Manhasset High School seniors William Delaney and Jessica Kim will once again be classmates this fall at Harvard University, the top choice for Class of 2015’s valedictorian and salutatorian, respectfully.
But before they leave the North Shore for Cambridge, Mass., the pair will don cap and gown and step to the microphone at commencement to address their fellow graduates with parting words of wisdom and advice.
With roughly two months to go until the big day, neither really knows what to say.
“I think I’m going to try to be funny,” said Delaney, a Village of Plandome resident. “But it’s hard to be funny when you’re trying to be funny, especially in a speech where you’ll have to be serious.”
Added Kim: “I can’t be funny. I’m going to try to keep it serious. I might end up being funny by accident.”
Kim and Delaney have spoken in public before, the former at what seems like weekly science research competitions, the latter last spring as one of two Manhasset students who attended the annual Students Inside Albany conference at the state Legislature.
Both students will finish out their high school careers as the top academic performers in a class full of top academic performers.
Delaney is the vice president of Manhasset’s chapter of the National Honor Society and is also a member of the Math, English, Science and Social Studies honor societies. He rows crew, plays tuba in the Symphonic Orchestra-Band, is part of the high school Rotary division Interact, and volunteers at St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn.
Kim is president of the school’s math honor society, and a member of the Math, English, Science and Tri-M music honor societies. She recently won first prize in the Junior Science and Humanities Symposium, was an Intel Science Talent Search semifinalist this year, is on the science and math olympiad teams, practices figure skating and plays the cello in the Symphonic Orchestra-Band.
“I wasn’t expecting it. You just never know,” said Kim, a Village of Plandome Heights resident who was accepted by Harvard on its Restrictive Early Action program.
Now they prepare to compete at Harvard, against the best and brightest from all over the world.
Kim said she plans to study engineering within material science — either chemistry or physics — but she has not selected a concentration, as Harvard requires.
Delaney added he could see himself studying material science or social science, saying he could see himself working politics or a laboratory in the future.
“It feels nice [to be named valedictorian],” Delaney said. “There are a lot of students academically qualified [to be Valedictorian] in our grade, so it’s good.”
