once i submitted my request, the reconsideration link disappeared so yep they got it. Will say that I submitted mine within 12 minutes of the portal officially opening post-R1 acceptance (lmao) and heard back a day later. So I imagine that they've got a ton of stuff to sort through now that everyone else who wants reconsideration has submitted a request. If you have a strict timeline etc. I'd recommend reaching out via email or honestly via the Slack group to get a quicker response from admissions.
when I heard back, it was via portal update (like I saw that a "new update was posted on 12/15/2025" or something) and an email a few hours later.
also fyi for anyone else doing this:
1. If you were admitted EA, you're SOL and Duke will not negotiate (source-- a few people in my network admitted to trying to leverage R1 offers against an EA admit). first of all, you were supposed to withdraw from other schools if admitted so that's just mad unethical honestly. second of all, EA is binding and Duke will not budge against other offers. They may move iff you show some kind of professional/test score update.
2. some schools allow multiple rounds of negotiating back and forth. Duke only allows one request. So, when submitting your request make sure it's the best card possible. For me, I just submitted multiple competing offers since I'd heard back from a few schools at that point. If I could do it over again, I might have also included a work update (got a slight title change + some new responsibilities) which may have moved the needle another $5K.