Partly Cloudy, 64°
Wow. It’s unbelievable to me that we’re less than a month out from graduation. I’ve been thinking about the future, sure, and reminiscing on all my favorite moments in and out of the classroom, but most of all I want to raise a glass to the Class of 2016. We made it, you guys. Never forget how incredible you are to have come here, a place that means you were good at being in high school. That’s amazing.
When I first got to college, I was nervous I wouldn’t make any friends. A week after orientation, surrounded by all these people who also acted in plays and played musical instruments and studied for the SATs, I realized just how silly that was. Of course I became friends with people who were also motivated to work hard on all the stuff they make you do in high school! It wasn’t coincidence that brought us together, no way! It was the fact that we played sports and tested well and had our AP Comp teachers look over our Common App essays. That’s the strongest bond that any group of people can have, and I feel so honored to have gotten to spend time with all sixteen-hundred of you brilliant, brilliant former teenagers.
Sure, it’s got its problems, but none of us would argue that Brown isn’t an amazing place. You don’t accept almost exclusively students who are really good at doing what their teachers tell them to when they’re 16 years old and not end up with a vibrant, incredible community. It doesn’t hurt that Brown attracts exactly the type of person who is motivated to attend an elite private university. Uh, of COURSE we love it here. Mix us all together and it doesn’t matter whether you scored a 740 or a perfect 800 on your Math II SAT subject test, if you were the valedictorian or fourth in your class, if you were a three-sport captain or nationally ranked debater—you’re a member of the Brown University Class of 2016 first and foremost, and you should feel incredibly proud of that. I know I do.
What makes Brown so magical? Well, let me tell you a story about my freshman year. I was young. I was very slightly smaller than I am now, and I was fresh off being one of the best people at high school in my little town. I went to a Badmaash show with a friend. I didn’t know anything about Badmaash. I couldn’t even pronounce the word. But watching those dancers up on stage, twirling in their colorful outfits, I couldn’t help but be amazed. Those people in front of me had the exact set of skills that helped them present themselves as exceptional youths on a standardized application. Every single one of them. There’s something beautiful about that.
So we’re leaving. It’s sad. I’ve had the honor to meet a bunch of you, but to those of you whom I’ve not had the pleasure, I’m sure you were also elected to some meaningless office at your state NHS convention, and had an appropriately sycophantic answer to the “Why Brown?” question on the supplement. Most importantly, I know that wherever we go in the world, and whatever amazing and often unhelpful things we end up doing, there’s one thing that they can never take away from us. We’re Brown students. And that means that in the 8th grade, we tested into honors track.
Good luck, Class of 2016! I know if anybody can subsume themselves into the real world and eventually figure out all the things you have to do to make the corrupt system work for you, even if it’s just in the littlest way, it’s us. After all, we got into Brown.
