Asking Duke Students How They Got Into Duke | GPA, SAT/ACT, Extracurriculars, Essays & More

hello guys first of all it is so pretty outside please admire the sunset anyways for those of you who don't know me my name is christina yo and i'm a sophomore here at duke university i'm studying statistics with a concentration in data science with a minor in biology and the innovation and entrepreneurship certificate today i'm going to be going around campus asking duke students how they got and to do let's go [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] okay so do you just want to introduce yourself maybe um your name where you're from and what you want to study here at duke my name is lindsey weingart i'm from miami florida and i'm planning on studying environmental engineering nice a pratt star yeah for sure so my name is dia panjavi i'm from dallas texas but originally new jersey and i'm currently studying biomedical engineering and finance so hi my name is jasper and uh i come from china well i lived in china for a few years but i'm originally from california slash arizona i want to study political science probably okay super interesting amelia cordero i'm from miami florida and i'm studying biomedical engineering in the school pat engineers definitely very respectable i'm karen i'm from northern virginia i went to freedom high school and i plan on studying public policy here at duke so my name's chloe and i'm from murphy north carolina which is a small town in the western north carolina and right now i'm planning to study public policy so first we can just go into stats so what was your like sat in act if you took them maybe your gpa and then ap classes that you took yeah so my sct i got a 1580 i think and then my gpa was like 3.9 something unweighted i don't really know i forgot i think the main factor with gpa is that i took a lot of ap classes in high school we didn't have like a weighted system but you know you can see on the transcript and stuff so i think that held a lot of weight so i think i took around like 10 to 15 ap classes and then i took a test i think i scored pretty good on those like mainly fives and fours yeah so um i didn't take the act only took the sat and i got a 15 20 when you super scored them and i applied to college my gpa was a 4.65 weighted um we didn't really do unweighted thank you i think i took um seven ap classes uh but i only took the ap exams for six of them got a 34 on the act i had a 398 unweighted i had a 5-2 waited and then i had like 13 ap classes that i took i did fail some of them though so don't worry about that 13 is a ton dang that's pretty that's pretty impressive so i did take a lot of ap classes in high school but not as much as you know some people did like i didn't take ap bio or um ap chemistry or any of like the crazy hard ones for stats i got a 14 1420 on my sat which i did not submit because it was test optional i never took the act and i had a 4.2 gpa i forgot that your your year was test optional so that probably changed things as well so i took both the sat and the act but i decided to turn in the act super scored a 34 so i took multiple times the act and turned in that 34. my ct wasn't that high so i decided to hold that back gpa i ended with a 3.86 when i submitted i was top 10 in my class so that i think that helped as it comes for aps i took a lot i think 12 13. i'm not too sure i'm not too sure but i think those were how many i took and i had like a good range three fours and fives i passed all of them but not all fives that's impressive the 12 ap test epa unweighted i had a 4.0 and then waited i had a round of 4.55 if i remember correctly um then i only took the act and my composite score was a 35 and i did not do the writing section and my school actually didn't offer ap classes so i didn't have any ap scores to submit i had technically like honors courses so i did all of those which counted for like 4.5 credit and then my school actually was connected to like a local community college so a lot of us did dual enrollment and graduated technically with our like associate's degrees okay that's super cool i guess now we can go into extracurriculars what were you like most involved in inside of school or outside of school and what are you like passionate about i guess yeah for sure so i did kind of that same extracurriculars that a lot of people do i was vice president of nhs i had student council debate band my school's broadcasting thing involved in a little bit of everything because i could never find quite what i was super passionate about um i did do robotics we made it to worlds a few times so that might have helped but what i really think pushed me over the edge was the fact that i modeled for hollister and so photography and modeling in general as well as fashion is something that i'm very passionate about and being able to take what you're passionate about and put it to a global scale so for example in hollister i was able to use that platform of millions of people to go live on their instagram and talk about important topics to me like mental wellness and diversity and the importance of voting being able to reach a large audience in high school really helps push me forward into the minds of the duke admissions people what i would say is you don't have to do something that specific as modeling for hollister like i like i did i really think it's just about taking what you specifically are passionate about and seeing how you can use that to make the most difference and that's really something that i think they look for yeah for sure i think definitely that like helped you stand out a lot which is definitely what people look for my big things in high school were marching band and track so i did marching band for three years and i was a rank leader for two of those years and then i did indoor and outdoor track for four seasons each and those were the main things i did but i also spent three years doing unified sports which is like athletics with students of varying abilities three years of model un and i was also super active in my church like with the worship band and stuff like that i've been doing science olympiad ever since fourth grade so i have been going at that all of high school and my school usually went to nationals and all that so i i was most um i guess active in science olympia but i also did other stuff like club volleyball for a year i did figure skating for a good portion of my life i was also part of honor societies so because i'm hispanic so hispanic honor society science