I did not miss the clause, but added the dimension that the need based aid might, in some cases, be less restrictive than prestigious merit aid that comes with requirements. The same might apply to non-guaranteed athletic scholarships.
A 3.0 GPA requirement isn’t terribly onerous. If someone turns down a scholarship for that reason, I can’t say that that earns them a positive point in my book.
Do you really believe that professional schools (or employers, for that matter), get excited about a 22 year-old’s high school record (which is what the AB Duke represents)? Do you?
It wouldn’t be the prestige of the AB Duke, but what the OP does with the opportunity it presents.
Wow, AB Duke is stellar; I would find it hard to turn that down, even for Stanford. AB Duke’s are treated like royalty on campus, and like Morehead scholars at UNC, are groomed by the university to apply for Rhodes and Marshall scholarships. I would guess that at least three-quarters of the Rhodes scholars from Duke were AB Duke or some other endowed merit scholar (I think there are a couple of others at Duke, but considered lesser than the AB Duke). I think the people who do turn down the AB Duke may face a bit of different financial circumstance than you, in that, they are usually receiving financial aid awards from HYPSM, so the cost difference between AB Duke and HYPSM is for them $5-10000, not $50-60,000 per year. IMO it’s a no brainer to go to Duke given that you would have to pay full freight to Stanford.
Yeah, I think they do, if they are in Duke’s zone of influence, at least. There are employers who are impressed by a person being an Eagle Scout, something that may have been achieved when the person was 16. These sorts of things may, of course, be counteracted by a weak performance in college, but they will help a strong student stand out from other strong students.
Other people, of course, don’t care much about these things.
Because the Ivies don’t offer full ride merit scholarships, there is no equivalent to the A.B. Duke scholarship. An A.B. Duke is a golden ticket that graduate schools, professional schools, employers and the Rhodes Committee (but apparently not @bluebayou) are aware of. There’s no question that Duke uses them to snag students who would otherwise go to HYPS but there’s nothing wrong with that. There are other perks to being an A.B. Duke, especially the automatic access to research positions that give you elose contact with faculty. The OP should weigh the benefits of this access which is worth much more than the scholarship money over the long term.
As I said above I know someone IRL who received the AB Duke. I did want to say something else. I knew the parents enough to know that the monetary scholarship was not a part of their equation. I would say that they are part of the 1% and told me that their children could pick whatever school they wanted. They knew how special this child was and told me that they had saved enough money that he could go wherever he wanted. Their other children picked very selective schools where they would have been full pays, so I am positive that the money did not sway the decision.
It was purely the opportunities offered by being an AB Duke scholar. And it did open doors for him and had great experiences and opportunities at Duke and after undergrad. I don’t want to say too much because it’s not my story to tell.
Au contraire. But I can guarantee you that professional schools and don’t care one iota about about a high school-level scholarship.
Try applying to med school without any college-level EC, but with all of the top high school awards (AB/Intel, Westinghouse/Spelling Bee/Debate/Val/FB Captain/Drum Major…) and see what happens.
Alternatively, apply to law school with a 3.9/175 (and ZERO high school awards) and then explain to me again about the "golden ticket…
Professional schools…just…don’t…care (bcos high school awards don’t count in their rankings). It’s illogical to think otherwise.
Every time this topic comes up, there is somebody who doesn’t get what a big deal this particular scholarship is (as well as similar ones) in the South and in North Carolina particularly. It’s probably true that in some circles–especially in other parts of the country–it may not be such a big deal. But in the South, coming from Duke with this particular scholarship would be way more impressive than having gone to Stanford. So context matters.
Some employers certainly do care how well the new college grad did in high school, since that is basically the reason why Wall Street and consulting employers have a strong recruiting bias for highly selective schools (or sometimes highly selective divisions within not-as-highly selective schools), though scholarships probably do not count anywhere near as much as school (or sometimes division) names (if they count for anything in this context).
Probably much less so for medical schools, though.
Some employers of college graduates ask for SAT scores, which also reflect the high school record. So I would assume that some care.
But more important, students who get these prestigious scholarships often have special opportunities to distinguish themselves at college, and that matters even more.
Having just had one kiddo go through med school and b-school apps and matriculation I might be able to shed some light on the above disagreement about incoming scholarship awards.
