Undergraduate admissions {{Infobox U.S. college admissions|year=2028|ref= Admission to Duke is defined by
U.S. News & World Report as "most selective." Duke received nearly 55,000 applications for the Class of 2028, with an overall acceptance rate of 5.1%. The
yield rate (the percentage of accepted students who choose to attend) for the Class of 2023 was 54%. The Class of 2024 had a median ACT range of 34–35 and an SAT range of 1500–1570. (Test score ranges account for the 25th–75th percentile of accepted students.) During the 2020–21 academic year, Duke began adopting a test-optional policy. From 2001 to 2011, Duke has had the sixth highest number of
Fulbright,
Rhodes,
Truman, and
Goldwater scholarships in the nation among private universities. The university practices
need-blind admissions and meets 100% of admitted students' demonstrated needs. About 50 percent of all Duke students receive some form of financial aid, which includes need-based aid, athletic aid, and merit aid. The average need-based grant for the 2019–20 academic year was $54,255. Roughly 60 merit-based full-tuition scholarships are offered, including the Angier B. Duke Memorial Scholarship awarded for academic excellence, the Benjamin N. Duke Scholarship awarded for community service, and the
Robertson Scholars Leadership Program, a joint scholarship and leadership development program granting full student privileges at both Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill. Other scholarships are geared toward students in North Carolina, African-American students, children of alumni, and high-achieving students requiring financial aid. Duke's president,
Vincent Price, has described efforts to ban
legacy admissions as "troublesome". A 2022 survey by
The Chronicle found about 22% of first-year students were the child or sibling of a Duke alumnus.
Graduate profile In 2023, the
School of Medicine received more than 7,000 applications and accepted approximately 2.9% of them, while the average
GPA and
MCAT scores for accepted students in 2023 were 3.92 and 520, respectively. The
School of Law accepted approximately 10.5% of its applicants for the Class of 2026, while enrolling students had a median GPA of 3.87 and median
LSAT of 170. The university's graduate and professional schools include the
Graduate School,
Pratt School of Engineering,
Nicholas School of the Environment,
School of Medicine,
Duke-NUS Medical School,
School of Nursing, the
Fuqua School of Business,
School of Law,
Divinity School, and
Sanford School of Public Policy.
Undergraduate curriculum Duke offers 57 arts and sciences majors, six engineering majors, 62 minors (including one in engineering) and Program II, which allows students to design their own interdisciplinary major in arts & sciences, and IDEAS, which allows students to design their own engineering major. Twenty-two certificate programs also are available. Students pursue a major and can pursue a combination of a total of up to three, including minors, certificates, and/or a second major. Eighty percent of undergraduates enroll in the
Trinity College of Arts and Sciences. The balance enroll in Duke's
Pratt School of Engineering. Undergraduates at Duke Kunshan can choose from 15 interdisciplinary majors approved by Duke and the
Chinese Ministry of Education, and more majors are in the process of approval, including a major in behavioral science.
Trinity College of Arts and Sciences At Duke, the undergraduate experience centers around Trinity College, with Engineering students taking approximately half of their Duke common curriculum within Trinity. Engineering students are able to enroll in any classes within the liberal arts college, and Trinity students are able to enroll in any classes within the engineering college. The undergraduate curriculum includes a focus on the humanities.
The Graduate School trains roughly 1200 doctoral and masters students in the arts and sciences as well as in
divinity,
engineering,
business, and
environmental and earth sciences. Trinity's curriculum operates under the "Arts & Sciences Curriculum". All first-year students participate in a First-Year Experience, which consists of a set of three interconnected courses that explore a topic from multiple perspectives (including one first-year writing course) as well as experiential activities. First-year students can elect to participate in Constellations or FOCUS clusters to fulfill their first-year experience requirement.
