At a Glance
Duke admits 5.7% of applicants.
What You'll Actually Pay
See what families at different income levels actually pay after aid.
What families actually pay, by income level
After grants and scholarships. Before loans. Public school prices shown at in-state rates.
Source: College Scorecard / IPEDS, 2024-25
Where the Sticker Price Goes
Based on average need-based grant. Actual cost varies by family income — see chart above.
Debt at Graduation
40.9%
receive need-based grant aid
$27,515
average debt at graduation
Duke graduates carry an average of $27,515 in debt.
Merit Aid
151
students received merit aid
$83,644
average merit award
Getting In
Duke admits 5.7% of applicants.
Duke University's Early Decision applicants are admitted at more than 4x the rate of Regular Decision applicants — 17.3% vs 4.2%. Note: ED is binding — you commit to attending if admitted.
This school reports SAT section scores but leaves the composite range blank, so there is no mid-50% band to chart.
Mid-50% by section: Reading 740–770 · Math 760–800.
ACT — Middle 50% of those who submitted · 30% of the class submitted
92% were in the top 10% of their high school class.
What They Value
Academic
Nonacademic
Duke University gives essays less weight than many schools — academics drive most admissions decisions here. Demonstrated interest is Considered — showing genuine engagement with this school may help your application.
Student Life
71.4% of Duke classes have fewer than 20 students.
Share of undergraduate class sections at each size, from CDS Section I-3. More red = more large lectures.
At Duke, 71.4% of your classes will have fewer than 20 students.
Class size data reflects all undergraduate sections including labs, seminars, and lectures. Large research universities often have smaller upper-division and graduate-level sections that improve the overall distribution. First and second-year students typically experience larger classes than these averages suggest.
Source: Common Data Set 2024–25, Section I-3 (class sizes)
5:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus Life
From out of state (freshman class)
67.7%
Live on campus
84%
Men in fraternities
30%
Women in sororities
42%
Who Attends
Racial and ethnic breakdown of enrolled undergraduates, as reported in each school's Common Data Set. "Unknown / Other" includes students who did not report or selected "other."
Duke's student body is 35% white.
Popular Majors
Will They Graduate?
Duke graduates 87% of students in 4 years.
Graduating late means paying for extra semesters. The 6-year rate tells you who eventually finishes — the 4-year rate tells you what it actually costs.
Duke graduates 87% of students in 4 years.
What finishing late actually costs
Based on each school's published cost of attendance. Public school costs shown at in-state rates.
Duke
87%
4-yr grad rate
Most finish on time
Graduation rate data from Common Data Set 2024–25, Fall 2018 cohort (most recent available). 4-year rate = students completing in 4 years or less. 6-year rate = students completing within 6 years.
96.8%
Overall 6-yr rate
95.6%
Pell recipient rate
Lower-income students graduate at nearly the same rate as their peers — a sign of strong institutional support.
Freshman Retention
98%
98% of first-year students return for sophomore year.
City & Culture
Beyond the data — what it's actually like to spend four years in Durham.
Durham has grown from a tobacco town into one of the South's most interesting small cities, with a walkable downtown built inside restored brick warehouses and a food scene that punches well above its size. Campus has plenty of its own gravity too, between the Gothic quad and the 55-acre Duke Gardens. It suits students who want a real city attached to their college experience without the scale of Boston or Chicago; campus, downtown, and the Research Triangle are all short drives apart, so a bike plus a rideshare habit goes a long way.
Notable Alumni
Tim Cook
CEO of Apple since 2011, after earning his MBA at Duke's Fuqua School of Business.
Melinda French Gates
Co-founded the Gates Foundation and later Pivotal Ventures; earned both her bachelor's degree and her MBA at Duke.
Grant Hill
Won two national championships at Duke, then played 19 NBA seasons and entered the Basketball Hall of Fame.
Ken Jeong
Actor and comedian known for The Hangover and Community, who practiced medicine before moving to comedy full-time.
Elizabeth Dole
Served as U.S. Secretary of Transportation, Secretary of Labor, and a U.S. Senator from North Carolina.
Judy Woodruff
Anchored PBS NewsHour for over a decade and has covered every presidential election since 1976.
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
The City
Mid-size city
Durham, NC
Best For
Traditions
Krzyzewskiville
Before the home basketball game against UNC, students pitch tents outside Cameron Indoor Stadium and live there for weeks to claim seats. Tenting groups take shifts through the January cold, and a student-run committee runs periodic checks to keep it fair.
Cameron Crazies
Duke's student section packs the floor-level bleachers at Cameron Indoor and runs coordinated chants for the full game. The arena holds only about 9,000, so students sit close enough to the court that visiting players routinely call it the loudest venue they play in.
Last Day of Classes
The final day of spring classes turns into a campus-wide outdoor concert with a headliner booked by the student programming board. Classes technically still meet that morning, and attendance is famously thin.
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Durham
Asheville & the Blue Ridge Mountains
3.5 hoursMountain hiking and waterfalls, plus a small city with one of the densest brewery scenes in the country.
Wrightsville Beach
2.5 hoursThe closest stretch of Atlantic coast, and the standard warm-weather road trip for anyone with access to a car.
Raleigh
30 minutesThe state capital, with free state museums, a bigger concert circuit, and NHL hockey at the Hurricanes' arena.
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Raleigh-Durham International (RDU)
20 minutes from campus
Flies international — you can start a trip abroad from here.
Pro sports nearby
- Carolina Hurricanes NHL
- North Carolina Courage NWSL
Career Proximity
Duke sits 20 minutes from Research Triangle Park, one of the largest research campuses in the country, which makes term-time internships unusually easy to reach.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- IBM
- Cisco Systems
- Duke University Health System
- Red Hat
- Epic Games
Research Triangle Park — about 20 minutes from campus
Who Thrives Here
Duke pairs the research depth of a major university with the feel of a much smaller one — 84% live on campus and 71% of classes have fewer than 20 students. Campus life is all-in rather than optional: students camp in tents for weeks to get into the basketball game against UNC, and about a third of men and 42% of women join Greek life.