Yes, both the med schools and b-schools applications (AMCAS as well) do ask about the scholarships. There is a specific area to list all in order of importance to you the applicant and why. Also a list is provided for how much each award was worth. Duke’s med school supplemental app actually does ask for SAT scores as well as all AP scores. Many of the med school supplemental apps do, these apps are sent after AMCAS app is received and reviewed. As far as interviews (MD and MBA) son was asked about his scholarships and why.
Where the scholarships really came into play besides weight for acceptance was in his merit scholies he did receive for med school and his full fellowship for his MBA. During subsequent interviews and meetings with directors his incoming scholarship for undergrad did influence admittance but even more so the receipt of grad school money and how much. (he is on the actual financial aid review board)
Duke’s scholarship is very, very special. Being that wanted by a school of that caliber is offered to so very few. Son’s GF turned down Stanford for son’s ivy, so it does happen.
Congrats OP, what a real achievement and yes have a great time at Duke and join us over on the pre-med forum. There are plenty over there who can help from the start. You might ask this same question over there. But from a pre-med standpoint the Duke opportunity is again very, VERY special.
Kat
Thank you @Marian @katwkittens @Hunt @ucbalumnus @spayurpets for backing me on this one. I frankly didn’t have the energy. No other school of Duke’s caliber offers a scholarship like that (and no, sorry, WUSTL is NOT Duke’s caliber), so it is special, and does lead to many opportunities down the road. It’s sort of like saying that an employer doesn’t care that someone was a Rhodes or Fulbright scholar after college.
It’s close enough, in my opinion.
Few really, really top schools offer major merit scholarships. Duke and WUSTL are two of them, and best of luck to the talented and lucky recipients in both cases.
People express different opinions based on their own experiences. This is not a matter of keeping scores of who is right.
Fwiw, if med school is the objective, is WUSTL really of a different caliber? How does its own medical school rank?
Your analogy between the AB and Rhodes is silly. At best, it compares to the Morehead or McDermott awards, or to that a number of merit scholarships available to high school students. Records of achievement should always be a plus, but their relative importance remains in the eye of the beholder. Not all employers or graduate schools are cut from the same cloth.
@Cameron121, well, I guess you can quibble about whether Rice or JHU (both have big scholarships) are Duke’s caliber. UChicago use to.
Vandy, Emory (and Wake & UVa & UNC & Richmond & W&L & Tulane) also have full-tuition/full-ride scholarship programs, but it may be too much to expect a Dukie to say that those schools are on the same tier as the ole alma mater. 
Look, I don’t know whether the A.B. Duke scholarship creates the successful college student, contributes to it, or merely confirms the attributes of someone who was already inevitably headed down the path to success, but it’s certainly not something to be sniffed at as @bluebayou does as a “high school” award. This is in effect a $250,000 prize given to two dozen of the best incoming freshmen in the country. People like Bill Gross (billionaire and founder of PIMCO) still include on their resume and biography that they were Angier B. Duke Scholars. Just because you’re ignorant or never heard of it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have an “iota” of value to employers, grad schools or your peers. I went to law school with a Morehead scholar, and even though I never heard of it before, I could tell from the hushed whispers of people who did know what it was that it was a big deal, and that included the faculty. That friend went on to clerk for the Supreme Court, and I have to say, it was never apparent to me that she was an especially extraordinary law student. But it was pretty clear that my law school (unfairly or not) sort of greased the skids for her throughout her law school career (she got a full ride merit law school award, the best research positions, and invited to lunch with visiting VIPs when they came on campus). It all snowballs, and it all starts because the Morehead was a golden ticket. I’m sure the A.B. Duke scholarship has a similar effect.
Hmmn, it seems evident that Duke is the most obvious choice. And to also think about, being at Stony Brook, on the North Shore of LI, for 7-8 years–that’s a long long time. Not how I want to spend my late teens and early 20s…
Context is everything. If you are a corporation hiring MBA’s, then someone who is a Baker Scholar or Arjay Miller scholar is significant even if your dry cleaner isn’t impressed. Doesn’t matter what the average person thinks.
The idea that Rice is a lesser school to Duke just reflects regional bias so I ignore those kinds of comments.
OP- take Duke and don’t look back. They made a holistic decision about you- now make a holistic decision about them. There is nothing else on your plate that is as compelling. Congratulations!