honors society national honor society and i think that's a good overview i would jump in in clubs every now and then but i think those were like the main ones i focused on in my application yeah so at my school i was mostly involved in student governments and the women's soccer team which i did all four years um sort of like throughout the four years i like grew in my leadership roles like off campus outside of school i was very involved in service through my church sort of had a long-term commitment throughout the four years of high school but then i grew in my leadership roles throughout i think like consistency is really important at least like what i've observed and it's nice to like be part of the same organization and see it grow as well so i played three varsity sports if you count bowling as a sport also so i did basketball flag football and bowling i was also president of technology student association and involved ish in student council but it wasn't really my my thing but i'm actually surprised because i feel like to get into like a top school like duke you had to be like super involved in like some really big activity where i have like a big award like want a tournament or something but that wasn't really the case for me so like i hope this gives you a little hope you know obviously my scores are high and stuff but a lot of times people have the perception like you have to have extremely like spectacular activity but for me i just basically i did some community service i worked with this like organization called mother's english and we basically taught english to like underprivileged children throughout china i had some leadership positions like i was treasurer for like nhs i was like in my school student government head of the debate club there but my school was wasn't really that big so it's not too impressive but you know just have some like basic like leadership uh positions at school maybe try to do like some community service outside if you're not like too spectacularly good at like debating or like whatever tournament there is that's true i think that there are like a lot of different ways to get into college i feel like people think you have to like be the best at everything but i mean if you like have a good balance of things um i think it works out as well um what did you if you remember what did you write like your common app essay on um maybe like your why duke essay and how was that process like for my common app i spoke about how my life is very hectic actually um coming from miami it's a very diverse town so i kind of compared miami to myself where i'm just very diverse in general i also spoke about my brother who has autism so i got to talk about that part of my life as well mixed in with my hectic miami life so i just compared myself to to being such a diverse person and having so many takes on things as for the white duke it's kind of funny really i spoke about how i'm a nascar fan and north carolina is like the home of nascar one of the homes so i was like i think i want to go to duke because nascar and i like it and when my family comes down we can go to the races and see and see like the nascar headquarters for the teams um but i also did speak about how i was planning to be an engineer and duke is one of the best engineering schools so those were the two things i talked about but i think that um yeah nascar and north carolina i think that was like really what bought to get to choose i'm an app i wrote like three or four different essays before like finally settling on like this is the one my common app is actually like it seems really weird when you think about it but i work at a like ice cream shop during the summers and i did that throughout high school she wrote about a conversation i had with like some of the other girls who i worked with and we were all like talking about what ice cream flavors we would be and so they all sort of like gave me an ice cream flavor and i was like an arctic swirl which is sort of like a mcflurry or something and so i sort of related that to like being multifaceted and having all these different components like to myself but then all of those together like being powerful and strong and like this one good perfect combination um when everything's grouped together my advice for the common app is like you can write about anything and just connect it to like larger themes and that would be like that's that'll work you know for my why duke essay i tried to make it sort of as specific as possible because they're like every single essay they're gonna get is gonna be like oh we really love duke it's beautiful so sort of trying to make it specific to like your interests and some of the things that you did throughout high school um talked about certain professors who were involved in like their public policy school since that was like an interest of mine going in like i wrote it as if i was a senior at duke writing to myself then so i tried to sort of like do a little bit of a unique spin on it also like playing some mind games yeah that's what i want to be in and this is what i'm doing yeah my comment at best i wrote about it was really basic topic it was right but i wrote about like walking to school and how i'm more like an international like multicultural type of person and how when i walked to school it was about like a 40 minute walk so i would like go through all these different like sections on the way for example like i lived in like the mountains area so like the first section would be like the farm in mountain area and then i would go into like more suburbs and then like the varsity vibes and then i'd go like down this tunnel and stuff and like you know every metaphor yeah yeah yeah it was kind of like a big metaphor like every section was like something different and i don't know what the bigger message was but you know there was some illustrious writing there why duke essays i actually didn't think my duke essays were particularly strong because like i wrote them really fast because i didn't realize there was like a priority interview deadline and i realized the day before it's like i rushed it that night and compared to my other college essays like it was probably like one of the worst so i'm actually really surprised that they actually worked out i did something with basic like i looked up some like specific professors or programs i was interested i think i talked about like some like social science research institute i want to get involved with obviously i'm not involved with that so you don't have