De-duplicatd headcount

I'm looking for suggestions to view de-duplicated results for university admissions application data for a selected period.

Most applicants apply for one degree program at a time. Some prospects though apply to be admitted to two programs simultaneously.  My fact table has a transaction for each application/program, and my PBI reports show the number of applications for whatever period is selected in the slicer.

Is there a way to filter this down to a de-duplicated or distinct headcount within the report? I'm looking for results that include only one instance of every applicant who applied in the selected period, and for those who applied to more than one program, the instance retained would be based on a ranking of the degrees: those with more required credit hours prefered to lower credit hour degrees. For example:

Prospect    Degree Program          Priority   In Report?
John Doe    Degree A (100 hours)    1          Yes
John Doe    Degree B (80 hours)     2          No

So if John Doe applied for thsese two programs in 2017 Q1, the 2017report would show only one. However, if John Doe applied for these two in 2017, but an earlier degree in 2013, a report showing year over year would have one result for John in 2013 and another in 2017.

Or would this best be done with a second, de-duplicated source fact table?

Thanks

Richard