Dukes Anonymous :)

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Chaz Michaels said:
I know the letter says we are not ranked but, doesn't there have to be some sort of score?

Do you think they already know who they are going to offer spots to when they go to the waitlist? or are the top waitlist spots still up for grabs?
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I think that Duke is probably going to take people off of the waitlist who are similar to admitted students who have withdrawn. They're looking to compose a diverse class- they could probably fill the entire class with qualified 3.8, 38+ California residents, but that would be really dull! Judging from last year's threads, I think the admissions staff meets right before May 15th to decide who to take from the waitlist (by then, they have a good idea of how many people they'll need to take and what kinds of students they're looking to accept). Yeah, that's just my guess.
 
how big is the class now..? the website hasnt been updated since 2002, when 101 student were enrolled.
 
my understanding is that the class size is still 100 students, but i feel your pain about the admissions site! i wish it was updated more recently...
 
where'd all the current Duke students go to...? Is this a busy time of year down in Durham? Maybe they all found out that there's not going to be any waitlist movement this year and don't want to have to tell us the bad news 🙁
 
Geez guys, way to give me a heart attack. This thread's been so quiet for weeks, so when I came on and saw a flurry of responses I thought, "Oh, no, someone's gotten off the waitlist, it's all over." My heart sank. You know you're wound up tight when....

I think they do rank the waitlist eventually, maybe a week or so before May 15. But that's pure speculation based on last year's thread. We shall see....
 
I just submitted my letter to Duke letting them know that I would not be attending their school in the fall. Duke is AMAZING but I was offered zero dollars in grants and taking out the full cost of attendance in loans was just too much when there is a perfectly good state school I can go to for much cheaper.

I thought I would let you all know so that the people on the waitlist have a little bit more hope🙂
 
Thanks j12 for posting this.


Only 14 more days to go!!!
 
SBBunny said:
where'd all the current Duke students go to...? Is this a busy time of year down in Durham? Maybe they all found out that there's not going to be any waitlist movement this year and don't want to have to tell us the bad news 🙁
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Hahaha, hardly.

It's shelf season, kiddos. Us MS2s are buried in books for shelf number 4 or 5 out of 6, but since we have spring break next week we all have one foot out the door. 😀

IDK what FCD's excuse is. 🙄

PS SB: I take offense to your saying that 3.8/38 Californians are dull! *sniff*
 
pagemmapants said:
Hahaha, hardly.

It's shelf season, kiddos. Us MS2s are buried in books for shelf number 4 or 5 out of 6, but since we have spring break next week we all have one foot out the door. 😀

IDK what FCD's excuse is. 🙄

PS SB: I take offense to your saying that 3.8/38 Californians are dull! *sniff*
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I figured that you guys were just busy. The Duke prospectives are valiantly trying to keep the thread alive (and to keep nova from ending up in cardiac arrest from the burst of sudden thread activity), but it's hard to do without you guys. Good luck with shelf exams and enjoy your spring break!

I'm so sorry pagemmapants! I didn't mean that 3.8/38 Californians are dull! I meant that it's nice to have a varied class! From what I understand about unranked waitlists, schools are keenly interested in keeping class diversity when deciding who to accept from waitlists. Even if Duke filled the entire class with swimsuit models with summa cum laude astrophysics degrees, things would get rather monotonous (some might argue that 3.8+/38+ Californians = summa cum laude swimsuit models). I didn't mean to offend anyone... Why, one hundred of you would probably be way more high-achieving, West Coast fun than Duke could handle.
 
Ah, so glad this thread has come alive again.

SBBunny, you're doing a great job holding down the fort, and thanks for thinking of me and my poor, fluttery heart. Not sure how much more it can handle after almost 12 months of med school application angst.

Good luck on shelf exams, current Dookies, and enjoy spring break! 😀
 
if you are accepted off the waitlist on/after may 15th, do u received a call/email/snail mail letter?
 
Seems from last year's thread that people got phonecalls....

Oh, and SBBunny, I just looked at your MDApps and... you're a girl! I don't know why this surprised me (I mean, you do have a cute little bunny as your avatar), but it did. Hehe. Just thought I'd throw that in there 😳
 
Well, I don't really have the same excuse as pagemma...I've been "busy" pulling 8-hour shifts at the emergency department on my selective. The only problem is the hours sometimes are weird and since I work 3-11pm tonight I can't go to a class outing this evening. I tend to only look at this thread when I see it on page one, so y'all's job is to keep it there!

Best of luck to all of you, keep us posted, and let us know if you have any questions.

