March 13, 2003

Letter to the editor sent to the Wall Street Journal by Christoph Guttentag, Duke's director of undergraduate admissions, on March 12, 2003:

To The Editor,

"How Much Does It Cost To Buy Your Child In?" (WSJ March 12) unfortunately repeats a significant error from a previous Journal article (February 20)—an error that was brought directly to the Journal’s attention, which it either did not share with the reporter or which the reporter chose to ignore, and which misrepresents the practices of Duke University. The article then goes on to offer unsupported statements about admissions practices at selective colleges and universities. The readers of the Journal deserve a higher quality of reporting.

Duke does not sell admission at any price, and I do not know of a college or university that does. Moreover, contrary to your reporting, the number of cases at Duke in which the advocacy of the development office was one factor in a student’s admissions is not distinguishably different from 10 years ago. The statement in your original article that this level had increased by a factor of five or six over the past decade was incorrect, and I wrote a letter to the editor correcting that error. As the Journal noted, the number of these cases is now declining at Duke.

Your article also states specific dollar amounts that colleges and universities require for applicants to receive special treatment. In my 20 years in university admissions not once have I seen such numbers or anything like them, although I did find them amusing in their specificity. Unsubstantiated and unattributed speculation of this sort do a disservice both to educational institutions and your readers.

The admissions process at virtually all private colleges and universities represents a careful and changing balance of many competing institutional priorities, including academic excellence; extracurricular accomplishment; artistic and athletic talent; regional, national and international representation; diversity of many kinds; family ties to the institution and potential benefit to the institution in numerous realms, including financial. Each college decides for itself which factors to consider and how much weight to give each for any applicant. At Duke, the admissions decisions ultimately reflect our assessment that every student we admit is capable of meeting the high academic standards required to achieve a Duke degree.

Duke’s Web site (click here) contains the full text of President Nan Keohane’s response to your reporter’s questions about our admissions practices, as well as my earlier letter to the editor.

Sincerely,
Christoph Guttentag
Director of Undergraduate Admissions
Duke University