Hopefulfor2012

I had an ACT of 33, and 4.35 weighted GPA, captain of XC team, prez of INTERACT club: rejected at Duke, Georgetown, Cornell, Dartmouth, UPenn, and Stanford accepted early to UNC Chapel Hill(OOS), U of Michigan Honors (OOS) and Notre Dame

mom58

My husband made a comment similar to Bluedog's, and last night I counted the number of OOS athletes. I counted 459 (including the whole fencing team of 57 because that roster didn't say where they came from).

I think the admissions web site said they enrolled 3895 freshmean last year; 18% is about 700. If you take the athletes off, it leaves about 241 (6%) for non-athletes. This methodology has flaws. I don't know anything about athletics and recruiting, but it seems unlikely that all 400+ OOS students that happen to be on an athletic team were recruited. Even so, maybe my daughter should take up lacrosse-- I think the whole team is OOS.

heathergee

I am pretty sure that athletes don't count toward the OOS total.

mkm56

I agree Heather, that is what I have been told also (at least recruited ones)

tyr

I may be wrong, but it is my understanding that the only athletes that do not count against the total (i.e. are considered IS) are those receiving full scholarships. Many athletes do not receive full scholarships.

armcp

no. duke is harder to get into. this is obvious. just because the UNC OOS acceptance rate is a few percentage points lower than the general Duke acceptance rate doesn't mean that it is harder to get into UNC as an OOS. i understand why people would make this conclusion, but it is based simply on the fact that the OOS acceptance rate is lower, and not an analysis of any of the other criteria in the admissions process. you are competing with a higher quality applicant at Duke, where as at UNC the test scores are lower (even among OOS) along with rank among applicants, and admission is determined more by soft factors, such as URM status, legacy status, and other hooks.

ldmom06

Actually, if the measure of admissions difficulty is how many people are accepted in comparison to the number of applications, then both schools are approximately the same.

armcp - your argument has nothing to do with this acceptance rate; rather you attempt to compare the quality of the applicant pool based on two numerical parameters...scores and rank....and then you attempt to extrapolate a 'level of difficulty' from those parameters. Tricky business that is.

Btw....you should know, Duke does also give weight to your so-called "soft factors" as well. In fact, the legacy, URM, hook factors go a lot further at a private institution like Duke than a public institution such as UNC...so your last statement doesn't even make sense to me (and I have worked in college admissions).

(Btw...this is such a h.s. senior topic. By sophomore year of college, most people are over it. )

heathergee

I agree that people are over it by the time they get to college.

A point I always emphasize:
According to Princeton Review, UNC ranks #13 for "Happiest Students"
Duke is not on the list.

Just sayin'.

armcp

i'm not over it at all. welcome to CC. i think you should know what people are like on here by now.

when i said that UNC gives MORE weight to soft factors, that did not mean that Duke does not give ANY weight to those factors. yes, duke gives considerable weight to soft factors, but not anything like UNC when evaluating OOS students IMO.

at duke i feel there is a certain stats. threshold you must meet to even be considered for admission. then they start to look at those soft factors. at unc, i feel that threshold stat. levels are routinely waved for OOS applicants if someone has a URM status, etc.

OOS legacy status is very important at UNC, although it is not for IS students. it functions as a private school in this regard.

ldmom06

armcp - WHERE do you get this stuff? UNC is notorious for NOT giving much of an edge, if any, to oos legacies. Duke is notorious for 'developmental admits', about as 'soft' a factor you are ever going to come across.

I'm interested how you have formed these opinions. Is it based on personal experience? Do you attend either school or perhaps work in admissions?

If you are going to care so much about rankings...at least get some straight facts together.

ThoughtProvoking

I know a Duke student on a full merit scholarship who was waitlisted OOS at UNC.

However, I think that person's case is the exception rather than the rule, and mostly just highlights how unpredictable competitive college admissions can be.

slipper1234

My good friend's younger sister just got into UNC-CH (OOS), Emory, and Vanderbilt. Rejected from Duke.