Why you don’t feel successful at Princeton
Students’ upbringings significantly influence — if not outright determine — the course of their academic and social lives at Princeton.
Students’ upbringings significantly influence — if not outright determine — the course of their academic and social lives at Princeton.
While it’s important to celebrate Princeton’s accomplishments in diversifying its student body, recent data shows that there’s still much room for improvement. As was the case 60 years ago, it may be time to rethink the admissions system again.
Before COVID-19 wrecked the spring semester, I set out to pull back the veil on Princeton’s admissions process.
The humanities declined after the last recession. But coronavirus may be the chance to set up their resurgence.
Senior columnist Liam O’Connor discusses how disparities in high school education affect students’ academic performance — and recognition — in college.
Many academic awards select winners using predetermined criteria. Committees evaluate students’ accomplishments on the same abstract scale. This approach seems egalitarian: everyone plays on the same field. In practice, though, it ignores substantial cultural divides between fields of study that affect class arrangements, study habits, relationships with professors, the amount of free time they have, and how they spend it.
Teaching styles, grading disparities, high school backgrounds, and departmental politics all play roles in who’s crowned Old Nassau’s top students. I will explore each of these factors in depth for subsequent columns. But first, I’ll give a brief overview of who at Princeton is winning the nine prestigious academic awards to show why their results are so baffling.
While its motto is “love of learning is the guide of life,” a cheeky Princeton parody of it could be “love of science is the guide to Phi Beta Kappa.”
Records show that STEM concentrators have won the majority of Shapiro Prizes every year since they were established, despite comprising half or less of the student body.