Duke University

Duke University Introduction

As a student who didn’t know a whole lot about Davidson before visiting, I sometimes wonder what life would have been like had I stayed on my New England-centered path in the college search. The thought that I would have chosen otherwise makes me more than grateful that Davidson entered my life when it did. Simply put: Davidson is different. Without hesitation I wholeheartedly encourage you to seriously consider Davidson, but be forewarned—it may just change your life.

Complemented by eight graduate and professional schools, Duke’s Trinity College of Arts and Sciences and the Pratt School of Engineering have climbed to the top tier of undergraduate programs.

There is a sense on campus that the best is yet to come. That expectation translates into energetic students and faculty pouring themselves into bettering the university and themselves.

Duke is an institution full of surprising and pleasant contrasts. The most dramatic and immediately apparent contrast is the widely divergent architecture of Duke’s West and East Campuses. West Campus features the soaring 210-foot-tall chapel framed by Gothic buildings, creating an inspiring picture of intense academic pursuit.

On the other hand, the Georgian architecture and long, lush lawns of the East Campus convey a sense of relaxation and peace. Weekends on East are often filled with outdoor concerts, Frisbee on the quad, and sunning students.

In the same way that the architectural styles of the campuses work together to create a magnificent place to grow academically, emotionally, and spiritually, the intense nature of Duke’s academic program is enhanced by a sense of balance and perspective as students engage in a wide array of interesting activities and events.

With eighty-six percent of the student body coming from outside North Carolina, and a significant international and minority presence, the university is a model of diversity. Student backgrounds vary from America’s top prep schools to large public schools in some of the country’s most impoverished areas. In the midst of this divergence of experiences, however, Duke has created a unique sense of “family” among its community members. This closeness is evident in the informal chatting of students crossing Duke’s pristine quads or in the chaos of the Cameron Crazies cheering for Duke’s revered basketball team.

Perhaps the men’s basketball program has contributed to a “team mentality” among the students. It’s great to feel a part of something bigger during your college years.

Some students cite Duke’s friendly environment as the reason for such a close-knit community. Others believe that the students attracted to Duke represent multi-dimensional, engaged individuals with common desires to excel in every activity while they develop lasting relationships in the process.

It is not uncommon to walk from one end of the main quad to another and know the first names of most of the people around you.

This camaraderie often stops at the campus gates during athletic seasons, however, since Duke is in close proximity to two of its primary athleticrivals, North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Outside of sports, however, Duke utilizes its relationships with these schools to benefit its students.

An interlibrary loan program allows the three schools to share resources, enhancing Duke’s impressive library collection of more than 4.8 million volumes. In addition, Duke students can cross-register at the other campuses, greatly expanding the number of available courses.These relationships have also translated into a large number of local internships available to students during the academic year or the summer.

The energy and electricity of the Duke experience is reflected in and, in many ways, created by the dynamic leadership of Duke’s most recent presidents. President Richard H. Brodhead came to Duke in July 2004 from Yale University, where he taught for thirty-two years and served as dean of the undergraduate college for eleven years. President Brodhead succeeded Dr. Nannerl. O. Keohane, who served as president of Duke from 1993 to 2004. Both President Brodhead and former President Keohane have been actively involved in undergraduate affairs and have worked to improve the quality of the academic and co-curricular programs at Duke.

The active, inclusive climate at Duke has given the campus a feeling of constant change. Students are encouraged to share ideas and participate in the affairs of the university. There is a sense that Duke is not interested in resting on its laurels but constantly and creatively thinks about ways to grow and develop.

While Duke’s Trinity College traces its origins to 1838, Duke University was created in 1924. Because of its relative youth as a university, Duke does not boast graduating Revolutionary War heroes or America’s earliest presidents. However, alums like Judy Woodruff, Elizabeth Dole, Gary Wilson of Northwest Airlines, and Phil Lader, founder of the famed Renaissance Weekends and an ambassador to Great Britain, represent the current generation of political and corporate leadership. Duke is fast becoming a training ground for top participants in American and international affairs. The Terry Sanford Institute’s Hart Leadership Program is a special program that brings together classroom, extracurricular, and internship experiences to prepare students from different majors to think about lessons of ethics and leadership. This is just one way that Duke instills a sense of responsibility and challenge in its graduates as it continues to produce tomorrow’s leaders.

Duke has been a growing experience. Instead of being a part of a university community, I learned to become an active participant. Duke taught me to act after thinking, to encourage, and to constantly push.

