Duke University, USA

Spread over 8,000 acres in North Carolina, Duke is ranked among America’s top 10 universities by US News & World Report and among the top 20 in the QS World University rankings

A top-ranked private teaching and research varsity in the US, Duke University (estb. 1924) offers a comprehensive range of undergraduate and postgraduate study programmes across ten academic schools. Spread over 8,000 acres in Durham in North Carolina state, Duke is ranked among the country’s Top 10 universities by the US News & World Report (2012) and the Top 20 worldwide in the QS World University Rankings 2011. According to The Huffington Post, Duke is one of the ten toughest universities in the US to get into, based on admissions data. For instance, for the undergraduate programmes of 2015, it received 29,724 applications of which 3,864 were accepted. Currently 6,526 undergrads are enroled in its Trinity College of Arts & Sciences and Pratt School of Engineering, while its postgraduate and professional schools — business, divinity, engineering, the environment, law, medicine, nursing and public policy — have 8,220 students on their muster rolls.

“The spirit of Duke manifests itself in collaborations across academic discip-lines, research that changes lives, and a lively student body whose innovation in cheering on sports teams is matched only by its innovation in class and community work,” says Richard H. Brodhead, president of the university.

Duke U (formerly Trinity College) was established in 1924 by James Buchanan Duke, a tobacco millionaire, in memory of his father, Washington. The provisions of James B. Duke’s $40 million (Rs.220 crore) indenture in 1924 was Duke’s initial endowment. Since then the endowment corpus of this 88-year-old varsity has ballo-oned to $5.7 billion, (Rs.31,350 crore) in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2011. Consequently Duke follows a needs-blind admission policy, which means it admits students on merit and offers means tested part and full scholarships. Currently almost 50 percent of all Duke students receive financial aid.

Durham. Located midway between the Great Smoky Mountains and  beaches of the Atlantic in the state of North Carolina, Durham (pop. 262,715) offers students and visitors 300 restaurants, more than 40 annual festivals, the Duke and North Carolina Central universities, Durham Bulls Triple-A baseball, art and science museums, and world-class medical facilities. In the late 19 th century, Durham was nicknamed ‘Bull City’ when the Blackwell Tobacco Company named its product ‘Bull’ Durham Tobacco. For many decades ‘Bull City’ prospered as a manufacturing and processing centre for the tobacco and textiles industries, but has since transformed into a hub of high-tech industry and medicine.

The weather in Durham is marked by warm and humid summers, cool winters, mild spring and autumn. The latter part of July and August can get quite hot and humid, while January is cold (snowfall once or twice per year).

Campus facilities. Duke’s 8,000-acre campus includes 6,000 acres of the splendid Duke Forest, with the remaining 2,000 hosting quads, open lawns, woodlands, hollows, gardens, athletic fields, a golf course, plazas, parking lots and excellent roads network. Vast and complex, old and new, functional and scenic, the Duke campus hosts 29 halls of residence, 77 academic and research buildings, and 114 athletic, medical and other buildings. Its main attractions are the 55-acre landscaped and woodland Sarah P. Duke Gardens, Duke Chapel (210-ft-tall tower dominating the varsity’s Gothic architecture), the Nasher Museum of Art, the Duke Lemur Center (the only university-based facility in the world devoted to the study of prosimian primates, which hosts the world’s largest colony of endangered primates) and the Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture.

The Duke libraries comprise the William R. Perkins Library and its four branches, together with university archives and separately administered libraries serving the schools of business, divinity, law, and medicine. The libraries’ services and resources include more than 6 million volumes, 18 million manuscripts, 168,000 electronic resources, more than 115,000 items in digital collections, and tens of thousands of films and videos.

Sports facilities include two multi-purpose rooms for aerobics, martial arts, yoga; ten tennis courts; racquetball courts; Cameron Indoor Stadium (basketball); Taishoff, a 25-yard eight-lane racing pool with 7-ft lanes; weight room with 150 exercise machines; West Grass fields for rugby, soccer and frisbee; West Turf fields for lacrosse and soccer; Williams’ fields for soccer, field hockey and flag football. The campus also houses 26 eateries and 11 restaurants.

Moreover, an exhaustive range of social and cultural activities are offered by over 400 student clubs and organisations.

Admission. Duke accepts either the Common or Universal College applications. Each of them includes a form for personal, educational, and testing information, plus forms for teacher evaluation, school report, mid-year report and optional artistic supplement. Additionally, the Duke Student Supplement needs to be completed and submitted with an application fee of $75 (Rs.4,125).

The minimum eligibility requirement for admission into Duke’s under-graduate programmes is completion of Plus Two. In addition, all applicants are required to complete either the College Board Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) or American College Prog-ram (ACT) test. Applicants to the Pratt School of Engineering must also write one SAT Subject Test in mathematics. Those who choose to write ACT should take it with the writing exam.  Moreover all foreign students must submit proof of proficiency in the English language — TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) or the IELTS (International English Language Testing System) scores.

The deadline for submission of completed applications is January 2 for the academic year beginning in September. For further information contact Office of Undergraduate Admissions, 2138 Campus Drive, Box 90586, Durham, NC 27708. Tel: (919) 684-3214; email: undergrad-admissions@ duke.edu; website: www.duke.edu.

Accommodation. All undergraduate students admitted into Duke are guaranteed four years of on-campus housing. First-year students live in residential halls on East Campus, while sophomores live in houses (clusters of hall sections on West Campus or apartments on Central campus). All halls of residence are co-ed and staffed with residence coordinators, graduate residents, and residential assistants.

Degree programmes. Duke’s ten schools offer a wide range of bachelors, Masters and doctoral programmes (see box).

Summiya Yasmeen