to you don't have to tell the absolute truth you know maybe down the line yeah you're not committing to anything in the essays but you know try to be like specific don't say stuff general like although school has a lot of research opportunities so like every school has that at that at this type of level so create an essay that really distinguishes duke from all the other schools and why you specifically want to go there what specific actions do you want to take there you know what impacts will you specifically have on the duke community so i wrote my common app essay about my guitar that i actually got like not too long before the college application process and how learning guitar was like a really healing experience for me and it was just a larger thing about music and like emotion and confidence and stuff like that and then my why duke essay was actually about dumb um and how i loved marching band a lot in high school and like the culture of marching band being super like energetic and spirited and how i wanted to keep doing that here and um just continue that thing i love so much from high school i am currently um doing dumb and it is so so so much fun i guess essays what did you like write your common app essay on um maybe your why duke essay and if you remember i wrote my comment up essay about superheroes just like i felt like they lived a double life and i felt like i lived a little life and i kind of just had it in how like like people only see what you let them see and they don't see what happens in the background so my why duke essay i wrote about like the basketball and the engineering and all like the fun stuff it's like small it's a community like i know all like i know a lot of the freshmen it's a really big community here so for sure for my common app essay i'm really into football so i literally wrote about the seattle seahawks and look at where i ended up so just write about what genuinely drives you and just is a part of you like what what do you feel like is most important to you that you want to convey to the admissions office and i guess like after you got in why did you end up choosing do you or did you edit here or or any other process so i'm a very special case where i got off the wait list okay so i think most people from my year can confirm that our year was one of the most competitive yeah right it was less seats available more people applying so that wasn't a great combo i got wait listed in many universities so like princeton yale duke i was initially planning to go to my state school but i i still took the wait list and still said i'm still willing to to apply again and send the emails because usually when you get waitlisted you have to send an email to the state representative that represents the university it's like giving another form of application where you send an email saying i still want to go because this isn't this and you should choose me because of this this and this it was much more stressful i will say because then you do have to submit your grades again and as a senior once you get into the school you stop caring about someone i got wait listen i was like god okay i still have to focus and i'm seeing physics so i was like and in the end um it was my mother who convinced me to come to duke because again i was planning to go to uf which is my state school and it was going to be in quotations cheaper duke is still helping me financially but it's it's i guess the cheaper option in between the two and it's in state all that right so i was okay with going to my state school but because of my mom and she's like you worked hard we both worked hard because it was obviously a family effort you deserve to go so you should definitely go to duke and she was honestly my push to to not ed here because my parents didn't want to commit to paying that much money right off the bat which i think is the issue a lot of people had with it but duke was definitely my dream school i loved their duke engage program which is where it's fully funded you go over the summer for eight weeks to another country and it's a transformative experience where you spend the entire time doing community service and another thing that i really loved about duke is that they're so interdisciplinary so if i'm in engineering and i want to take english classes or get a double major with english i can i don't have to apply to a whole different english or business school whatever it is i choose to do you can really cultivate your own education and study what you're passionate about no matter how diverse the fields are yeah so i did actually apply early decision um duke has been my dream school since like middle school and the big thing for why duke was i wanted to obviously go to an academically rigorous school but i really wanted to have an athletic scene um i think that also comes from like marching band and having teams to support just a school with a lot of school um spirit as well because no shade but like some of the other top 10 schools don't really have like an athletic scene or the social scene i desired um i've always known i wanted to go into policy so duke has a specific school stanford school of public policy so that appealed to me additionally i've always when i don't want to go to a super big college so duke's size was just perfect also the campus is absolutely gorgeous you can see in our background the chapel and finally just like the geography i don't like the cold so north carolina was a good place for me that's that's very true i didn't think about that before i came but definitely appreciate it a lot now well for college applications i kind of just like shotgun a lot of schools because you know because of covid all the acceptance rates were going down so i was like i gotta like shoot my shot anywhere i can so duke wasn't like i didn't particularly apply to duke thinking i was gonna get in and really want to go but like i'm more applied to like a lot of schools that have like that are really selective and duke was like what i got into and i got to some other schools but i chose duke because it was like by far the best one other things good about the area the campus is amazing that's what i've really enjoyed like just walking around and stuff and people are friendly everyone's collaborative there's not really much stress or competitiveness that i'd say are more present in other top schools at least that i've heard about so that's really nice i mean the professors and the connections here are amazing like i've got to meet all these different types of