The missing 4 percent

Despite auditioning for every play on campus, she landed a minor role in only one show. Though her grade point average placed her in the top quintile, she felt that stress had become her permanent state of being. Perhaps what was most jarring for Taylor was that even though she was engaged on campus, she found it difficult to develop strong connections with other students at an institution where competition seemed to pervade all facets of campus life.

“I know life’s not a movie,” Taylor said. “You’re not necessarily going to wake up every day and say, ‘It’s great to be alive.’ But when it got to be, ‘I can’t take another day, week, month of this, when do I get to leave?’ I knew something had to change.” Taylor’s last name has been omitted to protect her privacy.

So, when she found herself crying due to stress during spring break of her freshman year last March, she decided to apply as a transfer student to a small liberal arts college much closer to home. Now a few months into her sophomore year there, she said she still thinks transferring was the “right decision.”

Tens of thousands of high school students apply to Princeton each year and are the focus of countless media reports and dinner-table conversations. But much less attention is paid to the 4 percent of Princeton undergraduates — roughly 50 students per class — who do not graduate within six years. Many of them arrived at the University only to find that the Princeton experience they imagined did not exist, and ultimately, they decided to leave.

Taylor and many of the other students who transferred out said they did not blame the University. Still, they cited an overarching culture of competition, along with more specific concerns such as the lack of academic support for athletes and the difficulty of training for a career in the arts as a student. In the end, they said, Princeton simply was not the right fit for them.

The administration’s stance: ‘Not much of a story’

The university’s four-year and six-year graduation rates of 90 percent and 96 percent, respectively, are among the highest in the nation.

Princeton itself does not accept transfer applicants, and students who want to transfer out or take time off typically reach out to the dean of their residential college. Under the dean’s discretion, students can leave for one, two or three years, after which they can return and continue where they left off. Two semesters is the shortest leave of absence allowed by the University.

David Stirk, dean of Butler College, said that he speaks with about four students each semester about leaving the University, and sometimes a few more approach him toward the end of the term for academic reasons.

Stirk explained that students’ reasons for leaving have included “academic difficulties, personal difficulties and just a desire to not be in college at this moment.”

Despite the high graduation rates, hidden behind the numbers is an extraordinary pressure for some students to remain at an institution that will grant them a prestigious degree, even though they may be deeply unhappy with their day-to-day experience.

Most students interviewed said that those who transfer face a stigma of failure and lack of appreciation for the opportunity to be at Princeton, though Stirk said he did not view the pressure as significant.

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“To me, I’ve never perceived [the stigma] as being all that important,” Stirk said. “It normally just pales in comparison with what other issues motivate the decision to leave.”

Senior Associate Dean of the College Claire Fowler said that thinking about the decision to transfer on a broader scale would not be “helpful” because it can be so personal and different for each student.

“This is more of an interesting human interest piece. From an institution’s point of view, there’s not much of a story,” Fowler said.

“Don’t you think a 96 percent satisfaction rate is impressive?” she added. “Would we prefer that everybody loved it? Of course, but it seems to me that that doesn’t exist anywhere in the country.”

Struggling in the classroom

Gus Gabel, who was recruited as a basketball player for the Class of 2013, began to question whether he could graduate from the University even before his freshman fall.

He participated in the Freshman Scholars Institute, a voluntary seven-week program held the summer before freshman year with two full-credit courses designed to ease the transition for those incoming students most likely to face academic difficulties. Gabel found himself struggling early on.

“FSI was what hit me at first,” he said. “I remembering thinking, ‘I really hope that school is more manageable than this.’ ”

By mid-October, Gabel said he realized that maintaining a full course load was certainly more difficult than his summer experience. With encouragement from his parents, who visited him for Freshman Parents Weekend, Gabel made a list of pros and cons to help him decide whether he should stay or leave.

“Basically, the cons list was quite a bit longer,” he said. “And at that point, what I had planned on doing went down the drain.”

In retrospect, Gabel said that while he knew that his classes would be rigorous, the lack of academic support he received as an athlete caught him off guard.

“It really surprised me,” he said. “There was really no help on our end. It was basically, ‘Now that you’re here, get your stuff done in the classroom, and we’ll see you on the court.’ ”

Gabel added that the team’s head coach, Sydney Johnson ’97, was surprised when he brought up the extent of his problems in the classroom. Though Johnson attempted to help Gabel, Gabel said he still thought it was unlikely he would graduate. Johnson, the team’s head coach since 2007, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Gabel, who transferred to Arizona State University during his freshman fall, suggested that the University create a more extensive tutoring system for athletes, play a more active role in facilitating course selection for freshmen and even institute required study time for athletes. Currently, only freshmen on the football team have required study halls.

“Coming in, I kept hearing that the hardest part of graduating is getting in,” Gabel said. “I thought that now that I’m in, it’s smooth sailing, but that was definitely not true in my experience.”

While Gabel said he “would have been set for life” with a Princeton degree, he ultimately determined that this was not a realistic option for him.

Pursuing a career in the arts

For other students on campus, the decision to forgo attending a conservatory or other fine-arts-focused institution is a persistent regret.

Richard Link, who left the Class of 2010 after completing three semesters at the University, decided that he would rather train to dance professionally than receive a Princeton degree in four years.

