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New Duke Essay Prompt Fumbles “Fitting In” Again

Posted on July 16, 2024 by Craig Meister

Duke University has released its 2024-2025 supplemental essay prompts for first-year applicants, and for the second year in a row, a prompt about “fitting in” fails the clarity test.

Overall, Duke updated only one of its supplemental short essay prompts for applicants to its Class of 2029.

The following question continues to be required for all first-year applicants to Duke during the 2024-2025 admissions cycle:

What is your sense of Duke as a university and a community, and why do you consider it a good match for you? If there’s something in particular about our offerings that attracts you, feel free to share that as well. (250 word limit) *RETURNING FROM LAST CYCLE*

Meanwhile, the following prompts are optional, but applicants can only respond to one or two of the below prompts. Students should only respond to one or two of these prompts if they believe that doing so will add something meaningful that is not already shared elsewhere in their applications:

A. We believe a wide range of viewpoints, beliefs, and lived experiences are essential to maintaining Duke as a vibrant and meaningful living and learning community. Feel free to share with us anything in this context that might help us better understand you and what you might bring to our community. *RETURNING FROM LAST CYCLE*

B. Tell us about an experience in the past year or two that reflects your imagination, creativity, or intellect. *RETURNING FROM LAST CYCLE*

C. We believe there is benefit in sharing or questioning our beliefs or values; who do you agree with on the big important things, or who do you have your most interesting disagreements with? What are you agreeing or disagreeing about? *RETURNING FROM LAST CYCLE*

D. Duke’s commitment to inclusion and belonging includes sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. Feel free to share with us more about how your identity in this context has meaning for you as an individual or as a member of a community. *RETURNING FROM LAST CYCLE*

E. We recognize that not fully “fitting in” a community or place can sometimes be difficult. Duke values the effort, resilience, and independence that may require. Feel free to share with us circumstances where something about you is different and how that’s influenced your experiences or identity. *NEW THIS CYCLE*

Option “E” above is new for this admissions cycle. It replaces the following prompt, which appeared last admissions cycle:

We recognize that “fitting in” in all the contexts we live in can sometimes be difficult. Duke values all kinds of differences and believes they make our community better. Feel free to tell us any ways in which you’re different, and how that has affected you or what it means to you. *DISCONTINUED FROM LAST CYCLE*

The problem with last year’s prompt is that students could respond to it by focusing exclusively on their racial status, which The Supreme Court of the United States explicitly ruled can’t be considered by colleges when making admissions decisions. Though Duke tried to qualify the first two sentences of last year’s prompt with a third sentence meant to inspire applicants to discuss how what makes them different has changed them or what it means to them, it’s likely that far too few applicants took the hint. So, this year, Duke has adjusted the prompt to lead students’ responses to focus more on how difference has caused them to exert effort and/or demonstrate resilience or independence.

Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion last year included this critical paragraph:

“At the same time, as all parties agree, nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise. See, e.g., 4 App. in No. 21–707, at 1725–1726, 1741; Tr. of Oral Arg. in No. 20–1199, at 10. But, despite the dissent’s assertion to the contrary, universities may not simply establish through application essays or other means the regime we hold unlawful today. (A dissenting opinion is generally not the best source of legal advice on how to comply with the majority opinion.) “[W]hat cannot be done directly cannot be done indirectly. The Constitution deals with substance, not shadows,” and the prohibition against racial discrimination is “levelled at the thing, not the name.” Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wall. 277, 325 (1867). A benefit to a student who overcame racial discrimination, for example, must be tied to that student’s courage and determination. Or a benefit to a student whose heritage or culture motivated him or her to assume a leadership role or attain a particular goal must be tied to that student’s unique ability to contribute to the university. In other words, the student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race. Many universities have for too long done just the opposite. And in doing so, they have concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin. Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice.”

Most admissions offices were instructed by legal counsel (or by superiors and/or consulting firms that consulted with legal counsel) that Roberts’ opinion left the door open to considering applicants’ “racial experiences” even if colleges are no longer able to consider applicants’ “racial statuses.” So, by directing applicants to focus on characteristics developed as a result of being different, Duke is better comporting this new optional supplemental essay prompt with the rule of law. Yet, the last sentence of the new prompt (Feel free to share with us circumstances where something about you is different and how that’s influenced your experiences or identity.) undermines the effort by being clunky at best and grammatically incorrect, too wordy, and pretty incoherent at worst.

“Circumstances” are not a place; therefore, “where” should be “in which.” It’s likely that “where” is referencing the “community or place” mentioned in the first sentence of the prompt, but if so, the last sentence of the prompt should read “Feel free to share with us a community or place where something about you is different…”

Similarly, “is” in the last sentence of the prompt implies at present; yet, for a student to accurately reflect on how he or she exerted effort and/or demonstrated resilience or independence, he or she would have to reflect on something that’s happened in the past even if it’s also ongoing in the present.

