As the college application season draws to a final close and the May 1 deadline for matriculation waits just around the corner, we hope to provide you with one final summary of the reasons why you should consider coming to this great University.
It is rather unfortunate that this year you have been handed the short end of the stick with a condensed Princeton Preview program. We nonetheless hope you are taking this opportunity as a chance to see Princeton for what it truly is — not a magical, mysterious institution of higher education but a community of students, faculty and staff who are incredibly smart, engaging, approachable and nice.
Princeton offers incredible opportunities to the students who choose to attend. While the list is truly endless, it is worthwhile to highlight a few of the great aspects that comprise a Princeton education. With approximately 5,200 undergraduate students, Princeton really does offer the best of both a small liberal arts education as well as the resources and opportunities of a large research institution.
Additionally, with the number of graduate students at Princeton far fewer than half the number of undergraduates, professors who come to Princeton do so with the intention of teaching and working with undergraduates. It is expected and assumed that all students will develop meaningful relationships with multiple professors during their time at Princeton.
Both the residential college system as well as the eating clubs allow for students to find and form communities within the already small undergraduate student body. And with the largest endowment per capita of any University in the world, you and your classmates will be given access to resources that will allow you to travel and pursue internships or projects that may have otherwise been all but impossible.
Your classmates at Princeton will amaze you every day. Yes, some of them may be running international nonprofit organizations or their own start up technology companies, but more importantly these will be your best friends and peers in your academic and life pursuits. These will be the people with whom you'll be working late or laughing, the people with whom you will sit around seminar tables as you grapple with challenging and exciting academic texts and ultimately the people with whom you will spend at least four years of your life growing.
The decision of where you should attend college is a deeply personal one. While all of the schools from which you may be choosing have plenty of wonderful things to offer, your decision should come down to which school is the best fit for you. While you mull over your options for the final time, you should know that Princeton is a welcoming community in which students, alumni, faculty and staff truly look out for one another even after walking out of the FitzRandolph Gate.To quote an alumnus from the Class of 2000, “Two days may not be enough time to see deeply into the soul of an institution, but it is long enough to realize that it has one.”
While Princeton is a school bustling with energy and filled with engaging students who are both passionate about their academic studies as well as their extracurricular and worldly pursuits, this does not make it unique among its peer institutions. What makes Princeton unique is, in fact, the soul of the institution — the humble love of Princeton and fellow Princetonians that all who have studied here share.The next four years of your life will be about learning, yes, but also growing, loving, succeeding, failing, struggling and having fun.And for this, there is no better place to attend than the “best damn place of all.”
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Progressives failed a lesson in free speech
Anais Mobarak“The recent controversy surrounding Charter Club has demonstrated that progressive voices on campus have failed to recognize the value of free speech beyond its usefulness as a political instrument. Thus, as a community, we must work to foster an ideologically-free understanding of free speech.”
“The recent controversy surrounding Charter Club has demonstrated that progressive voices on campus have failed to recognize the value of free speech beyond its usefulness as a political instrument. Thus, as a community, we must work to foster an ideologically-free understanding of free speech.”
Campus through a lens: Announcing the ‘Prince’s inaugural columnists
Eleanor Clemans-CopeReading a series of columns by the same author is seeing things through the writer’s lens — it’s looking at campus through the ‘Christofer glasses’ or the ‘Eleanor specs.’ This is the thinking behind having named columns.
Reading a series of columns by the same author is seeing things through the writer’s lens — it’s looking at campus through the ‘Christofer glasses’ or the ‘Eleanor specs.’ This is the thinking behind having named columns.
Bring back the course packet
Abigail Rabieh“With the recent news that Labyrinth Books will no longer supply the coursebooks for Princeton classes, we are facing a new era in which all readings will only be accessible by some digital medium, whether that be via Course Reserves or online ordering from faraway publishers. While some may see this as a step in the right direction of modernity, the increasing digitalization of our scholarship hurts our learning.”
“With the recent news that Labyrinth Books will no longer supply the coursebooks for Princeton classes, we are facing a new era in which all readings will only be accessible by some digital medium, whether that be via Course Reserves or online ordering from faraway publishers. While some may see this as a step in the right direction of modernity, the increasing digitalization of our scholarship hurts our learning.”
