (I"m not sure how to calculate based on US standards)
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): none
Strengths: Everything I wrote was very honest and down to earth. I didn"t try to portray myself as a particularly smart person nor as a particularly kind and passionate person. A lot of people who later on read my essay noted how strong my voice was which I think might have helped me really stand out as an applicant. I mean if we"re honest here, how often do people really write about them attacking another person for their sexuality, especially in this PC culture? Idk, I honestly wrote that supplement in a reckless fit of emotion and didn"t have anyone else read it but if my voice wasn"t showing through in my other essays, that one definitely showed through.
Weaknesses: I did not have the most recognition at our school for achievements. I was one of those people that when people thought of they would go like "yeah he"s great at science" but when you ask for achievements they would probably falter and hesitate to answer. I didn"t have any concrete evidence of my abilities (not many awards) and so I tried to work them into my essays as soft skills rather than brute force an argument that I was good at science.
Why you think you were accepted: Honestly, I would say it was plain honesty and discussion of my skills as soft skills rather than as a hard achievement.
