The 'typical' Tiger

He is as close to an “average Princeton student” as one gets — statistically.

Statistics may be an easy, shorthand way for students and applicants to try to understand the student body as a whole. For those attempting to define such a group, the numbers may provide a general idea of what a “statistically average” student does, where he’s from and what he studies.

But students who fall into some of the most-represented categories at Princeton affirmed the University’s heterogeneity, noting that a “typical” Princeton student can’t be distilled from calculated averages.

Nonetheless, the stereotype of the average undergraduate persists for a reason, several students noted.

Jonathan Mattern ’12, a New Jersey native, said he considers himself to be a “fairly typical” Princeton student.

“I realize that I am part of the average group of students that come here to Princeton, but I don’t let that dominate my thoughts,” he said. “Among [the] group of ‘statistically average’ Princeton students lies a great deal of diversity in talents, interests and outlooks on the world. I have found that this diversity tends to play a greater role in defining the various groups at Princeton rather than [the] intelligent white male distinction.”

The concept of the typical Princeton undergraduate, though, is largely a fabrication of those unfamiliar with the campus, Joseph Hughes ’12 said. “Some outsiders have a typical image … [of a Princeton student as] a white male from New Jersey,” he said, adding that though he is from New Jersey, he doesn’t think of himself as typical.

James Cole ’12 also maintained that “there really is no norm” for Princeton students. While he is a white male from New Jersey and his grades aren’t “through the roof,” he said he does not think his is a typical profile.

Cole also lives in Wilson College, the residential college where the most members of his class reside.

“The typical image is a bunch of [preppily] dressed people, but that is mostly in movies,” Derek Beckman ’09, a New Jersey resident in the economics department, noted in an e-mail.

Established Princeton stereotypes are up for amendment, Cole said. He explained that his grandfather, a Princeton alumnus, viewed the succession of classes in the P-Rade as a walking demonstration of how the “face of the stereotypical Princeton student has changed dramatically since [the University] was founded.”

Cole noted that while earlier classes seemed to consist entirely of white men, the progression of P-Rade documents a diversification of the student body.

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“[The alumni group] slowly changes from all white men — then you see a couple of black guys, a couple of Asian guys … Suddenly you see women, and you see more and more [diverse] students,” Cole said.

According to the statistics, Oyku Mirac Akkaya ’12 is an atypical Princeton student, an engineer hailing from Istanbul, Turkey. Yet she doesn’t consider herself out of sync with the typical Princeton undergraduate.

“I don’t consider any ‘types’ at Princeton. I wouldn’t consider anyone atypical or typical,” she said. “I think everyone is different here, and I’m different, so I guess that would make me kind of typical, I guess.”

New Jersey native Ian Frankel ’12 said in an e-mail he could sum up the average Princetonian in one well-known figure.

“Josh Weinstein is definitely the typical image/person at Princeton,” he said.