Duke University Undergraduate College Application Essays

I sat down on the bench, apprehensive. I hadn’t touched the ivory keys in almost eight years. Instead, I had actively avoided them, treasuring instead the strings of my violin. In debates I claimed that it was harder to play my instrument,...

I feel that I have had many advantages as a result of being raised in North Carolina. The weather is moderate, there are beautiful coastal areas, but most importantly, being in North Carolina means being close to Duke. As a born and bred North...

My childhood dreams were built beside a bookshelf. Sitting cross-legged on the library floor immersed in science fiction, I dreamt of time-traveling tesseracts, of machines intelligent enough to raise families, of lunar colonies equipped with...

Out of breath and hurting all over, I drip with sweat in the midst of a six-minute wrestling bout with my friend, James. While fighting on the bottom and gasping for air, I am reminded of Einstein’s words: “When you are courting a nice girl an...

Being Indian -- and I am 100% South Indian by birth -- is not about Bollywood or cricket for me. Rather, my culture revolves around food. Few countries can lay claim to cuisine influenced by Anglo-Saxons, Mongols, Turks, and Persians. No other...

"S-P-H-E-R-I-C-A-L," I declared. Flashing a grin to the 600-person audience, I glanced at the ink stains dotting my clasped hands. These hands had suffered for months practicing obscure words from the dictionary. One person away from winning the...

The dazzling stage lights blocked out the members of the audience, momentarily blinding me. With sweaty palms, I bowed deeply towards the crowd, symbolically expressing my gratitude. I walked slowly off the wooden stage, my long, white gown...

If I had a dollar for every time I heard, “Wait, you aren’t white?” I would probably be a millionaire. Unfortunately, dollars do not shoot at me whenever I hear that question. To clarify, I am half Puerto Rican, half Cuban, and half...

Another failed sports season passed: no hits, no touchdowns. I entered 6th grade with my dreams of becoming a jock squashed. Then my parents informed me that I was enrolling in band. Still clinging to my ESPN hopes, I warned my parents that taking...

Staring out at the rain pouring down onto the sidewalk beside the airport exit, I thought one thing. This is foreign territory. Just moments before, I had found myself facing down a horde of about 60 squealing EXO (a Kpop idol group) fangirls....

“So many emails say so little,” writes Norma Cone in her first letter to me. Her penmanship incorporates elaborate loops and smoothly conjoined letters from years of perfecting her cursive. In comparison, my script is poorly developed, a...

“It is your turn” were the four words that I, at age 12, feared would be uttered from my mother’s lips. I knew that is was only a matter of time until my mother would send me off to the Dome Market, my local market in Ghana, to purchase the “...

“Please rise for the national anthem and the presentation of the colors.” Immediately, the thousands of people attending this Memorial Day program rise in reverent silence. It’s 9:30 in morning, the sun illuminates the Star-Spangled Banner, and...

Quiet as thieves, Diego and I slipped unnoticed from the boisterous dining room full of clinking glasses and roaring parents into the warm Guatemalan night. It was the middle of the dry season but the air was heavy with the smell of sulfur....

My mother was born and raised in Vietnam. My father is a fifth-generation Californian whose family journeyed across Death Valley in the 19th century. My aunts are Taiwanese and Singaporean, and my cousin is Italian.

I was well on my way through...

One of the first dances I ever performed was a trio with my two best friends: a frivolous, cheerful number with far too many sequins, gauzy handkerchiefs disguising the awkwardness of our skinny arms. Backstage, we trembled in terror at the...

“GIMME A PIGGYBACK RIDE! HORSEY!!!!”

I scrambled to allow the giggling seven year old girl to climb onto my back. I was volunteering as a camp counselor at the Hand in Hand Chinese Cultural Summer Program, a program that introduces adopted Chinese...

‘Andrea, from Norway. Pleased to meet you.’

‘Hey. Elen from –’ I stopped short, unable to shake the hand of my to-be-roommate.

First day at high school, and I was already struggling for words to explain my identity.Born in USA. Brought up in...

I first discovered this versatile building material as a seven-year-old visiting my father's HVAC shop. While waiting for him to finish working one night, I wandered from the modestly finished space at the front of the building to the shop in...

It was uncomfortably hot, when we climbed the last bend of the mountain; another 25 minutes added to the 2 hour drive from base camp- an excruciating journey. I was leading an expedition in Almora, a rugged terrain known for its dangerous, steep...

A devoted technologist, a drama lover, a HAM freak and a Research scholar – for me, the Pratt School of Engineering would fulfill it all…

Duke’s Multi-disciplinary Engineering Program encompassing options from Materials to Fluid Mechanics is my...

Mr. M—with his bird-eye view, long-winded conversations that often dipped into digression, and signature loose Hawaiian shirts for all seasons—wasn’t your run-of-the-mill teacher.

Every other week, we took the subway somewhere: the crimson-soaked...

“The U.S. and China should work to unify the Koreas.”

Eight minutes left.

As I walk to the podium, I present myself as a confident junior. Yet in my mind, I am still a freshman, stammering through my first speech, unnerved by the seven pairs of...

In June of 1982, with the harsh sun beating down on their small, rural city, my mother’s community danced throughout the streets in her honor, making music with makeshift instruments as they moved. The quiet town, on the outskirts of Bishoftu,...