Social scene at Princeton

Princeton2018
Sun, 17 Aug 2014 19:07:28 +0000

As a 2018-er I haven’t started even freshman year yet, but I can tell you that you should not worry about the social scene at Princeton. Alumni giving rate is one of the best ways to measure how happy a university’s students are, because students who love their school are more likely to donate. Princeton has the highest giving rate of any university in America at 62.4%, and in fact no other university has a giving rate over 50%, not even peers like Harvard. Students, it would seem, are just really happy to be at Princeton.

To color my data with an anecdote, I have a friend there who said during her freshman year that the three months she had spent on campus were the greatest three months she had ever lived. She was already closer to her new friends than she had been to the school friends she’d known for 10 years or more.

To put it briefly, do not worry about having a happy social life at Princeton. You will. Worry instead about getting in. That’s not the question you asked so I won’t overload you with unsolicited advice, but do look at SCEA. It’s not binding and you have literally nothing to lose, but the acceptance rate is 18% (compared to about 4% in the regular round). Entry in the regular round is definitely still possible–I did it–but a little boost can never hurt.

Good luck!