About 130 high school seniors visited the University’s campus this weekend for the Black Student Alliance Invitational, a recruitment event for black prospective students. Visitors were treated to a speech and concert Friday by Grammy award-winning artist John Legend, spoken word performances and formal dinners. The Chronicle’s Anna Koelsch spoke with prospective students and Duke students involved in BSAI festivities about the highlights of the weekend.
“I liked learning about the freshman experience and being able to ask students whatever questions under the sun that we had. We could ask about social life and relationships without adults there. I also really liked the Caribana event—everyone around me knew all my favorite reggae songs.”
—Gelyna Price, prospective freshman from Oakland, Calif.
“John Legend was amazing. He sang all my favorite songs. His point of view on education was really reflective of Duke. His work and his drive to further education for people was refreshing.”
—Aariel Dees, prospective freshman from Columbia, S.C.
“A bunch of us were all sitting in the Mary Lou Center just cracking jokes and talking about dancing styles. It was so fun seeing that at Duke it’s not all about partying and academics, it’s just chill and hanging out. I was stressed that you would have to be partying and working until 4 a.m. every day.”
—Alexis Igwe, prospective freshman from Houston, Texas
“Hosting was definitely a different experience because it allowed for me the opportunity to share knowledge with my p-frosh. I’m a big family man and I saw my p-frosh as a little brother, so me being able to share knowledge meant a lot. That’s the way I felt with my host last year.”
—freshman De’shaun King
“I think I will come to Duke. I have friends already and I have no problems coming now because I have already made relationships. I really liked the Spoken Verb performance.”
—Troy Williams, prospective freshman from Houston, Texas
“You definitely meet tons of cool people here and become close pretty quickly. I know that if I decide to come to Duke, I will already know a lot of people and that makes me feel a lot better about the transition from high school to college.”
—Ahkeyah Andrada Allahjah, prospective freshman from Santa Monica, Calif.
“The [prospective freshmen] really got to understand why we love Duke. In the beginning they seemed skeptical, but as the weekend progressed they began to see themselves here.”
— freshman Sandy Morande
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