<p>Okay I’m in college right now so this is for a friend. I’m at USC Honors but I got accepted RD at Duke last year but couldn’t afford it.
My friend has his heart set on going to Duke and I haven’t stayed with yalls conversations this year so I could use some help.
He made somewhere around 1320 on the SAT (Old SAT) and I think like 1950ish on the new one. He is ranked in the top 5%, is an accomplished pianist, all state baseball player, wrote one of the best essays I have ever read (on his mom dying of breast cancer) and got a bunch of awesome recommendations from former Duke admissions councelours and Duke alums. I think his GPA was around 3.75 UW and 4.3 W and he has taken a couple AP’s and passed about half. What do yall think? I don’t want to encourage him too much because I know how much it sucked waiting last year so how does he look?</p>
<p>Well his ECs sound good, and the gpa isn’t bad, it’s hard to judge cuz schools are so different. But the SATs are very low for usual Duke acceptances I would think. And most applicants take tons of APs and pass them all, not only pass them but get 5s. So I’d say it sounds like a major reach… cuz in the long run getting recs from duke alumni or whatever won’t help you unless you’re already extremely well qualified.</p>
<p>Yeah thats what I was really worried about was his SAT score and I want to encourage him but not too much. We are in South Carolina so that will probably help some, but his extracurriculars and recommendations were awesome as was his resume. And his essay was honestly one of the best I’ve read. So thanks for the input I just really hope he gets in b/c I’m thinking about transfering up to Duke at some point.</p>