December 15, 2016 Elijah Straight made a haircut appointment for 4:00pm because he had been anticipating his acceptance letter from Duke University at 5:00pm. As he arrived to the barber shop at 4:00pm he was informed that his barber was two appointments behind and now he was going to face an hour of sitting there and waiting for his appointment and his letter.

“So little was going on around me, but so much was going on with me, to everyone else nothing was going on, but I was trying not to freak out,” said Straight.

Five o’clock finally rolled around, and Straight noticed that no emails were coming his way. He kept clicking on the portal link they had sent to him, and as if anything else couldn’t stress him out at the moment, he suddenly couldn’t remember his password. As he finally got in a feeling a dread came over him because he had noticed that the message he had received was in fairly small text.

“I was kind of freaking out at this point because I had remembered that a few days before this my friend Finn Wolf had gotten into Santa Clara,” Straight said, “and his letter had a huge ‘CONGRATULATIONS’ across the top of it, so I was just like ‘oh man this sucks.’”

But then quickly after zooming in, Straight read, “Congratulations, Duke University is now your university.” The feeling of excitement and joy wasn’t comparable to any other moment. He sprinted out of the barber shop and called his father, Sam, and delivered the exciting and accomplished news to him.

“DAD I GOT IN!” Straight screamed in the parking lot.

“NO WAY!” his father exclaimed.

A few days later he received his physical acceptance letter in the mail, and said that feeling that official document in his hands made everything feel so real.

“It was cool holding this fancy folder that had Duke University written across it, it was just honestly such a cool experience,” said Straight.

Following his father’s footsteps in attending Duke University after serving a two-year mission for the LDS Church.

Straights father Sam says, “I’m excited, proud, and grateful, if a little nervous about the cost of it,” and when asked what it meant to him that Straight will be following his footsteps he answered, “it’s optimistic because I had such a great experience at Duke and I believe he will too.”

Having a 10.4% acceptance rate and average ACT score of 34, Duke University is a very academically rigorous school. Straight has never fallen anything short of an accomplished student though. His junior year, he was forced to step his game up when he joined the IB program at Highland. This program has pushed Straight to thinking deeper and harder than he ever has, but in the long run it has all paid off. Straight has been on honor roll all of his high school career and has received the Sterling Scholar award. When it comes to the education aspect of his life, Straight has always been surrounded by successful and motivating people, mainly his parents Sam and Deirdre.

“My wife and I, and both of our families, have always put a big emphasis and value on education,” Sam says, “because it has broadened our perspectives and deepened our appreciation of the world, and that emphasis has carried onto our kids.”