Pratt School of Engineering The curriculum of Duke's Pratt School of Engineering, significantly transformed in recent years, immerses students in design, computing, research, and
entrepreneurship — but still accommodates educational opportunities, including double majors, in a variety of disciplines from across Duke. The school emphasizes undergraduate research opportunities with faculty. Research and design opportunities arise through a real-world design course for first-year students, internships, independent study and research fellowships, and through design-focused capstone courses. More than 60 percent of Duke Engineering undergraduates have an intensive research experience during their four years, and nearly a fifth publish or present a research paper off-campus. Nearly 54 percent of Duke Engineering undergraduates intern or study abroad. Eighty-five percent have jobs or job offers at the time of graduation. Since July 2018, Duke engineering students have held the
Guinness World Record for inventing the world's most fuel-efficient vehicle – powered by a fuel cell, it achieved 14,573 miles per gallon equivalent. In 2019, Duke Engineering students earned a second
Guinness World Record for the world's most efficient all-electric vehicle – 797 miles per
kilowatt-hour. Research expenditures at Duke Engineering exceed $88 million per year. Its faculty is highly ranked in overall research productivity among U.S. engineering schools by
Academic Analytics. More than 30 Duke alumni and faculty have been elected to the prestigious
National Academy of Engineering since its founding in 1964. The school was created by Duke's board of trustees in 1939. It was named in 1999 following a $35 million gift by
Edmund T. Pratt Jr., a 1947 graduate and former chief executive of
Pfizer. Duke University Pratt School of Engineering celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2014–2015. Hudson Hall is the oldest
engineering building at Duke, constructed in 1948. It was renamed to honor Fitzgerald S. "Jerry" Hudson (E'46) in 1992. The
Fitzpatrick Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, Medicine and Applied Sciences (FCIEMAS) opened in August 2004.
Research facilities focus on the fields of
photonics,
bioengineering, communications, and
materials science and
materials engineering. The aim of the building was to emphasize interdisciplinary activities and encourage cross-departmental interactions. The building houses numerous wet bench
laboratories (highlighted by a world-class
nanotechnology research wing), offices, teaching spaces, and a café. It is located at Research Drive and Telcom Drive next to
Bostock Library, also houses Duke Engineering's
entrepreneurship initiatives. The building's name recognizes lifetime philanthropic and service contributions of Duke Engineering alumnus Jerry C. Wilkinson and family.
Duke Kunshan University campus in
Kunshan, China Duke Kunshan hosts the newest of Duke's undergraduate programs, with its curriculum focused heavily on interdisciplinary coursework and majors—described as a "research-inflected liberal arts experience". The curriculum is rooted in seven "animating principles", among them Rooted Globalism, Collaborative Problem-Solving, Research and Practice, Lucid Communication, Independence and Creativity, Wise Leadership, and A Purposeful Life. The campus also hosts five Master's programs administered by Duke's graduate schools, including Medical Physics, Global Health, Environmental Policy, Management Studies and Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Libraries and museums Duke Libraries includes the Perkins, Bostock, and Rubenstein Libraries on
West Campus, the Lilly and Music Libraries on
East Campus, the Pearse Memorial Library at
Duke Marine Lab, and the separately administered libraries serving the schools of
business,
divinity,
law,
medicine, and
Duke Kunshan University. Duke's art collections are housed at the
Nasher Museum of Art on Central Campus. The museum was designed by
Rafael Viñoly and is named for Duke alumnus and art collector
Raymond Nasher. The museum opened in 2005 at a cost of over $23 million and contains over 13,000 works of art, including works by William Cordova,
Marlene Dumas,
Olafur Eliasson,
David Hammons,
Barkley L. Hendricks,
Christian Marclay,
Kerry James Marshall,
Alma Thomas,
Hank Willis Thomas,
Bob Thompson,
Kara Walker,
Andy Warhol,
Carrie Mae Weems,
Ai Weiwei,
Fred Wilson, and
Lynette Yiadom Boakye.
