Introduction : Julia and Mark discuss two admission trends they have noticed this year

Mark interviews Dean Christoph Guttentag, Understanding How Duke Makes Admissions Decisions. Part 1 of 3:

• Christoph discusses how the admission file reading process works at Duke
• Christoph answers the question, if Duke allows one admission officer to auto deny a student without any other admission officers reading the file, does that open up the door for the biases of that one reader to have too much influence in admission decisions
• Christoph answers the question, what percentage of students are academically qualified and has this number gone down now that they are test-optional
• Christoph answers the question, if a student is a test-optional applicant but they come from a school that offers a lot of AP’s, does it up the ante for the student to do well on their AP exams
• Christoph unpacks the difference between being a competitive applicant versus being a compelling applicant
• Christoph shares the personal qualities that Duke looks for in an applicant

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