Duke is uniquely positioned to provide students who want the opportunity to develop and learn. No other school in the country has such a strong sense of possibility throughout its campus. Under the leadership of President Brodhead, it is certain to become the leader in higher education for the century. This aggressive positioning involves and excites students who are working to make Duke’s vision of excellence a reality. In this move to preeminence, however, Duke never loses sight of its commitment to develop and foster personal relationships among students, faculty, and the entire university community. It is common to find Duke grads congregating at parties or events around the country, watching Blue Devil basketball and sharing stories of their student days. Their loyalty to the university speaks volumes of the power of the Duke undergraduate experience.

Every March, I feel a strong urge to pack my bags and flee to Duke. My memories of the friendships I made, the classes I struggled with, and the ways I grew are intense and sweet. Returning to the glorious campus with friends reminds me of how we all grew up in those four years.

In the end, Duke is transforming. Students who are fortunate enough to enter the “gothic wonderland” will find challenge and reward. On the road to gaining these rewards, however, students also build the kind of relationships that last and will encounter opportunities to actively lead in all settings—laboratories, classrooms, athletic fields, organizations, and living groups.

After four years, you will feel refreshed, renewed, and ready to excel in new settings with a cadre of “family” members to assist you on the way. I can hardly think of more precious experiences to gain from college.

Duke University Academics

Duke’s motto, Eruditio et Religio (Erudition and Religion), signifies the university’s commitment to infuse learning with moral responsibility, and to use the educational experience to enlighten others and help communities.

Students at Duke enter the Trinity College of Arts and Sciences or the Pratt School of Engineering. Both schools provide stimulating curricula that allow students to experience different courses across departments. In the first and second years, Duke’s Pre-Major Advising Center encourages students to explore areas of potential interest.

I was really encouraged to use my first two years as an opportunity to get into some of the departments in which I had some interest. This opened my eyes to new ways to think about using the major.

About Academics

In a constant push to keep academics alive and relevant, Duke has worked diligently to attract “Professors of the Practice” to add new dimensions to classroom study.

Former White House advisor David Gergen and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnists William Raspberry and David Broder are famous people who made their way into Duke classrooms. Rather than coming to campus simply to make speeches, these “professors” teach weekly classes, have office hours, and become an active part of the university community.

Some professors are not celebrities but are experts in specialized fields. For example, Tony Brown, former chief operating officer at CS First Boston, complements the public policy curriculum by teaching courses in business leadership and public-private partnerships. Students love these courses because of their relevance and applicability to situations they will encounter after Duke.

Majors

By the end of the second year, Duke students choose one or two concentrations from thirty-six arts and sciences majors or five engineering majors, or arts and sciences students can pursue one of their own devising with faculty guidance. The diversity of these offerings is complemented by a selection of minors and certificate programs ranging from neurosciences to markets and management studies. While most students take approximately eleven courses within the major, there is plenty of room to fulfill Duke’s requirement of courses in five areas of general knowledge (arts, literature and performance, civilizations, natural sciences, social sciences, and guidance studies) as well as requirements in a broad spectrum of focused areas, including writing and foreign language, ethical and cross-cultural inquiry, research and science, and technology and society.

Credits

To graduate, Duke students must fulfill thirty-four semester courses, which makes a normal semester load for undergraduates four courses and occasionally five. While this often seems like few courses to new students, the amount and difficulty of the reading and work quickly prove this to be a rigorous course of study.

Students should come here ready to work. Professors expect a certain level of excellence that requires not only keeping up with the reading but adding creativity and new ideas to class discussions. It’s an intense experience.

Graduate and Professional Schools

For those choosing to go to graduate or professional school, Duke offers exceptional counseling and preparation that allows the students to compete for spots at America’s top graduate schools. Duke boasts a ninety-nine percent acceptance rate for those applying to law school. Duke pre-law students are well advised under the tutelage of Dean Gerald Lee Wilson, the pre-law advisor. Dean Wilson gets to know these students well and is very effective at steering them to a law program best suited for them. He then becomes a grand advocate for helping the students gain acceptance. Once accepted, Dean Wilson aids students in choosing the school they should attend. The dean and his assistants are well known around the campus as being extremely helpful and comforting to stressed pre-law students trying to figure their way through the law school maze.

Dean Wilson has the ability to comfort you yet challenge you about law school decisions. After my sessions with him, I knew I wanted to go to law school, and I knew where to go. He helped others realize that law school wasn’t the best choice for them.

For pre-meds, the rate of acceptance is slightly lower—around eighty-five percent, or about double the national average. Due to fewer, more competitive spaces for medical schools, Dean Kay Singer, Duke’s health professions advisor, is extremely effective at assessing stu- dents’ options, helping them choose schools by applying strategies to bolster their acceptance chances. Her organized and efficient style helps students stay on track in the process. Deans Wilson and Singer are excellent examples of effective advising of pre-professional students.