Research The
National Science Foundation ranked Duke 9th among American universities for research and development expenditures in 2022 with $1.39 billion. In fiscal year 2021, Duke received $608 million in funding from the
National Institutes of Health, ranked third in the nation. Duke is
classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity." Throughout the school's history, Duke researchers have made breakthroughs, including the biomedical engineering department's development of the world's first real-time, three-dimensional ultrasound diagnostic system and the first engineered blood vessels and stents. In 2015, Paul Modrich shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of mechanism of DNA repairs. In 2012,
Robert Lefkowitz along with
Brian Kobilka, who is also a former affiliate, shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry for their work on cell surface receptors. Duke has pioneered studies involving nonlinear dynamics, chaos, and complex systems in physics. In May 2006 Duke researchers mapped the final human chromosome, which made world news as it marked the completion of the
Human Genome Project. Reports of Duke researchers' involvement in new AIDS vaccine research surfaced in June 2006. The biology department combines two historically strong programs in botany and zoology, while one of the divinity school's leading theologians is
Stanley Hauerwas, whom
Time named "America's Best Theologian" in 2001. The graduate program in literature boasts several internationally renowned figures, including
Fredric Jameson,
Michael Hardt, and
Rey Chow, while philosophers Robert Brandon and
Lakatos Award-winner
Alexander Rosenberg contribute to Duke's ranking as the nation's best program in philosophy of biology, according to the
Philosophical Gourmet Report.
Rankings and reputation Undergraduate rankings In 2016,
The Washington Post ranked Duke seventh overall based on the accumulated weighted average of the rankings from
U.S. News & World Report,
Washington Monthly,
Wall Street Journal/
Times Higher Education,
Times Higher Education (global),
Money and
Forbes. Duke is
accredited by the
Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Duke is often labeled as an
Ivy Plus and
Southern Ivy institution due to its similar academic excellence and social prestige of the eight Northeast
Ivy League universities and institutions. In 2021, Duke was ranked fifth in the
Wall Street Journal/
Times Higher Education College Rankings, having risen five places in the past year. In addition, Duke was ranked second for student outcomes, tied with
Harvard,
M.I.T., and
Stanford. The rankings take into account graduation rate, teaching reputation, graduate salaries, and student debt. In 2020, Duke was ranked 22nd in the world by
U.S. News & World Report and 20th in the world by the
Times Higher Education World University Rankings.
QS World University Rankings ranked Duke 61st in the world for its 2025 rankings. Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) ranked Duke 20th globally in its 2020–21 report. Duke was ranked 28th best globally by the
Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) in 2019, focusing on quality of scientific research and the number of Nobel Prizes. The 2010 report by the
Center for Measuring University Performance puts Duke at sixth in the nation. Duke also ranked 34th in the world and 12th in the country on
Times Higher Educations global employability ranking in 2021. Duke ranks fifth among national universities to have produced
Rhodes, Marshall,
Truman, Goldwater, and Udall Scholars. As of 2022, Duke graduates have received 20
Churchill Scholarships to the
University of Cambridge. As of 2020, Duke has produced 8
Mitchell Scholars.
Kiplingers
50 Best Values in Private Universities 2013–14 ranks Duke at fifth best overall after taking financial aid into consideration. In a 2016 study by
Forbes, Duke ranked 11th among universities in the United States that have produced billionaires and first among universities in the South.
Forbes magazine ranked Duke seventh in the world on its list of 'power factories' in 2012. Duke was ranked 17th on
Thomson Reuters' list of the world's most innovative universities in 2015. The ranking graded universities based on patent volume and research output among other factors. In 2015,
NPR ranked Duke first on its list of "schools that make financial sense". In 2016,
Forbes ranked Duke sixth on its list of "Expensive Schools Worth Every Penny".
Graduate school rankings Duke has been named one of the top universities for graduate outcomes several years in a row, having tied with
Harvard University and
Yale University. In
U.S. News & World Reports "America's Best Graduate Schools 2023–2024", Duke's medical school ranked 5th in research. The School of Law was also ranked 5th in those same rankings, with Duke's nursing school ranked 2nd while the
Sanford School of Public Policy ranked fifth in Public Policy Analysis for 2019. Among business schools in the United States, the
Fuqua School of Business is ranked tied for tenth overall by
U.S. News & World Report for 2020, while
BusinessWeek ranked its full-time MBA program first in the nation in 2014. The graduate programs of Duke's
Pratt School of Engineering ranked 24th in the U.S. by
U.S. News & World Report in its 2020 rankings. == Student life ==