Edit: Sorry, I missed the question just asked. At least for the last two years, waitlistees have received phone calls.
 
nova1983 said:
Seems from last year's thread that people got phonecalls....

Oh, and SBBunny, I just looked at your MDApps and... you're a girl! I don't know why this surprised me (I mean, you do have a cute little bunny as your avatar), but it did. Hehe. Just thought I'd throw that in there 😳
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I am indeed a girl, although if you saw the picture that the office took of me on my interview day, you'd figure I was some kind of troll/slime-monster.

Oh yeah... 13 DAYS UNTIL MAY 15TH! I don't know if that warrants impatient sighs or panic (or a rush to the E.R.), but there you go. If you haven't written your LOI/update letter, I'd say that now's the time to start thinking about it (I'm sending my final update out at the end of next week).

Good luck, waitlistees :luck:
Good luck, current Duke students in the middle of exams/selectives :luck:
 
MrBurns10 said:
And here I thought I was the only girl around here that got mistaken for a guy 🙂
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I think it might be the "Mr" in your screen-name, MrBurns 😉 SBBunny, well, I'd say bunnies would generally be associated with females, but for whatever reason, I'd just assumed you were a guy. The mind works in mysterious ways....
 
MrBurns10 said:
And here I thought I was the only girl around here that got mistaken for a guy 🙂
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Off-topic: Mr. Burns is by far my favorite Simpsons character.
 
SBBunny said:
Off-topic: Mr. Burns is by far my favorite Simpsons character.
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haha, mine too. When I signed up, I only did it so I could have access to the "find all posts by" feature because I wanted to make fun of my boyfriend for actually posting. Hence, the lack of any sort of attempt at a creative sn.

In an ironic spin, I've posted over 1500 times and now he makes fun of me.
 
OMG... sorry ppl. I didn't realize this thread was up and running again. I thought all of yall had given up so I've just been on the allopathic forum. My bad. Good luck to all yall peeps. As the time draws near, I'll let you know how many deposits there are turned in and what not to the admissions office. Last year I got the call before May 15th but a few more went out around May 15th just to give yall a heads up. Good luck!!! :luck:
 
Greetings from Illinois!:

I know there are many many people checking this thread, and I just wanted to say good luck. But remember, they odds are tough at this point and just think of all the great applicants. Duke is doing their best to make for a great medical school class.

Also remember that if you don't get into Duke you can still ball it up wherever you go. The importance of where you attend medical school falls far short of how motivated you are (This includes students at an elite university like duke too I'm sure). So good luck, but stay strong and confident because only you know how good you are and any medical school gives you a chance soar.

Ex: Chief of Peds Surgery at WashU started out at U of Missouri, KC.
 
Chaz Michaels said:
Greetings from Illinois!:

I know there are many many people checking this thread, and I just wanted to say good luck. But remember, they odds are tough at this point and just think of all the great applicants. Duke is doing their best to make for a great medical school class.

Also remember that if you don't get into Duke you can still ball it up wherever you go. The importance of where you attend medical school falls far short of how motivated you are (This includes students at an elite university like duke too I'm sure). So good luck, but stay strong and confident because only you know how good you are and any medical school gives you a chance soar.

Ex: Chief of Peds Surgery at WashU started out at U of Missouri, KC.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the encouraging words, Chaz! I completely agree- there's so much more to being a doctor than the name of the school on a diploma! Well, let's all hope for the best :luck:

(oh, my letter seemed really generic- "We were enormously impressed with you as a scholar and your potential as a future physician" was the most personal thing on the letter)
 
sounds like my letter too....
 
That is the same thing that mine said. Mmmm form letters make me feel so good.
 
Brock -- where did you read this thing about personalized letters?

10 days! Almost in the single digits!
 
nova1983 said:
Brock -- where did you read this thing about personalized letters?

10 days! Almost in the single digits!
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I remember seeing something like that on someone's MDApps page. I think that the owner of the MDApps page put a comment next to the Duke waitlist along the lines of "nice touch with the personalized letter." I don't know, maybe they meant that it was nice that the letter was addressed to them?
 
Brock Samson said:
I actually don't recall exactly where I read it but it very well could be what Bunny said. Hey Bunny, I thought I saw that you're on the Columbia waitlist as well. Where would you rather go if you got into both?
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Duke and Columbia are, indeed, my two top choices. One of those schools received a letter of intent and the other received a letter of interest. I'm not going to say which school is my top choice, but you can probably guess (or can you?) 😉
 
Could be less than 9 days!! According to FCD, people heard back before May 15th. Soooo excited and anxious to here back from Duke.
 
stso said:
Could be less than 9 days!! According to FCD, people heard back before May 15th. Soooo excited and anxious to here back from Duke.
Click to expand...

