Duke next destination for Darlington senior
Stacy Chen will continue her life in the South after moving to the U.S. from Shanghai when she was 12.
During a college road trip, Darlington senior Stacy Chen remembers telling herself when visiting Duke University to not fall in love with the school, fearing the rigorous acceptance process would leave her deflated if she did not get in.
And for almost two hours late last year, when the university was announcing the acceptance of early decision applicants, Chen waited and waited and waited, staring at her computer screen, repetitively refreshing the web page.
A computer glitch prevented her from viewing her collegiate fate.
She could not help but thinking she did not get in. But then she got an email. “And I just cried,” said Chen, upon finding out she got into Duke, where she plans to pursue her interests in biochemistry or environmental science. “The suspense was unreal.”
Chen, came to the U.S. from Shanghai at the age of 12, said her mom breathed a huge sigh of relief at the thought of not having to complete any more financial aid packages. After a short stay in Illinois, where she and her family quickly realized Midwest winters are brutal experiences, Chen went southbound, landing in Rome. She enrolled at Darlington in eighth grade, still adjusting to the South, its food and accent.
In China, Chen studied at an international school, learning English from her British teacher.
So when she came to the U.S. and heard people were having biscuits for breakfast, she naturally wondered why cookies were the first meal of the day.
At first, it was hard to break into the school and make new friends, with the majority of the students — “Dar-babies” — having grown up together.
Chen said she found friends in the students like her who also came in during eighth-grade.
By her freshman year, she was involved in swimming, golf and rowing, which she did not realize was such a strenuous sport until her first practice — in which she cried with a friend over a 5K run and 5K row. However, she stuck with rowing for all four years.
But Chen credits her breaking-out-ofthe-shell moment to her participation
in the winter musical her junior year. It was an opportunity for her to be herself through acting out someone else, she said. She also performed in the school’s production of “The Addams Family” in her senior year, turning from a proper mom to a crazy person, she said. Acting is something she plans to continue on the side while at college.
The one experience Chen said sums up her time at Darlington was prom, she said. She went with her best friend and their group danced the whole time.
Darlington’s commencement ceremony will be held May 19 at 9:30 a.m. on the Morris Chapel Lawn. In the event of rain, it will be held in the A.J. Huffman Center.
“I’m going to be a mess,” Chen said of her emotions that day.