Students desiring to go to business school have access to the Pre-Business Advising Office as well as resources at the Career Center.

Duke University Admissions

It works to Duke’s advantage that the Admissions Office hosts its accepted students weekend in mid-April when the North Carolina spring is in full bloom. Flowers are everywhere, students are studying outside, and the sweet Southern air hovers at about seventy degrees. It is perfect weather, and the students who attend are appreciative because they have made it through a tough cut.

Each year, around 18,000 students from around the world apply to Duke for a class of 1,665. Applications come from every state in the country, with eighty-five foreign countries represented in the Duke student body.

While admitted students at Duke have impressive academic credentials, like most top-tier institutions, grades and test scores are far from the only factors in the admissions process.

Duke students are amazing. They are leaders, and they possess a resilience that excites others around them.

Applicants are evaluated on talent and active participation in learning. The Admissions Office focuses on six areas:

• quality and rigor of secondary school academic program
• academic record
• recommendations from teachers and counselors
• extracurricular activities and accomplishments
• standardized testing (SAT, ACT)
• application essays

To be admitted, most students must possess strengths in each of these areas. While these six areas are used to evaluate the candidates overall, Duke does a good job of assessing applicants in the context of their individual circumstances. Through school profiles and guidance counselor reports, Duke attempts to get a picture of the strengths of each high school to understand the differences in the rigors of secondary school programs. As one admissions officer has said, “We admit students, not schools.” Therefore, a student’s ability to excel in his or her own high school environment is of utmost relevance.

Duke’s student body is active and engaged. The application should reflect a real desire to actively partake in the life of the community. Recommendations should point to a depth of interest in academics and an ability to translate intelligence and leadership into understanding among others in the university.

A group of undergrads helps provide visitor programs and tours of the campus. These students give wonderfully honest assessments of the university and also complement daily group information sessions offered by the Admissions Office. Those sessions are consistently praised as friendly and helpful.

My tour guide at Duke made the difference as I toured college campuses. He was positive, yet frank. When I enrolled, I felt I had a better sense of what to expect.

The Admissions Office can also arrange overnight stays with current students at certain times during the school year. This provides prospective students with a chance to stay in the dorms and get a clearer picture of the undergraduate experience.

Although the admissions process is extremely competitive, as in many other top-tier institutions, the university has done a good job of making the process as friendly and helpful as possible. Under the leadership of Admissions Dean Christoph Guttentag, Duke has been able to recruit a first-rate group of scholars and leaders, while ensuring an open and encouraging applications process.

Duke University Financial Aid

Duke’s president and Board of Trustees repeatedly stress their belief that the under-graduate admissions process should be “need-blind.” Your family’s ability to pay is not a factor in determining your admission to Duke. Therefore, when you apply to Duke, one form goes to the Financial Aid Office while the application goes to the Admissions Office.

Once accepted, the cost of attending is one of the factors students (and their families) take into account as they decide where to go to college. Students receive their financial aid analysis with their acceptance letters. Duke admits students on the basis of academic ability, then provides one-hundred percent of their demonstrated financial need for U.S. citizens and permanent residents. The university has also made need-based financial aid available for a limited number of foreign students who are not U.S. citizens or permanent residents. It is important for accepted students and parents to remember that their perception of need may be different from the “demonstrated need,” which is calculated using federal and institutional guidelines. Fortunately, the Financial Aid Office at Duke works well to alleviate this shock by putting together manageable financial aid packages to make a Duke education accessible for most accepted students.

Once I was accepted, the Financial Aid Office did everything possible to creatively work with my family to design a package to meet our needs.

More than forty-two percent of Duke undergrads receive financial aid of some sort. Aid usually consists of a package combining:

• federal and university grants
• loans
• work-study funds

Students and parents have the ability to pick and choose from the funding options offered to them.

The process for applying for financial aid can be a cumbersome one. Parents and students will find themselves filling out many forms throughout the four years at Duke. (Aid is granted one year at a time, so students must reapply annually.) On the whole, though, the Financial Aid Office at Duke is friendly and easy to work with. If a family situation changes during the year, the Financial Aid Office tries to adjust packages. In addition, good counselors often explain packages and changes to students and are accessible to parents. In this challenging process, it is good to have helpful assistance.

