Let's impress the Class of 2029 this Preview season

The following content is purely satirical and entirely fictional.

Princeton Preview is upon us. On these hallowed Tuesdays, our campus once again looks picturesque and livable as the University attempts to put its best foot forward for the potential members of the Class of 2029. As a student body, it’s our duty to follow suit and convince these prospective students to fork over their much-needed tuition money. Here are our top tips to make this Preview Day an unforgettable experience.

1. The Princetonian Attitude

The first thing these kids need to understand is that life is not all sunshine and rainbows — the grass is not always green and actually often smells of manure. Therefore, to ensure that these future first-years get a real sense of the average Princetonian’s day-to-day, make sure you walk past every group looking as miserable as possible. Appearing as “in the trenches” as you can will help the University look serious and prestigious, further motivating enrollment. Dress up in the clothes that have sat on your chair for a week to show your dedication to studying over doing laundry. Try using buzzwords like “lock in,” “senior thesis,” and “PSET” as much as humanly possible. Bonus points if you manage to break down crying in front of a tour group.

2. Give the Parents Some Love

With new students on campus comes new student families. This is the perfect opportunity to change things up romantically — especially since you’ve already slept with everyone in your hall. Think of all the parents sitting there just begging for you to hit on them. You see that hot mom taking pictures of the chapel? Go up to her — offer her a more personal connection to the University. There’s no better way to get to know these new students than by being intimately familiar with the people that raised them.

3. Ivy Day Competition

You remember all those Ivy League applications that you poured your blood, sweat, and tears into? This is what it was all for. You now have the perfect benchmark to see how you stack up to this new generation of college first-years. Open every interaction with your list of extracurriculars, SAT score, GPA, and college acceptances. Prospective students will love to talk to you all day about why they didn’t apply to Penn because it was “too pre-professional” or about how they “didn’t want to go to Yale anyway.” These conversations are the kind that strong, long-lasting friendships are built off of and are perfect for vetting who’s going places. Anyone who didn’t get into as many schools as you quite frankly isn’t worth your time, and anyone who got into more is simply a try-hard.

4. Academic Conditioning

It’s important to keep in mind that these students are your future academic peers who you’ll want to set up for success at the University. Therefore, when they ask for course recommendations, make sure you point them to the fundamentals — PHY105, MAT215, ISC, the HUM sequence, and the like. Warn them about time wasters such as office hours, tutoring sessions, the McGraw center — resources they’re better off avoiding since it takes time away from reading their course textbooks from cover to cover. Of course, don’t forget to mention the typical six class per semester recommendation for first-years so they can stay ahead of the game.

It is ultimately the duty of the student body to secure future growth in our alumni network and glorious endowment. Hopefully with these tips, we can achieve this goal by helping to inform the decisions of this new generation of potential Princetonians.

Nic Rohou is a contributing Humor writer whose only memories of Preview Day consist of the roughly 600 a cappella groups who performed. He can be reached at nr9348[at]princeton.edu.