Princeton University

Princeton University is one of the Ivy League schools and they claim to have coined the term “Ivy” when graduates began planting ivy cuttings at the foundation of Nassau Hall during the early days of our country. Located in Princeton, NJ, the school has been around since colonial days and is on the site of the Battle of Princeton (said to have been won by the Revolutionaries when they sent a canon ball through Nassau to scatter the Brits holed up in there…). The campus is pristine and has the feel of a British university like Oxford with stone buildings, archways and stained glass everywhere, and the lawns are green and even. It is hard not to become mesmerized by it all – if you saw the movie “Beautiful Mind” that is Princeton’s campus (with a little Hollywood magic). Today Nassau Hall is the location of the admissions information sessions. Some 100 people filed into three rows of wooden benches that faced each other for the admissions presentation.

Students are required to take 10 classes in several areas to graduate, 2 semesters of a language, and complete an Independent Works or senior thesis, in addition to completing the requirements for their major. Freshmen are also required to choose from 75 or seminar classes (15 students around a seminar table) and take an expository writing class their first semester. There is a 5:1 student:faculty ratio, the average class size is 30 with lectures having 300 or so students in an auditorium. Full-professors actually teach classes. Princeton has its share of Nobel Prize winners – Toni Morrison is one of them.

Freshmen live in one of six Residential Colleges – where you sleep and eat for two years – each college has an identity and a “Master” (a faculty member who lives at the college) to help students negotiate life at Princeton. After sophomore year students can apply to Eating Clubs, non-university affiliated dining halls that encompass social networking (served by private chefs…) that they pay annual dues to. 90% percent of students go this route and others are “independent” or join fraternities or sororities (also off campus).

The Princeton “Tigers” are Division IAA sports and they have garnered a few championships here and there. Sports are point of pride, but certainly not the main focus at Princeton. Interestingly, Princeton has far fewer graduate programs than the other “Ivies” and cites that as a demonstration on its focus on the solid education of undergraduates. Students go on to medical, law, business and other graduate education at much the same rate of other similar programs.

Princeton is a highly selective (one of THE MOST selective), liberal arts college. 1100 students enrolled in last year’s freshman class. The admissions officer said that students are looked at in the context of the curriculum offered at a student’s school and the course that students chooses to take. So, if honors and AP are offered, it would be expected that a students would enroll in many of those classes and dual enrollment as is available. Conversely, Princeton is looking for a “wise” course choice. SAT I and two SAT IIs or the Act with writing are required for applicants (the middle 50% scored 700-800 CR and 700-790 Math). The essay is designed to get to know students and what “they are passionate about”, three adjectives that friends would use for you, and list a favorite quote from a movie and why. Interviews are optional and with alums. Each application has two or more readers.

Financial Aid is “the best in the country” no students have loans when they graduate from Princeton! Students submit Princeton’s own financial aid application.