You’re going to Princeton. You’ll spend a few weeks pretending to juggle your nonexistent options, but everything has already been set in motion. Thanks to our media stranglehold, your parents are already in love with the name. Failing that, they’re in love with the aid package. We suggest you get used to the idea. Four years can be longer than you think.
You might feel tempted to spend the next few months gloating. Surrender to that impulse. Gloat. Gloat like you’ve won six gold medals. Gloat like you’ve beaten Lance Armstrong’s best time without sticking a needle in your ass. Gloat like the flood is coming and you have the last business class seat on the Ark. High School isn’t a game, but you’ve found a way to win it. Once you get here, your ego will be reset to a healthy level. Finals won’t break your spirit. They’ll just cut it down to size.
You’ve joined a long line of history-shaping overachievers. The only names you’re expected to remember are Woodrow Wilson and Michelle Obama. They are, respectively, a dead man and a woman with longstanding and legitimate disdain for the University. It’s best not to spend too long dwelling on the implications.
Your introduction to campus will be a course-free period colloquially known as “frosh week.” We suggest the following supplies: one flask, two handles of Jack Daniels, three liters of water, and four compelling alibis. Proper preparation will protect your first adventure in semi-legal binge drinking from “beast”, a concoction consisting of 5% alcohol and 95% deer urine. The original formula used 98% boar urine, but things have improved with reform.
While recovering from your hangover, you will see a student play called Sex on a Saturday Night. Suggesting this is pornography does not make you clever. Sex on a Saturday Night is a cautionary tale about, among other things, date rape. This has the unfortunate side effect of turning a viewing into a unspoken game of “guess the rapist.” No one really wins.
Adjacent to campus, you’ll find a row of exclusive houses that host parties. These are not fraternities. Some may suggest that they are indistinguishable from fraternities in every way that matters. They are liars; the clubs are far more expensive. Plug your ears and enjoy the unlimited supply of free alcohol.
Meeting people may seem imposing at first, but you have a wealth of terrible options. Some join student groups and connect through superficially similar interests. Others cling to their hallmates like driftwood in the Artic Ocean. Whatever you choose, you’ll definitely wear through your RCA’s patience or vice-versa within the first month.
Most of you will become alumni, assuming you don’t go beyond your single “freebie” mental breakdown. At this point, we expect money. This machine doesn’t fuel itself. Tuition was only the beginning of a loving lifetime of shooting money at the University with a catapult. In time, you will thank us for the privilege.
Welcome to the family. If you choose Yale we will send men to your home.
(An oddly-edited version of this appears in Valentine’s Day issue. Give them a look.)