At least three of the most popular study abroad programs among Duke undergraduates have switched to a lottery-based application system for next year after the Global Education Office imposed a 50-student cap on each Duke-approved study abroad program.
Students say the caps are now forcing them to choose programmes that don’t meet their academic needs and to make hasty decisions about where to study abroad. Duke-approved programmes, which are run by other universities or providers and are approved for transfer credit, did not have application caps in previous years.
The GEO runs a standard lottery application for the three most historically popular programmes: IES Madrid, DIS Copenhagen and NYU in Florence. In autumn 2023, there are at least 140 students studying at IES Madrid, 75 students studying at DIS Copenhagen, and 50 students studying at NYU Florence, according to data obtained by The Chronicle.
These programmes are popular because they are broad enough in terms of academic offerings to accommodate students pursuing a wide range of majors, while still allowing each student to complete specific graduation requirements, students say.
“A lot of my schedule is based around [IES Madrid],” said sophomore Tate Staples. Staples explained that as an electrical and computer engineering and computer science double major, IES Madrid is the only program that allows him to complete his major requirements abroad while maintaining his early graduation schedule.
Sophomore Hannah DiMaggio, a computer science major, agreed with Staples.
“Historically, if you’re a computer science or engineering major and you want to get your major classes out of the way, which most people do – when you’re in school, you want to get your major classes out of the way – you go to [IES Madrid],” DiMaggio said.
She added that IES Madrid is also popular with business students, DIS Copenhagen is similarly popular with students looking to fulfil pre-med requirements, while NYU in Florence is often attended by arts and social science students.
Students can only enter the lottery for one of these top three programmes and can apply for a maximum of three study abroad programmes in total.
The lottery system has created an accelerated application process. For the three standard lottery programmes, students have between 12pm on 15 November and 12pm on 16 November to express their interest, “giving each interested student approximately 24 hours to open an application”. The results of the lottery for the top three programmes will be announced by 5pm on 20 November.
Duke-approved programmes outside the top three will move to a lottery process if they reach the 50 application threshold by 17 November, and will remain open until their respective deadlines or until the cap is reached.
According to the GEO, there has been a recent increase in study abroad participation concentrated in “just a few locations”, prompting the changes.
“Students in these high-volume programmes struggled to get the classes they needed because they were competing with other Duke students with similar academic needs,” wrote GEO associate director Amy Bowes. “They also experienced longer commute times due to housing availability.”
But even with the changes for next year, students say the new application policies and procedures were not made clear, and the tight timeline caused confusion.
“The first time people heard about it was about two weeks ago at the Pratt [study abroad] information session, and the cap thing was practically thrown at us,” said sophomore Elliot Beamer. “Students were basically going back and forth trying to figure out what was going on, how the lottery system worked, because it was something that we had never experienced, that no one else had experienced.”
DiMaggio echoed Beamer’s thoughts.
“Basically, if you’re like, ‘I might want to go overseas,’ you have to figure it out by [November 16],” DiMaggio said. “And then maybe you get a spot and you decide you don’t want to go abroad.”
“Maybe there’s pressure for you to go abroad because [there are] so many kids who were hoping to go to Copenhagen or Florence or Madrid, and you feel like you’re being pressured to go abroad because of that,” she added.
Staples said that the reasons given by the GEO – particularly about housing constraints – didn’t make sense to him. He said there are three different study abroad programmes in certain cities, including Edinburgh, Scotland, each of which can accommodate up to 50 Duke students, meaning that up to 150 Duke students could potentially study abroad in Edinburgh.
Several students told The Chronicle that during GEO information sessions they were told that if a student received a lottery place and decided not to take it, the place would go unfilled. With this in mind, both Beamer and Staples are concerned about how the first-choice lotteries will affect second-choice places and beyond.
Staples and Beamer both said they’re worried that many students’ second choices will coincide because groups of friends want to go abroad together, resulting in lotteries beyond the Copenhagen, Madrid and Florence programmes.
“There are about 500 people abroad right now,” Staples said. “Plus or minus the people who apply late and the people who apply and don’t go, it’s about 1,500 applications going out today.”
“Way more than three programmes they’re going to fill. I don’t trust the GEO [staff] to actually know what they’re doing,” he continued.
Beyond the applications, policies and procedures, students feel that because of the caps, their study abroad experience will be different from what they expected, even if they get into a programme that fits their interests and goals.
For DiMaggio, there are programmes outside of the popular ones in Europe – particularly in Asia and Australia – that could work for her academic goals, but she says it would be a sacrifice on the social life front.
“While I’m sure it’s an invaluable cultural experience to study there, if all of your friends are going to be in Europe and all of Duke’s study abroad culture is in Europe, you’re going to want to be in Europe,” DiMaggio said. “I don’t think it’s fair that you’re kind of resigned to either being back in the United States or being on a completely different side of the world.”
Staples agrees, saying he doesn’t “want to go abroad just to go abroad,” adding that GEO told students they could study abroad in the spring if they didn’t get their first-choice programme in the autumn.
“The incentive for students is to go as a group, not even just to be with other students. It’s because we want our schedules to match. I want to be here for camping next semester, I want to be here when other people are here,” he said.
