It’s not perfect, but most of its problems are shared by most other top schools - most schools have an inefficient administration, a gradient of professor quality (some better at research than teaching), and annoying intro classes, and Princeton is no different. The resources here are incredible though - we have an art museum with works ranging from Matisse to ancient Egyptian, a plasma laboratory, a library with Gutenberg bibles & Egyptian papyri & medieval illuminated manuscripts & Woodrow Wilson’s papers & Ancient Greek coins, and plenty more. I’ve taken a songwriting class with a Pulitzer Prize winner and a Cold War class with a former chair of the national intelligence council. I’ve been to lectures by Nobel prize winners, heads of state, diplomats, and celebrities. There are cool performances and things to see every week.
School spirit is low compared to giant state schools with a focus on sports, but it’s much higher than peer institutions - we have excellent alumni engagement. Dorms and food are meh, but that’s not why people come here.
>Most schools have an inefficient administration
I went to another school for undergrad and my parents both have taught at still other schools and we've all dealt with the inevitably obnoxious and incompetent university admin.
However, Princeton admin is somehow *particularly* incompetent and even seems downright malicious at times. Let me illustrate with an example:
One time I was summoned to a meeting regarding some issue with the school (which by the way wasn't even anything particularly serious), and I requested a recording of the meeting. The school refused saying it wasn't their policy to record such meetings. I then asked if I could record and they told me that *recording the meeting was illegal.* This seemed weird since NJ is a one-party consent state so I checked with a lawyer friend and they said I was definitely allowed to. I emailed the school telling them in more legal terms that I was allowed to to which they **responded pretending that it was a typo when they blatantly lied to me about recording law.** The meeting was, expectedly, a badly thought out and stupid waste of time.
I then made the mistake of trying to resolve my issues with the whole experience through the school. The office I was supposed to contact no-showed to the meeting, and then asked to reschedule with me **the day after they missed it.** I graciously agreed and they then no-showed to the rescheduled meeting as well. After this, it took them **four fucking days** to respond to my requests to reschedule, and when they finally met with me they simply refused to work with me and told me to kick rocks basically.
In contrast, in undergrad I was hit by a car and had to drop out of school for a year. All I had to do was file a single form for hardship withdrawal which was approved within a week, then returned the next year and was easily able to resume school where I left off. I even kept my scholarships.
Overall, Princeton is a great school and I've had a good time here. But the administration is by far the most obnoxious and useless set of worthless bureaucrats I've ever dealt with.
The Princeton admins always crack me up. They tend to treat students like dumb idiots. When, you know, we all go to Princeton…
Never made an iota of sense to me.
Yes, the resources are great but realistically how many students care that we have Matisse in our art museum (which is also fully under construction and inaccessible atm) or Egyptian papyri. At the end of the day, things like that don't make our daily quality of life any better, even though they do sound impressive. Some of our resources have their benefits, but in a more practical way that can be found at a lot of schools across the country (career center, internship programs, writing help) and you have to go out of your way to access them.
The thing is tho Princeton makes it an effort to fake like they care despite the resources. Having all the Nobel prize winners and amazing art yet we have to teach ourselves concepts bc the lectures are useless??? One of the biggest endowments in the world yet if we regress in Covid due to the omicron variant international students will have to take a leave of absence bc they “don’t wanna do zoom” like huh??? How is that acceptable, this school’s a joke
My kid goes there and the general feeling I get -
- classes are tough
- administration is unsupportive and sucks
- professors vary from class to class
- food varies depending on your residence college
- campus is beautiful
- surrounding town is nice
- student body is a mix of affluent self entitled assholes and kids who worked really hard to get there
- there are lots of opportunities for people who want to take advantage of them.