Payment Plans

One of the recent developments in financial aid at Duke has been the increasing number of commercial payment plans available to parents and students. Rather than paying the bursar’s bill in large, semesterly chunks, Duke has contracted with vendors to allow parents or students to spread out their payments to the university over ten to twelve months. Duke’s bursar’s office has an extremely resourceful and diligent staff. Clerks as well as the bursar are willing to sit down with parents and students to help them in choosing options that work best with individual needs.

Merit Aid

Students often are curious about merit scholarships at Duke. While many of the students who are accepted to Duke are eligible for scholarships at other schools, they often are not offered a scholarship at Duke because of the quality of the student body and the relatively few scholarships available. All applicants are considered for each scholarship that is appropriate based on their qualifications. Full-tuition scholarships include the A. B. Duke Scholarship, B. N. Duke Scholarship, Reginaldo Howard Scholarship, University Scholars Program, and the Robertson Scholars Program.

Students at Duke are also very resourceful when it comes to finding further financial aid. Many look for outside scholarships from local organizations. Students will find that the Duke name brings much attention from local organizations that provide scholarships funds.

Once my local Rotary Club found out I had been accepted to Duke, my chances for receiving its scholarship improved greatly.

While figuring out the financing of a Duke education may be one of the more difficult parts of the four years, most students find the process bearable by tapping into the university’s many resources.

Duke University Students

After Duke students leave the classroom, day planners and tight schedules are the norm as students balance their wonderfully intense academic, extracurricular, and residential lives.

In any week the pulse of Duke’s campus is energetic. Almost 400 clubs and organizations meet at different times during the week. A cappellasinging groups and orchestras rehearse. Students work in hospital internships, and community service groups plan outings into the local community. Duke is a busy place, with something to match every interest.

There is so much to do here. If an activity that interests you doesn’t exist, the student government provides seed money to get the event up and running. My best college memories have been dashing from meeting to meeting making new friends.

Social Life

During basketball season, the famed tents that make up Krzyzewskiville pop up outside Cameron Indoor Stadium. Students camp out for the best seats in the house as Duke takes on the finest teams in the Atlantic Coast Conference and the country. Tickets are free, but there is heavy demand for those courtside seats.

As students wait for games, study groups meet in the tents, while some students put on musical performances, and others get caught up on neglected reading. Coach K is known to send pizzas out to the students waiting for the big game.

Consider having your parents visit during this time. It may convince them that you have resorted to living in a tent because they do not send you enough cash. The money will start flowing in!

Residences

Residential life at Duke is another draw for many of the students who choose to be a Blue Devil. Around eighty-five percent of the students elect to live on campus for all four years, and on-campus living is required for the first three years as long as space is available. So campus life is a crucial part of the undergraduate experience. All of the freshmen live together on Duke’s East Campus. Activities, meals, and special campus programs are tailored to build comfortable interaction for Duke’s newest community members. Many students cite class unity and quality of life as the best traits of the East Campus experience. To help students become acclimated to Duke and Durham, upperclass FACs (Freshmen Advisory Counselors) are assigned to the first-year students to help them adjust. In addition, upperclass “quads” adopt freshmen houses as a way to introduce first-year students to the intricacies of campus life.

My freshman year was incredible. Imagine living with 1,600 of your classmates on a campus that allows you to know almost everyone’s first name! It is wonderful to “come home” to our campus every night and find a comfortable place to grow. We had movie nights, arts events, and the all-too-often all-night academic discussions. It was a great transition into college life.

Most upperclass students including all sophomores, live on Duke’s West Campus where they are assigned to sections of university housing. Most of the sections are randomly distributed through a lottery system. Extensive dining choices are available to replace the board plan of the first-year campus, and some students feel a letdown moving from the bonded first-year community to the larger, more individualized feel of West. As one way to counter this feeling of upper-class autonomy, Duke offers traditional fraternities (some of which are residential), sororities (which are not residential), and selective living opportunities (which are residential).

Duke isn’t a “Greek or geek” campus. Most of the students interrelate with each other at sporting events, weekend trips, and open campus parties.

While a majority of the students do not belong to Greek organizations, it is one outlet of community building at Duke. Most students feel at home in the various organizations, groups, and residence halls on campus. Social life at Duke is vigorous and open-ended as most campus groups encourage all students to attend their parties. Durham is booming with new restaurants, a revitalized Ninth Street, Satisfaction’s, and the Durham Bulls Athletic Park (home of the Durham Bulls AAA baseball team), but the city doesn’t provide a particularly active college social scene. Students have many options for on-campus activities, many of which are expressive of their creativity. Movies, Broadway at Duke, Springfest, and large quad events highlight the social calendars of Duke students each year.

