“I heard so many comments about grade deflation, and that evidently is a serious problem. I can understand what it must feel like to get a 93 and get marked down to a B+. Heck, I won the popular vote and got marked down to second place.”
“The greatest regrets in life are not the opportunities one pursues and fails, but are the opportunities one fails to pursue. As a friend of mine likes to remind us, ‘When opportunity knocks, try to answer the door!’”
“Perhaps like many of you, when I came in as a freshman, I realized that I had no prospective career path, and I wondered whether the admission office had made a mistake. Looking around at my fellow classmates, I found that unlike them, I didn’t speak fluent Arabic, I couldn’t play a flawless Concerto in E Minor, and I couldn’t solve a Rubik’s cube in under seven seconds.”
(translated from the Latin)
“We have shared many experiences over these past four years, from fires celebrating our victories in the battles of the game of feet, to an inflammation of the meninges from which we were saved by gifts borne across the sea. But most of all we will remember the bonds we have made with each other. And though our time here as students has come to a close, we will reunite year after year as a retinue of maenads and satyrs.”
“A few weeks ago we all sat taking the senior exit survey. ... For me there was one question that stood out: It asked me if after four years here, I was more confident in knowing now what I wanted to do with my life than I was when I entered, and I said no. I said no because Princeton gave me the courage to explore and engage with the things I didn’t know I liked.”
“After four years of worrying about being in the top 35 percent of everything, I realize now that the things that matter the most are the ones that didn’t keep score. So I wish I had spent less time counting. Not that I can count very high — I am a psychology major.”