The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/class-of-2023/)
In his speech at the 2023 Senior Convocation Ceremony, Ken Jeong drew on his experience quitting his job as a doctor to become a comedian to demonstrate the power of taking risks.
In a speech at the 2023 Commencement Ceremony, President Martha Pollack encouraged students to recognize their growth throughout their academic journeys and to lead with courage in their post-graduate careers.
I’ve been accumulating ideas for this final column since freshman year. Amorphous thoughts stored in the back of my mind, half-baked phrases in the notes app on my phone, 3 a.m. text message wisdom to friends. Yet now, when I have to transform my jumbled miscellanea into coherent sentences, nothing I can write feels adequate. After all, how do you consolidate four years, one pandemic, a million existential crises and a billion more memories into a cohesive narrative?
Every graduating senior knows some version of my story at Cornell. The class of 2023 is unique, and unified, in our trials and triumphs through COVID-19. We alone have seen the before and after. We are the class that watched Cornell fall apart, and we are the class that rebuilt it — preserving and restoring the traditions, cultures and communities that make this place worthwhile. For once, I write not to break news in The Sun, but to express generational solidarity. Our class, despite all odds and administrative difficulties, saved Cornell.
The first dorm on what became today’s North Campus was Risley Residential College, built in 1913.
At the age of 19, Karen Chen ’23 has already won the 2017 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, competed at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics and published a book. Now, she’s joining Cornell’s Class of 2023.
The University received 49,118 applications this admissions cycle — 2,210 fewer than last year’s — and accepted 105 fewer students this year, according to a University press release. Nearly 55 percent of this year’s admitted students are “students of color” — underrepresented minorities or Asian Americans — a new record for Cornell.
Cornell admitted 1,395 out of 6,159, or 22.6 percent of the early decision applicants for the Class of 2023, down from the admission rates of 24.4 percent for the Class of 2022 and 25.8 percent for the Class of 2021.