Finally, the “…and how that’s influenced your experiences or identity.” conclusion to the prompt is confusing. If the applicant is already writing about a way in which his or her identity has required him or her to exert effort and/or demonstrate resilience or independence in order fit into a community or place, in most cases one one would expect that the student was trying to have the community NOT influence his or her identity too much, so there may be limited growth related to that identity, though there could be growth or influence experienced that the student could refer to in other ways. But that opens up a whole additional can of worms and there are just not enough words with which to work to really flesh things out. What a mess!

I’m surprised that Duke admissions leadership and its counsel didn’t try to make this a bit easer for seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds to digest. While there are fewer words in this year’s version of this prompt compared to last year’s version of this prompt, it could have been streamlined and shortened even more for brevity and clarity. As the song goes:

‘Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free,
‘Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

I’ve got to believe very few applicants to Duke this year will feel as though they are in the valley of love and delight when tackling Duke’s newest optional essay prompt. Many students will likely skip this prompt all together, as compared to the other optional prompts this one is quite convoluted. With that in mind, I suggest the powers that be at Duke consider this rewrite for next year (if they want to keep this type of prompt at all):

We recognize that “fitting in” can sometimes be difficult. Duke values the effort, resilience, and independence that may require. Discuss a time when “fitting in” influenced your experience or identity and describe how.

I believe the prompt proposed above would be legally sound and more comprehensible for students, thus resulting in more focused and specific responses, but what do I know?

Earlier this year, Duke University revealed that, at least for the 2023-2024 undergraduate admissions cycle for first-year applicants, it no longer gave essays and standardized test scores numerical ratings.

I wish all applicants to Duke’s Class of 2029 – and the Duke admissions officers tasked with reading applicants’ responses to these essay prompts – the very best of luck!

To The Media: End the College Application Nightmare Stories

Posted on August 3, 2021 by Patrick O'Connor Leave a Comment

It figures that August 1 landed on a Sunday this year.  What used to be just another beach day took on special significance a few years ago, when Common Application chose August 1 to launch its updates for the coming school year.  It’s exciting to be sure, but with a hint of melancholy, as a few overly enthusiastic parents use the occasion to tell their high school seniors “Summer’s over”, while the seniors meekly head towards the nearest computer, even on a weekend, muttering “But what if I don’t want it to be?”

Happily, more than a few colleges agree with the seniors.  While there was a stream—OK, a torrent—of colleges Twittering students on Sunday to hurry up and apply, more than a few colleges said “Start today if you want to, but our deadline isn’t until January.  Take your time.”  I had planned on thanking each of those colleges for posting such a message in the face of application mania.  I’m pleased to say there were too many to do so.

But this is just the start, and here’s hoping more colleges get on board.  The last two years of schooling have left this year’s seniors in pretty bad shape.  Day after day of waking up to find out if school is in person, online, both, or neither may have left them flexible, but it has also left them exhausted.  Students who fit every element of one (and certainly not the only) likely college-bound profile—from the suburbs, in a college prep curriculum, with two well-off parents who went to college—are saying out loud they just don’t think applying to college is worth the hassle.  That’s not because of the Delta rebound; it’s because their last couple of years of school have left them unsure of themselves and their ability to control their destiny.  Since any college admissions rep will tell you the key to a successful application is to let the student drive the bus, this is a huge problem.

Part of the solution lies with us.  August is peach and melon season in Michigan, a time when very rational people who never eat fruit feel a swelling in their taste buds that can only be satiated by interaction with produce that is truly a little slice of heaven.

This same thirst wells up in the media every August, but it isn’t for fruit—it’s for stories about the confusing, terrifying, uncertain world of college admissions.  With a new crop of high school seniors every year, journalists eagerly seize on their newness to college admissions, highlighting profiles of bright young people who find themselves flummoxed over how to apply to college, and when to apply to college.  Curiously, these stories rarely display a student’s confusion over where to apply to college, since the media only covers students who are considering the same 25 colleges ever year that admit about 5 percent of their applicant pool.  “She’s a National Honor Society president, but she can’t get her arms around Yale’s application.” Of course, these same students would be equally baffled by using a plumber’s wrench for the first time, and they easily get the hang of this college thing two weeks into the process.  But apparently, that’s not the point. The very first time they do something new, they don’t completely understand it.  My goodness.

The impact of this approach to college application coverage can’t be understated.  Thousands of students have already had to give up most of their summers at the insistence of parents who have caught the angst early, eager to make sure that college essay sparkles, unaware that the number one cause of weak essays isn’t underwriting, but overwriting.

