A critical article in The Wall Street Journal Thursday examined the practice of giving students of wealthy or alumni parents special treatment in admissions processes.
The article - entitled "At Many Colleges, The Rich Kids Get Affirmative Action" and labeled with the subheadlines, "Seeking donors, Duke courts 'development admits'; overcoming low SATs" and "A Lesson in Networking" - noted that 17 percent of students at Duke get into the University as children of alumni or wealthy parents willing to add to the University's fundraising coffers.
Two years ago, The Chronicle obtained a December 2000 administrative report to the Board of Trustees expressing alarm that about one-fifth of the student body was comprised of either development spots, alumni legacies or recruited athletes; it recommended cutting the number of development spots by a third. The same statistics listed in that report served as the basis for much of the Journal's story.
Since then, the University has cut that number by about 50 percent, from about 125 in 1998 to about 65 last year, said Christoph Guttentag, director of undergraduate admissions, stressing that many students fall into more than one category and that some admitted students with alumni or development connections have just as strong test scores and grades as other applicants.
"One of the things I love about Duke is we're always looking at what we do, and Duke is very comfortable asking itself, 'Is what we're doing right now what we ought to be doing?'" he said Thursday. "Where we're headed right now will serve us in the foreseeable future, for the next five years or so."
Overall, administrators said the article brought to light an important issue, but they disagreed with how the issue was portrayed in an exclusionary manner.
President Nan Keohane wrote in an e-mail that she thought the article unfortunately singled out one area of the admissions office's focus. She noted that Duke also looks for other characteristics that do not necessarily relate to academic performance, including minority ethnic background, North Carolina residency, diverse geographic origin and talent in athletics, music and art.
"It is unfortunate that the article chose to focus on only one topic of preference decision among many, and only one university, since what he is writing about is a practice on many other campuses as well," Keohane wrote. "But the reporter made the decision to focus on Duke, for whatever reason."
Keohane said both in the article and to The Chronicle that the question of so-called development admits is important in the context of under-represented minorities, to achieve a balance of different kinds of students.
"Our goal is to reach an appropriate balance among all these different types of preferences, and to keep them all in the context of admitting the most talented, diverse class each year to Duke," she wrote. "That's why the question of 'development admits' is indeed relevant to other kinds of preferences, including under-represented minorities."
Guttentag said he thought some of the most unfortunate parts of the article were some of the quotes from parents and students.
"She's bright, she had good grades, but she doesn't meet the superstar status," Cissy Bunn, a Lake Forest, Ill., Duke parent told the Journal. "Did my normal child take the place of somebody who could really make a difference in the world? Sure, yes, to an extent. But there are so many things you can lose sleep over. I'm happy for me and my child."
William Chafe, dean of the faculty of arts and sciences, said many admissions factors could be seen as unfair without looking at the context of balancing an entire class - such as giving a break to students with lower SAT scores or broad extracurricular activities who might otherwise have a special talent in music or art.
"The process gets more careful each year," he said. "I know from having sat in on some of these meetings that the number of people turned down for fears they might not be able to do well is substantial. I think they are committed to making sure that a high-quality experience is possible for all the students we admit."
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