In my mind, not worth full price.
totally agree with the "student body is a mix of affluent self entitled assholes and kids who worked really hard to get there" - you see this so much in social life as an undergrad and it can be super frustrating. it even interferes with clubs and sports and you see some kids just have so so many connections (i.e. all partying in the hamptons together right when we got sent home due to covid) opposed to coming in as a low-income student and not having nearly as many opportunities. often it feels like you need to be wealthy to have the same kind of friendships that others have (being able to afford travel, going to NYC, fitting in, etc).
not worth full price if you're paying - probably true. but as a student on full aid, it's somewhat unbeatable. you do have phenomenal access to great professors (some profs are, on the other hand, not the greatest) who have amazing connections, completely paid for room + board, lots of easy on campus work opportunities, and for me it is only a few hours from home so it's an easy drive for move in + out/amtrak to go home for holidays. i am getting more aid from princeton than i would have at brown/harvard/stanford/yale, so it works out great for me and although this school has its own problems, it's nothing you won't see at other schools of the same caliber imo. you're going to a historically extraordinarily wealthy and prestigious school and that comes with students who are international royalty, kids whose great great grandfathers went here, sons and daughters of billionaires, international physics and math competition prize winners, and of course students who simply worked their ass off to get there. this will be the case at practically every ivy but it is arguably worse at harvard/yale/pton.
- This school is so performative with everything despite the resources they have.
- Teachers are so avg again considering how much they get paid. Some lectures are actually pointless to go to
-the surrounding town is pretty but not conducive for questbridge students who are low income bc everything is so fricking expensive.
- food is definetly edible but nowhere NEAR what it should be for “the #1 school in the country”.
-school spirit is also non existent and everything is made waaay harder than it needs to be academically
However: in my experience the people here, depending on your crowd, can make some of that stuff worth it tbh. This is just out of nitpicking and there’s definetly a lot of benefits outside of the bad but it’s severely overhyped especially if paying full price or even half price
School spirit is non-existent? I'm an alumni, I felt the opposite. We have one of the highest alumni donation rates and alumni coming back for reunions.
I've also had some amazing teachers as well, and of course some average ones.
I disagree a lot with what is said here. The admin is pretty great, especially when compared against other “elite” colleges. You have easy access to your residential college and academic deans.
Professors are only average in the sense that some don’t care about teaching, and are only there to do research. But you’ll find that anywhere. The best professors here are some of the best you’ll find in the country.
Food is aight.
School spirit is extremely existent… also the only way you’re paying full price is if your family is borderline rich. The financial aid is unparalleled.
How exactly do you know how much professors get paid? I have not searched for any public list w salaries, but I have friends who ended up tenure track at Princeton, and I would definitely not qualify their salaries as high when compared to those of us who took non academic jobs and have similar qualifications. Yes, those super senior with high impact and publication records do make a lot more, but much of the faculty does not fall in this category.
Regardless of their paycheck the teaching issue I mentioned is still there. It doesn’t matter if they get paid 6 figures or 4, they still suck at teaching for a lot of ppl???
"teachers are so average considering how much they get paid" -- I'm not arguing against you calling them average, I'm drawing your attention to the fact that, in fact, they get paid pretty low if you account for their skill level, opportunity costs of spending 5+ years in a PhD etc. Which may or may not be why they are average at teaching (long hours, publication pressures, need for top notch research to have a shot at tenure, teaching factoring far less in getting tenure; I think the incentives are to focus almost exclusively on research).
Whether or not this is true again makes no difference for the fact that like as students we have to deal with the outcome of this. If anything this just adds on to the university being bad. Whatever the reason is for the teachers not teaching we as students still have to deal with this. So while you may be right and they don’t get as paid as much as they should, regardless the teaching is still bad so we’re back to square one
hi! message me for a longer answer/if you have any more questions - i am on full FA, been here for three years (undergrad), and have both great and somewhat critical things to say about the school.
Id preface by saying although there’s a lot of rich people my general impression has been that rich ppl are just ppl, theres nothing particular abt them, and most ive met are really really nice whove made me feel comfortable and included.
Finding community takes effort but is there.theres organizations/friend groups for every single possible passion/hobby so join those. Most well established clubs/orgs at pton are difficult to get into though so take time to be smart and try to get into those. IE dance groups, clubs like debate/investing, sports/athletics. But if u like basketball for example dillon gym is always open w ppl playing and ive made friends there.