Parents who haven’t been on their seniors about college since Father’s Day read these August articles and panic, fearing their child is now “behind”.  They plop their senior in front of a computer screen and tell them they can’t come out until an application is finished—for a college that doesn’t even start reading applications until January 10.

Parents whose children really understand themselves, and had no intention of applying to these schools, now feel their child is “losing out” on something, and suddenly insist that an application or two to the Big 25 is a good idea, “just to see what happens”, even though their student is well aware of what will happen.

This brand of media attention has never served high school seniors well, and it’s likely to make matters even worse for this year’s seniors, who are looking to gain their footing after two years of scholastic uncertainty.  In the interest of their well being—or, to use a phrase that is on the verge of becoming unimportant due to its overuse, their mental health—how about a few less media stories on the impossibility of getting into college and its excessive expense, and a few more stories about the 75% or so of colleges who admit more than 50% of their applicants, and the many colleges who are forgiving institutionally-based student loans?  Could the media finally discover the urban and rural colleges whose buildings have not a hint of ivy that are turning around the lives of students who didn’t have the opportunity to take 7 AP classes in high school, students who are shining academically?  How about the students who are making community college work, earning a degree that costs less from start to finish than one year of Harvard, all while the students typically work about 30 hours a week?

It’s certainly true many people turn to the media to read stories that will fuel their dreams—that’s why so many people follow the Olympics, and replay the video of the woman who was reunited with her dog after two years.  But stories about the uncertainty of the college selection process don’t feed students’ sense of the possible; they nourish their nightmares.  They’ve had enough of that these past two years, and may be headed for more.  The best thing the press can do for them, and for our society, is to admit there are more than 25 good colleges in this country, and wake the students to a better vision of how to apply to college, other than run a gauntlet that, at the end of the day, is largely of the media’s own making.

30 Summer STEM Camps for High School Freshmen

Posted on January 26, 2018 by Sandy Clingman Leave a Comment

Summer STEM Camps

NOTE: This article was first published in 2018; some links are out of date, but most programs are still running. If links no longer work, type the program name into a Google to find the latest links to these impressive programs.

Summer is a good time for high school students to explore their interests. A little research and planning can uncover ways to investigate an idea, acquire a new skill, or demonstrate a specialty with independent research or projects. In the fields of STEM, especially, there are many options available, including residential summer camps.

The problem for current high school freshmen (rising sophomores), however, is that many of these camps restrict attendance to their older classmates: rising juniors and seniors.

The reason, says Jill Tipograph, founder and director of the independent summer educational consultancy Everything Summer & Beyond, is many of these programs are offering college-level coursework that requires students to have foundational academic experience to be successful. “With higher level quantitative and science exposure as prerequisites, (younger) high school students will not have had the opportunity to complete them…”

This does not mean high school freshman should wait to begin finding ways to learn more about the fields that interest them.

“There is great value,” says Ms. Tipograph, “to younger students taking these summer opportunities… to identify and pursue passions. They can gain exposure and then build on their interest in a deeper capacity the following summer.”

You’ll have to be a little more flexible and dig a little deeper to find available summer STEM camps if you are currently a freshman. But if you are fortunate enough to have the available time and financial resources (camps can range from several hundred to several thousand dollars), here are 30 options nationwide during the summer of 2018 for high school freshmen interested in STEM camps.

Boston Leadership Institute Longwood Medical Center, Boston, MA

Canada/USA MathCamp Colorado School of the Mines, Golden, CO

Careers in Engineering University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA

COSMOS University of California, San Diego, CA

Discovering Biology: The Building Blocks of Life Boston University, Boston, MA

Engineering Camp Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA

Engineering High School Camp University of Kansas , Lawrence, KS

Engineering Innovation Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD (more locations)

Engineering Summer Academy University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA

Explore Engineering for HS Girls Sweet Briar College, Sweet Briar, VA

High School Engineering Institute Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI

Intensive STEM Academy Duke University, Durham, NC

Mathematics Academy University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA

MathILy Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA

Mathworks Texas State University, San Marcos, TX

Michigan Math and Science Scholars  University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

Pre-Engineering Institute Washington University in St Louis, St Louis, MO

Prove It! Math Academy Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO

Ross Mathematics Program Ohio State University, Columbus, OH

STEM II  Brown University, Providence, RI

Summer Accelerator North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, Durham, NC

Summer Bridge STEM Program for Girls Radford University, Radford, VA

Summer Engineering Exploration   University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

Summer Immersion George Washington University, DC

Summer Scholars Clemson University, Clemson, SC

Summer Science and Engineering Program Smith College, Amherst, MA

Summer Session for High School Students University of Chicago, Chicago, IL

Summer STEM US Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD

Summer Studies in Math Hampshire College, Amherst, MA

UMassAmherst Precollege Programs University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA

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