FCD was the only one that heard back before May 15th. I think that he was a special exemption and that we should all expect to have to wait until May 15 (or... later...). Good luck to us all :luck::luck::luck:
 
haha ... im waiting on columbia and duke too!!!

i think i have more waitlists than u tho ... haha .. seriously ... i hate waitlist!!!
 
Me too, I eat pieces of waitlist for breakfast
 
Gotta say it: 8 days!

Anyone send something to RW recently and get a reply? He's replied to all my other e-mails, but not to the last update I sent yesterday.... Paranoia setting in.... 🙄
 
nova1983 said:
Gotta say it: 8 days!

Anyone send something to RW recently and get a reply? He's replied to all my other e-mails, but not to the last update I sent yesterday.... Paranoia setting in.... 🙄
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Dr. Armstrong didn't reply to any of my snail-mail letters
 
yea dr. armstrong didnt reply to any of my letters either 🙁
 
kuhlguy said:
yea dr. armstrong didnt reply to any of my letters either 🙁
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She's probably just ridiculously busy. Dr. Armstrong didn't reply to your letters, but she certainly read them, so they served their purpose. I think that I prefer silent waiting- I mean, I've gotten used to it over the past several months and it's all too easy to hyperanalyze any response from medical schools (what's the difference between being placed in a "pool of competitive applicants," getting "waitlisted," and being placed on an "alternate list" anyway?).

May 15th... not too far away! Stay strong y'all :luck:
 
Do Dr. Armstrong / RW / other members of the AdCom actually read LOIs or update letters or extra LORs? I have my doubts....

I mean, they must be incredibly busy and I suspect that most people on the waitlist send at least one short letter in -- so can they actually read 200+ extra pieces of material in a month and a half period?
 
nova1983 said:
Do Dr. Armstrong / RW / other members of the AdCom actually read LOIs or update letters or extra LORs? I have my doubts....

I mean, they must be incredibly busy and I suspect that most people on the waitlist send at least one short letter in -- so can they actually read 200+ extra pieces of material in a month and a half period?
Click to expand...

I think it's possible- let's estimate:
-300 letters (200+ people, some send multiple letters, some send none- I'm overestimating, I think)
-45 days
-2 people (assuming that both Dr. Armstrong and Mr. Wallace both read letters)
---> (300 / 45) / 2 = 3 (and one-third) letters per day, or 10 letters every three days. That's pretty reasonable. If one person reads all those letters, they'd have to do 6 (and two-thirds) letters per day, or 20 letters every three days. It's a lot, but still quite doable...

Yeah, everyone remember the Duke secondary (😉)? Think about allll the secondary applications that Duke received and the people who had to read every page of that and the primary to determine whether to grant interviews. If Duke managed to process all those applications, they can surely read the waitlistee letters.

...maybe I'm just being naive and optimistic... here in Fluffy Rainbow Land with my harsh bowl of Waitlistee Flakes drenched in bitter tears.
 
SBBunny said:
I think it's possible- let's estimate:
-300 letters (200+ people, some send multiple letters, some send none- I'm overestimating, I think)
-45 days
-2 people (assuming that both Dr. Armstrong and Mr. Wallace both read letters)

---> (300 / 45) / 2 = 3 (and one-third) letters per day, or 10 letters every three days. That's pretty reasonable. If one person reads all those letters, they'd have to do 6 (and two-thirds) letters per day, or 20 letters every three days. It's a lot, but still quite doable...
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omg... you're such a nerd! haha j/m

good to know they actually read it because i sent mine in a few a weeks ago. hopefully we'll hear some good news next week!
 
I saw a ginormous stack of "I love Duke!" letters today in the admissions office. They definitely read them.
 
Thanks FCD -- that's AMAZING to know they actually read them -- and props to the admissions staff for caring enough to do so 🙂

On the other hand.... "a huge stack of love letters"?!? I know at least five of them are from me, but really?!? I was hoping there weren't that many waitlistees who love Duke as much as me (and my fellow SDNers).... Sigh.

Anyway, not long now!
 
Nothing to read into -- "Thanks for your letter and continued enthusiasm for Duke" or some variation of that. The reason I asked is it just decreases the paranoia on my end when I get a reply, because otherwise I wonder whether he actually received the letter (of course he did, but y'know?)....
 
Nova, how did you have enough "unique" things to say in 5 letters? or did each letter pretty much say the same thing?
 
I didn't send 5 update letters. That was an exaggeration. Don't stress 🙂 But I have been in touch a couple of times....
 
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