Beginning next year students will be able to apply to Princeton using the same application accepted by Harvard, Yale and over 200 other colleges across the United States: The University is adopting the Common Application, the most widely used set of forms for applying to college.
"Going to the common application is a really constructive, logical next step for Princeton," Dean of Admission Janet Rapelye said in an interview Tuesday morning.
The admission office is embracing the Common App not because of flaws in Princeton's current application, but because it allows the University to attract a broader range of candidates, Rapelye said.
"There's nothing wrong with the current application but we need to reach more students from more backgrounds and we need to be more accessible," she said. "We also need to start breaking down the stereotype that is out there in some circles that we are elite and untouchable in some ways and we need to reach students where they are."
Rather than scrapping the University's own application entirely, Rapelye plans to offer students a choice between using the Common App and Princeton's own application. However, if students use the Common App, they will be required to complete an application supplement.
Under Common App rules, universities are required to give equal consideration to candidates regardless of whether they use the Common App or a university's own application.
The supplement is common among selective schools that already use the Common App. Harvard, which became the first Ivy League school to adopt the application in 1994, and Yale, which began offering it in 2002, require supplements.
Applicants to Princeton will be able to apply online using the Common App, though it remains to be determined whether the University's supplement will be available online.
More applicants
Adopting the Common App will also help Princeton attract more applicants each year — an important part of the University's student recruitment strategy leading up the expansion of the class size with the Class of 2011, Rapelye said, emphasizing that this is the secondary benefit of using the Common App.
"We may get more applications, but we want to make sure that we are being seen as a place that welcomes students from every background," she said.
But adopting the Common App has benefits for students as well. Said Rapelye: "It's an enormous challenge to go through the college application process and if we can make any contributions to making this more systematic for students, we are going to try and do it and this is one way to do it."
Sandy Padgett, a college counselor at the Harker School in San Jose, Calif. agreed with Rapelye. "You're opening the doors to students who would otherwise not apply to Princeton," she said — a sentiment with which other college counselors concurred.
Carl Schulkin, a counselor at The Pembroke Hill School in Kansas City, Mo., added that by allowing more time to work on fewer applications — or perhaps a single one to several schools — colleges could expect better applications from students.
Harvard experienced a 19-percent surge the first two years of using the Common App, though the percent change for the first year of use was unavailable. Yale witnessed a 4-percent increase over the previous year when it changed applications.
However, despite the significant increase in applicants to her school, Marlyn McGrath-Lewis, Harvard's director of undergraduate admissions, cautioned against automatically linking the increase in applicant size with the adoption of the Common App.
"It's hard to know. The applicant pool has increased in almost every year anyway," she said. "There's a lot of demographic stuff behind [the increases]."
Rapelye denied that the adoption of the Common App has anything to do with concerns regarding the 14-percent drop in applicants this year. She argued instead that it has to do with a "concern that we're seen as elitist. If I look across this country at 30,000 high schools, most students' first thought is not about Princeton University — and we need to reach more of them."
Will not weaken pool
David Matthews, a college counselor at Upper Canada College in Toronto, Ont., said that from past experience with Harvard and Yale, Princeton could expect more of the "WTH type of candidate," as in "'What the hell, I've already filled out this form for two out of the big three, why not send it to Princeton as well?'"
But if such applicants are qualified, it's not a problem, Rapelye said, dismissing concerns that the adoption of the Common App will dilute the quality of the University's applicant pool.
After Harvard announced its decision to use the Common App, Yale Dean of Admissions Richard Shaw criticized the Common App for lessening the quality of selective colleges' applicant pools and giving false hope to weaker students who apply to such colleges.
"It encourages kids from a portion of the applicant pool which is less competitive who will only be disappointed in the end," Shaw told The Yale Daily News at the time.
Yale went on to embrace the Common App seven years later with the Class of 2006. Currently, Yale offers students the opportunity to choose between the Common App and its own application, and Princeton will do the same, Rapelye said. Harvard uses the Common App exclusively.
Though Shaw was unavailable for comment, Harvard's McGrath-Lewis, said that concerns about a weaker applicant pool were unfounded.
"That's certainly not what's happened here," she said. "In fact, one of the stories about Harvard admissions over the past couple of decades is that the bottom has dropped out of the pool."
Even if weaker candidates apply to a selective college which uses the Common App, "the real thing to be concerned about is not attracting the interests of people who are good matches for your school," McGrath-Lewis said.
Not generic
Hinting at what he believes is the primary weakness of the Common App, Ted O'Neill, dean of undergraduate admissions at the University of Chicago, said his school doesn't use the Common App is because "it is not the product of the school to which a student is applying, which may change the way the student writer imagines his or her audience."
The graphical design of an application, the questions it poses, the paper it is on — these are all factors that "help us differentiate the application experience, something a somewhat different university deserves," he said.
O'Neill nevertheless acknowledged that the strength of the Common App is that it serves as a "populist instrument" in an increasingly "elitist process."
Though mindful of O'Neill's point, Rapelye said she would "only agree with that if we didn't require the supplement." By requiring the supplement, the admission office "will literally get the same information that we would get from our regular application," she said.
Completing the supplement won't be a walk in the park, Rapelye said. "This supplement will require that they spend some time thinking about Princeton. [It] is going to require some thought and time and deliberate work."
She stressed that the purpose of the admission office is "to encourage more students to apply, not to discourage them or to make them reach a bar of how interested they are" by making them fill out a separate application to Princeton.
On the University's understanding of this point until now, said Rapelye: "Frankly, I think we've been out of step with our peers."
While acknowledging the benefit of Princeton moving to the Common App, Nicole Burell, another college counselor at the Harker School, warned that with so many schools now demanding supplements, "in the long run I don't know that it saves as much time with all the supplemental essays."
The development of supplement will soon be underway, Rapelye said, noting that the popular "hodge-podge" section — a holdover from the era of former Dean of Admission Fred Hargadon and an extremely well-known part of the Princeton application — will definitely be included, though it will have a new name.
More changes expected
Rapelye hinted that the adoption of the Common App, along with an earlier announcement that the admission office now makes admissions decisions using a committee system, is one of more upcoming changes to admissions at Princeton.
"There are a number of things that we're going to be doing over the next two or three years," Rapelye said. "Some may say that we're going to be doing lots of things differently."
Read More
Princeton BOE members discuss gubernatorial debate, campaign in interviews ahead of uncontested election
Clara Docherty and Aitana CamponovoPrinceton Board of Education members Dafna Kendal, Susan Kanter, and newcomer Erica Snyder discuss their thoughts on the gubernatorial debate ahead of Board of Education election.
Campus Rec formalizes process to pay club sport dues for students with financial need, some teams unaffected
Andrew ArthurCampusRec formalizes the process for covering membership dues for club sports. Though this process had previously existed, the change was made for increased transparency.
GSG reviews 2024–25 budget, faces questions over spending transparency
Sena ChangOn Tuesday, GSG leaders faced questions regarding budget expenditures from the 2024–25 year, including transparency issues in their expense categorization.
GSG leaders faced questions regarding budget expenditures from the 2024–25 year, including transparency issues in their expense categorization on Tuesday.