Duke University Athletics

Many students choose to participate in athletics, from fitness or recreational programs to intercollegiate sports. Although many of Duke’s athletic teams are of national-championship caliber (and students love to support them), other teams exist at the club and intramural levels. This array of opportunities gives students the chance both to stay physically fit and to be spectators of first-rate athletics. State-of-the-art athletic facilities are located on West Campus and East Campus.

Duke University Alumni

Duke’s reputation has led to a demand for its graduates in the work force and at leading professional schools. As senior year approaches, most students don suits for job interviews or get ready to take graduate or professional school entrance exams. In the process, most find that the Duke name on their résumé can take them far.

All of the large management consulting, investment banking, and accounting firms flock to Duke each year hoping to pick up future grads. The students’ well-rounded background and personable style serves them well in interviews and most students have very little trouble finding jobs. One of the recent trends at Duke has been the increase of small, entrepreneurial companies recruiting at Duke. The nontraditional style of many of these start-up firms seems to be a good match for the energetic, motivated students at Duke.

Many of my friends decided to look for jobs at firms that allowed for maximum independence and creativity. I don’t know if this is a need for most of our generation or a special characteristic of Duke students.

Most students get word of job offers in late February or March, so a pleasant euphoria settles on the senior class for its final months in Durham. Seniors enjoy the peaceful spring months in North Carolina—after graduation, many will flock to Washington, D.C., New York, and Boston to begin careers in these large urban areas.

Prominent Grads

• Shane Battier, NBA Star
• Elizabeth Hanford Dole, U.S. Senator for North Carolina
• John Mack, CEO of Morgan Stanley
• Charlie Rose, Talk Show Host
• William C. Styron, Author
• Judy Woodruff, Anchor, CNN

Duke University Faculty

The rigor of Duke’s academic program is intense. The Duke faculty represents a demanding group of individuals who are known to expect incredible academic performance from students. In the midst of this push, however, Duke’s faculty is made up of a group of caring and interested scholars, many of whom are available for lunches with students so they can get to know the students personally.

A faculty associates program pairs top faculty with specific resident halls to encourage collaboration and student-faculty interaction. Most students also take on independent research with Duke’s faculty members to develop relationships and experiences.

Faculty mentoring and interaction with the students seem to be genuine goals of the university administration. Many resources are funneled into creating opportunities to build relationships.

With its natural beauty and eye-catching architecture, dedicated faculty, and friendly environment, Duke is an invigorating, friendly, competitive, challenging, and beautiful place to spend the undergraduate years.

The faculty at Duke is made up of renowned scholars who are surprisingly accessible to students. Formal office hours and after-class question periods are supplemented by regular meals together and informal meetings. Some students complain that professors are sometimes burdened, but most faculty members are willing to connect with students if students make the effort to stop by and get to know them.

Some of the first-year courses are large introductory lectures, with discussion sections run by teaching assistants. Others, like those in Duke’s more than forty-five First-Year Seminars, are courses for no more than fifteen students taught by senior faculty in specialty fields. A former Duke president and the dean of the college are regular participants. Freshmen build lasting relationships with faculty members and are encouraged to begin specialty research projects early in their academic life.

Duke has made its freshman Focus Program an integral part of its offerings. A quarter of the first-year students participate in one of eleven to fourteen semester-long programs. For example, in the Game2Know Program, students take courses in virtual culture with an eye toward understanding the impact of computer gaming and modeling on real-world data manipulation. In the Exploring the Mind Program, students examine how the brain functions from the perspectives of philosophy, computer programming, and visual perception as a way to understand the brain’s contribution to the human experience.

The Focus and First-Year Seminar programs are dynamic. Our small group studies the same materials, has fabulous interaction with leading faculty, and meets weekly for dinner discussions. This is what I came to college for!

A final, unique trait of Duke’s curriculum deals with its emphasis on experiential learning and independent study. Rather than simply studying under Duke’s faculty, students are encouraged to join with faculty members in independent research. The students are also given ample opportunities to take the ideas of the classroom into the Durham community and into the world. Community service, internships, and summer experiences are all used by the faculty to drive home lessons begun in the classroom. The vibrancy of the student body and faculty is demonstrated every day in the intense quest for learning, both in and out of Duke classrooms.

Carnegie Foundation Classification

Research Universities (very high research activity)

General Characteristics

Highest offering	Doctoral degree
Calendar System	Semester
Years of college work required	N/A
Variable Tuition

Special Learning Opportunities

Distance Learning
ROTC — Army / Navy / Airforce	— / /
Study Abroad
Weekend College
Teacher Certification