people that you know i'm studying political science so like just like a few weeks ago like the top general chiefs of staff came down yeah yeah so you know there's all these different there's all these different programs and stuff to like take advantage of to really like build your connections or just learn a lot from like the best people on the planet so um you kind of have to like go seek them out because there's so much but i feel like when you do it's like a really great school so i did not ed anywhere because my mom was like you can't eat somewhere you haven't seen and then so i regular decisions here and then i ended up getting a likely letter two days before admissions so like we prepare to offer you admission i was like first i thought it was a scam that was fake and then i came to visit right after i got my likely letter and i'm like i had visited some other schools and i just like they weren't doing it for me and i got on campus here and i physically like exhaled like it just somewhere like okay like i know this is where i want to be and now i'm here and i've never been more grateful for a decision in my life that's awesome to hear campus is definitely like really beautiful i remember the first time i like walked on campus too and i was like this is like unlike any other campus i visited so i visited duke the summer before my junior year so like pre-covered so i was able to do a tour and everything and i'm just walking around campus and being like oh wow this is like magical this is so cool um i did i decided to sort of like go all the way and apply early decision um and ended up working out which was like so exciting you've been here for a semester has you been what you like expected it to be like what has your semester been like here so duke is probably like i've probably had the best like three months of my life here i've made so many awesome friends we've done so many funny things we started ventures on east i don't know if you know about mentors oh did you guys steal this we did steal a bench so if you don't know who stole it it was us we have just as much fun on a tuesday night than we have going out on a saturday and it's just the little things that matter like you go and you play like just dance in the common room or you're dancing on the pool table it's those things that like you just wouldn't get if you went to a huge school and i feel like i know a lot of the freshman class there's not that many of us so we like see each other around all the time it creates a lot of sense of community that i feel like you wouldn't get other places that's awesome to hear and i've really enjoyed it so far the people here are awesome there's like people from all over i come from a small town where i graduated college with most of the people that i went to high school with and so here it's been super cool just like getting to meet people from all over with such different experiences i know academically it's been a bit of an adjustment because the classes here are a lot like more difficult than the classes i had in high school people here are really willing to help and so like if you put the effort in you can definitely like go all the way shins are like duke was a great choice things happen for a reason in my opinion and i think this was the best option because with duke you have both academics and school spirit like the athletics and all that which i think duke is the only school that has that because if you think of big schools like harvard or columbia they only have academics which is perfectly fine academics is a huge part when it comes to my career right with engineering and being pre-dental but with duke you have that academic and you have that school spirit so um our duke basketball team right this year we've been doing surprisingly well like all of their athletics you know people like to be here because of so many different things right like have great resources when it comes to classes but we also have that like i'm proud to be part of duke thing so i think i like that i've been enjoying myself and the classes are fun as an engineer it's very hands-on so i i definitely recommend if you want to be an engineer to come to duke because all the things i've been doing for my engineering classes have just been phenomenal like we're building stuff we're already getting into the gist of things and i'm a freshman right so it's just been a pleasant experience it's usually hard to say that something meets your expectations when my expectations from my dream school had been growing for literally years i wanted to come here so badly but it really surpassed my expectations in that i would say it's it's not just a school known for its academic rigor it's very much work hard play hard i never really feel super burnt out from all the work i have to do because i have those outlets where you know screaming at the duke basketball games or like going out with my friends there's so much to do and so many different ways that people have fun here so i really think that balancing the social and work aspects which duke works hard to let you um be able to do is really important and really one of the reasons why i love it here for sure i think duke definitely encompasses the work hard play hard mentality um i think that everyone just like does both of those equally which is really nice and the last question what is like one piece of advice you would give anyone who's like applying to college right now or even like waiting for admissions do your research beforehand on every school you apply to find something you like about everyone and only apply to schools where you know you would be truly happy there because otherwise if you get in and you you're not confident about your decision it's it's just obviously wasting your time and wasting your money and if you really research and find a school where you know you're passionate about each thing there i would say that you have the best shot of being happy there and something else i would say is that if you're researching you know like you read about programs and you find yourself looking for those programs that you saw at one school at other schools that may be a sign that you really like the original school which is how i came to love duke so much and i would also say that in your application just be completely yourself because they can see what's genuine and what's not um as you're finishing up applications i would just say to be genuine um in your like essay responses i was like bored the other day and read through like my why duke and common