Led by an increase in applicants and a higher yield among students who accepted offers, the Graduate School's incoming class of 630 students will be its largest and most selective ever.
The school accepted a lower percentage of applicants this year than ever before, offering admittance to just under 20 percent of the pool. The average score on the GRE--the test required for graduate school applicants--is the highest ever, and a record number of students accepted its most prestigious scholarships.
"What we have is a class that is the largest ever, and, despite being the largest, the quality is still better," said Lewis Siegel, dean of the Graduate School. "Everything just worked this year."
The Graduate School had not intended to increase its class size, but the unexpectedly high yield--45 percent, up from an average of 39 in previous years--made for a record-size group, Siegel said.
Bertie Belvin, associate dean for enrollment services in the Graduate School, attributed the increases largely to the state of the nation's job market. "People who lost jobs took that as an opportunity to go back to school and people who had not yet entered the job market decided to continue their education," she said.
Diversity is another highlight of the class, Siegel said. The number of international students in the class will set a record at 240, and there will also be more American minority students than ever before. Compared to an average of 51 for each of the last four years, the incoming class will have 83 American minority students, comprising 14 percent of the class.
"For the first time in history, the number of students who are not minorities or foreign are a minority," Siegel said. "Only 48 percent of our class is U.S. white--there are not too many schools at Duke that are like that."
The Graduate School also received commitments from more of who it considered its top applicants than ever before, Siegel said. Each year, the school makes about 120 offers of the James B. Duke Scholarship, and this year 48 accepted--the previous high was 35. It also saw its largest yield ever--17 percent compared to last year's 11--for the Duke Endowment scholarships, which the University offers to around 30 top black and Latino candidates each year. Four of these also accepted some of this year's seven Gates University Scholars Awards, the top scholarship the school offers to about 15 applicants. Siegel said these numbers were the "real knock-out" for the incoming class. In particular, he emphasized the black students who qualified for all three scholarships.
"I'm hoping this is a major point in the University's history because this type of student is extremely sought after," he said. "It is extremely rare for a Duke Endowment [winner] to also be a James B. Duke. They almost never come here."
The doctoral class, which comprises 416 of the Graduate School's 630-member class, is also the largest class in history. The last four years averaged 370 and last year's class was 402, the first time it had topped 400.
All but one department--the medical doctoral program, which Siegel said purposely accepted a smaller class--increased in size from years past. The increases reverse several years of intentional class size contraction in the humanities--a decision made in the mid-1990s so the school could better support each of its students.
"A couple of years of this and it will be hard for us to meet the commitment we are trying to offer," he said. "If we keep getting classes like this, sometime in the next five or six years we will have to take either a very small class or no class at all."
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