With all due respect – OP – you are off on your thinking. Not because you are asking these types of questions about Duke – but really because you are completely sold by some random ranking and not doing any real research. Do you realize that a girl walked around with mattress all year at Columbia to protest what she thought was the administrations poor handling of an alleged rape? Then there was the Bacchanal fiasco with tickets this year at Columbia Are you asking in the Columbia thread what the administration is doing to improve themselves? And by the way, I have nothing against Columbia – have several family members as alumni from there. Now let’s get to Yale – remember that girl that was killed in the science lab? Then there was a lack of transparency on sexual assault being brought forward. Then Harvard had a massive cheating scandal… remember that? Then Stanford had a cheating scandal… and MIT is known to be a stress pressure cooker.
The point is. .you are asking rather silly questions – vs. doing your own research and making your own conclusions as to which one of the top universities is more your “fit” and align with your personal goals. If you want to be an bio medical engineer, by using your logic, Duke is #2 in BME, so, should be a great choice aligned that that career goal – so then, who why care what the regular decision yield rate for engineering is? Given that Duke is one of the only elite schools NOT utilizing their waitlist this year, the university is obviously doing a great job selling itself to the students IT WANTS. Last point, None of these schools are perfect – Duke and Harvard included, but anyone that actually gets into any of the top 10 (that includes Duke BTW)… usually are pretty darn happy about it.