Duke Class of 2021

Less than a quarter of applicants this Early Decision cycle earned admission to Duke University.

The results are in for the Early Decision pool of the Duke Class of 2021. Congratulations to our Ivy Coach students who earned admission to the university in Durham — especially those we swayed to apply! You know who you are. We’re just glad you listened. In all, 861 students earned admission in the Early Decision round at Duke this year to be members of the Class of 2021. These 861 students hailed from an Early Decision record applicant pool of 3,516 applicants. By other peoples’ mathematics, that marks an Early Decision admission rate of 24.5%.

The admission rate for this year was a bit higher than last year, for the Class of 2020 (which had the lowest Early Decision admission rate in the university’s history), since last year’s admission rate was 23.5% in the Early round. While fewer students applied Early Decision last year to Duke (3,455), the school only offered admission to 813 students last cycle…as compared to 861 this Early Decision cycle. So that explains why this year marked only the second most selective Early Decision cycle in the university’s history.

As reports “The Duke Chronicle,” “This year, 691 students will enroll in the Trinity College of Arts and Sciences, and the remaining 170 will enroll in the Pratt School of Engineering. Duke participated in the QuestBridge Scholars program, a recruitment program geared toward low-income and first-generation students, for the first time this year. There are 36 QuestBridge Scholars among the students accepted early decision.” Congratulations to these students, our students, and all students who earned admission to Coach K’s university this year as members of the Duke Class of 2021. We hope he recovers quickly from his back surgery!