app essays and they weren't like the most sophisticated or elegant things i've ever written but i think that my voice and personality really shone through and that's what mattered and also just like stay organized and keep all your files together i know i reused a ton of my college app essays for like scholarships later on don't stress out too much everything happens for a reason um it'll work out um and just take this time to like make new memories with your family and friends um in your last year of high school some advice i would give if you're still writing your applications was don't talk about things that are in your activities tab in your essays they're in another place for a reason make sure your essays make sure that you shine through as a person admissions officers are reading you from a piece of paper you have to make it seem like you're worth coming out of the page and also for the waiting process don't be like don't get discouraged when people start getting into like their schools of their choice like you will be where you're supposed to be biggest advice is like provide context for like what your accomplishments are for example i got like a citizenship award in like the fall of my senior year but instead of just saying like oh i got chosen for the citizen citizenship award try to provide like out of how many students and like how exactly you were nominated but like the more context you can provide and like how you did well within your own like personal setting i think the better like it comes across to the admissions counselor another thing too that i feel like helped me was um throughout senior year like i got like names for like several other accomplishments or awards like within my high school within my community and i like sent in updates for my application well if you're seeing this video you're probably doing rd so obviously keep your options open it's like it's really random that you'll get in like i didn't expect i get into duke i thought i'd get into like other schools but then it turns out i got in here right so you never really know what's gonna happen so i'd say like you know apply to do if you really want to go but also like keep your options open apply to other schools and while you're waiting just try to not think about it because it's going to work out anyways i mean just any school in this country is just extremely strong i mean there's so many advantages to every other school so it's not terrible if you don't get in here it's kind of like keep that off your mind and when the day comes you'll finally realize where you're gonna end up and you're gonna realize that it's actually not that bad yeah it's like not that big of a deal after i feel like in the process it's like consumes your life for like a week after it's just like oh i got into school i didn't get in um and then you kind of move on so try sorry to get into a top school but once you're here like no one really cares that they're at top school you know it's like it's a good school but like you're still yourself to study and it's just an institution at the end of the day this upcoming year for for the students of 2022 you guys are also going to face a similar situation like ours not as competitive but still very competitive compared to the other years one apply to as many schools as you can and duke wasn't my number one choice people might have dream schools and if you get in gray if not you have so many other options i wasn't supposed to fly to duke but my parents forced speed replied to duke but now here i am unexpectedly and i am enjoying every moment of it so definitely apply to as many schools and even to the schools where you're like it's a good school but i don't think i'll go still do it because life is very unexpected and you will end up in places you didn't expect to end up be yourself you want to talk about what it is what's not on the paper you don't you don't want to talk about your numbers they already see that they already see your scores they already see your grades they even with your grades they already see like what you're leaning towards right like if you have better grades in science and reading then obviously they'll know like okay this person's a science person so you should talk about what they don't see they don't see my miami life they don't see that i am i have a brother with autism they don't see that i like nascar right curriculars i know it's so hard to not talk about them in your papers but sometimes you just gotta so that you know duke and all the other universities you're applying to sees more and has more to work on and think about those that get wait listed being a waitlisted person don't lose hope still keep trying and not super hard because as a senior you just want to be over with it and just go with whatever you've been given but the hard work pays off so if you truly want to go to good school and you've been wait listed in all these schools still try it and people do say it's very hard to get off the waitlist but again because of how difficult times i've been with kovit and all that they're being much more generous to waitlisted students and for my ed people who get um deferred i don't lose hope again because just doing edies so respectable i didn't do edie i just did already i mean you have three shots if you do get wait listed after rd so yeah eddie right here edie regular then wait listen don't don't be afraid to keep showing your interest i think i think i called duke like two times i was like so when do i know when i'm going in and they just put on your paper like oh she called two times so she's clearly showing interest so just as long as you keep working it will pay off things happen for a reason so if you just keep doing that i'm sure you'll get it i hope this helps you guys and thank you so much karen yeah thank you so much and um i'm sure everyone finds this really helpful yeah i hope so well thank you so much well thank you so much hopefully this is helpful for you guys and thank you so much yeah no problem well thank you so much of course yeah good luck to everyone applying [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Christina Yoh

Views: 52,170

Keywords: college, university, college admission, college admissions, how i got into duke, duke university, duke basketball, how i got in, ivy league, asking duke students, college life, asking students, students, college students, united states, harvard, yale, stanford, mit

Id: gEau4PI5mP4

Length: 29min 24sec (1764 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 09 2021