Dean Guttentag just did a talk for alum interviewers, a webinar, and he said the CURRENT % undergrads who are legacy is 10%, for the latest admitted class. My D applied ED fall 2020 and that year and year before it had hovered 11-13% of total undergrads were legacy. The ED rate used to be 20% for overall students and 24-25% for legacies, when we met with alum development people in 2019. All alum kids can meet and talk with a representative and they used to have large sessions for alum families pre-covid. They tell you how unlikely Duke is and they strongly encourage ED for legacies, and (pre-TO) tell you not to bother if you do not have scores in the median range. They say things like challenge yourself in all core courses not just the ones you like–the same thing Duke tells all applicants at admission sessions and the same thing the ivies we toured say.
Anyway, there was a huge applicant surge fall 2020 for obvious reasons, mine had in-range scores, very top rigor (less than a handful had similar–those kids ended up at top 10s except for the one who ED’d to a T20) was deferred and we got the 16% and 19% #s after the deferral . She later got in RD and is a senior there now. Have your parent email the alum admissions people and can ask them questions. They offer to be a resource for all alums. That office has zero connection to the admission office: they just answer questions and offer support.
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