He said he maintained a high GPA in high school because his parents and teachers told him that succeeding academically was “the right thing to do.” After he joined his high school’s dance program on a dare, he decided that dance was what most interested him outside the classroom.

After successfully auditioning for diSiac dance company his freshman year, Link was selected as an extra for an American Ballet Theatre show that summer. Following a conversation with Sascha Radetsky, a renowned ballet soloist with the company, Link said he reached “a tipping point.”

When he returned to campus as a sophomore, Link’s declining interest in school and desire to continue rigorous dance training led to “apathy and bad sleep patterns,” he said.

By the end of the fall, he was failing most of his classes and was forced to withdraw from the University for one year. He returned for an additional semester so that he would be able to leave on a high note, and then he continued his plan to train intensively in dance.

“Some of my friends didn’t get it,” he said. “A lot of people told me, ‘Why don’t you finish college first?’ ”

Link added that he felt he had to spend his early 20s training especially because of his late entrance into professional dancing, though many people dismissed his rationale for wanting to leave the University.

“It takes a certain courage to say, ‘No, this is what I want to do,’ ” Link added. “The stigma about taking time off from college only exists in people’s heads because society is telling them that they shouldn’t take time off.”

Currently training with South Bay Ballet in California, he said that he may return to the University in his 30s or 40s, an option that the University encourages for former students, to study a subject like economics before assuming an administrative role with a ballet company.

“One thing I’ve learned being a male dancer throughout life is that at a certain point, you have to stop caring about what people think about you,” Link said. “In the end, it’s your life. You should be living it the way you want to.”

The culture shock

For some former students, trying to keep up with the nation’s top students and navigate the social scene on campus while balancing other commitments can also be particularly difficult.

Football recruit Brett Kan said the tough transition to life at Princeton, combined with his commitment as a varsity athlete, drove his decision to transfer to the University of Southern California.

A knee injury during his freshman year forced him to miss two weeks of classes in the fall and spend two semesters away from the University. Because he wanted to continue playing football, he decided to take two consecutive spring semesters off.

Halfway through preseason before his third fall semester in 2009, Kan chose to leave Princeton for good.

“In high school, I had been in control of my life,” he said. “I was a top athlete, I had a great social life, and I did well in school. When you’re working hard and getting B’s, it makes you think twice about what’s going on. Everything just felt out of control for me.”

Competing with some of the world’s top students while maintaining a varsity athletic commitment and a social life was tough to keep up, Kan added.

Because of his injury, he said that he had to report to the training room by 7 a.m. on many Sundays, even though many of his teammates chose to go out to the eating clubs on Saturday nights.

“At this young age, I don’t want to be putting myself through four years being miserable,” said Kan, now a junior. “At USC, I just feel a lot more in control. I feel really happy here. I don’t think anyone should subject themselves to long-term unhappiness, especially in college.”

He said, though, that telling others of his decision to leave was difficult because of the reaction he expected to face.

“Making that hard decision, I felt like I was just kind of a little bit scared. It was a very uncertain move at the time,” he said. “I guess I was a little bit embarrassed to tell people that I was going to leave.”

Bob Surace ’90, who began his position as head coach of the football team last December, said he understood to some degree the struggle that many varsity athletes go through.

“Going to an Ivy League school, many of these students want to be the best they can be at everything they do,” Surace said. “Some of them get by, but the majority of them want to be the best students, get the best jobs when they leave, and they want to be some of the best football players they can be.”

He added that many coaches at academically rigorous schools must balance pushing students on the field hard enough and allowing them to develop into successful college students outside of sports.

Surace also acknowledged the difficulties of knowing exactly what each player’s individual circumstances are. The football team’s roster this year lists more than 100 students.

“You know some of the players get big eyes at some point, thinking, ‘Man, this is hard,’ ” he said. “At some point, it starts to click. Academics at Princeton are going to be difficult.”

With meetings at around 7 a.m. twice a week during the season and nearly 20 hours of practice each week, Surace said he encourages student-athletes to speak frankly with their coaches during difficult times.

“For many freshmen, their first courses are the hardest four courses they’ve ever had in their life,” he said. “I have to be cognizant of that.”

Dealing with the competition

Taylor cited the culture of competition at Princeton as an important factor in her decision to leave.

“It wasn’t, ‘We’re happy to be here.’ It was more like, ‘We’re here to get into med school, law school, or get a job on Wall Street,’ ” she said. “I kept meeting people who seemed like they needed to beat each other, get this job, and get an A in this class.”

“It had made me feel like I was like a freak,” she explained.

Still, Taylor said the University could be close to perfect for many students, even if that was not the case for her.

“I don’t want to come across at all as bashing Princeton,” she said. “For some people, it really is a transition period. Princeton’s tough, but I think if it keeps going on, if it’s no longer a case of finding your footing, if you don’t even know what you’re supposed to be looking for, then I think you have to seriously start considering what you want.”

She said that students seriously considering leaving Princeton should reevaluate whether the prestige and the opportunity to study at the University is worth the emotional cost.

“You have to be brave enough to admit that it’s a great school, but it’s not a great school for me,” Taylor said.