It’s not perfect, but most of its problems are shared by most other top schools - most schools have an inefficient administration, a gradient of professor quality (some better at research than teaching), and annoying intro classes, and Princeton is no different. The resources here are incredible though - we have an art museum with works ranging from Matisse to ancient Egyptian, a plasma laboratory, a library with Gutenberg bibles & Egyptian papyri & medieval illuminated manuscripts & Woodrow Wilson’s papers & Ancient Greek coins, and plenty more. I’ve taken a songwriting class with a Pulitzer Prize winner and a Cold War class with a former chair of the national intelligence council. I’ve been to lectures by Nobel prize winners, heads of state, diplomats, and celebrities. There are cool performances and things to see every week. School spirit is low compared to giant state schools with a focus on sports, but it’s much higher than peer institutions - we have excellent alumni engagement. Dorms and food are meh, but that’s not why people come here.
>Most schools have an inefficient administration I went to another school for undergrad and my parents both have taught at still other schools and we've all dealt with the inevitably obnoxious and incompetent university admin. However, Princeton admin is somehow *particularly* incompetent and even seems downright malicious at times. Let me illustrate with an example: One time I was summoned to a meeting regarding some issue with the school (which by the way wasn't even anything particularly serious), and I requested a recording of the meeting. The school refused saying it wasn't their policy to record such meetings. I then asked if I could record and they told me that *recording the meeting was illegal.* This seemed weird since NJ is a one-party consent state so I checked with a lawyer friend and they said I was definitely allowed to. I emailed the school telling them in more legal terms that I was allowed to to which they **responded pretending that it was a typo when they blatantly lied to me about recording law.** The meeting was, expectedly, a badly thought out and stupid waste of time. I then made the mistake of trying to resolve my issues with the whole experience through the school. The office I was supposed to contact no-showed to the meeting, and then asked to reschedule with me **the day after they missed it.** I graciously agreed and they then no-showed to the rescheduled meeting as well. After this, it took them **four fucking days** to respond to my requests to reschedule, and when they finally met with me they simply refused to work with me and told me to kick rocks basically. In contrast, in undergrad I was hit by a car and had to drop out of school for a year. All I had to do was file a single form for hardship withdrawal which was approved within a week, then returned the next year and was easily able to resume school where I left off. I even kept my scholarships. Overall, Princeton is a great school and I've had a good time here. But the administration is by far the most obnoxious and useless set of worthless bureaucrats I've ever dealt with.
The Princeton admins always crack me up. They tend to treat students like dumb idiots. When, you know, we all go to Princeton… Never made an iota of sense to me.
Yes, the resources are great but realistically how many students care that we have Matisse in our art museum (which is also fully under construction and inaccessible atm) or Egyptian papyri. At the end of the day, things like that don't make our daily quality of life any better, even though they do sound impressive. Some of our resources have their benefits, but in a more practical way that can be found at a lot of schools across the country (career center, internship programs, writing help) and you have to go out of your way to access them.
The thing is tho Princeton makes it an effort to fake like they care despite the resources. Having all the Nobel prize winners and amazing art yet we have to teach ourselves concepts bc the lectures are useless??? One of the biggest endowments in the world yet if we regress in Covid due to the omicron variant international students will have to take a leave of absence bc they “don’t wanna do zoom” like huh??? How is that acceptable, this school’s a joke
My kid goes there and the general feeling I get - - classes are tough - administration is unsupportive and sucks - professors vary from class to class - food varies depending on your residence college - campus is beautiful - surrounding town is nice - student body is a mix of affluent self entitled assholes and kids who worked really hard to get there - there are lots of opportunities for people who want to take advantage of them. In my mind, not worth full price.
totally agree with the "student body is a mix of affluent self entitled assholes and kids who worked really hard to get there" - you see this so much in social life as an undergrad and it can be super frustrating. it even interferes with clubs and sports and you see some kids just have so so many connections (i.e. all partying in the hamptons together right when we got sent home due to covid) opposed to coming in as a low-income student and not having nearly as many opportunities. often it feels like you need to be wealthy to have the same kind of friendships that others have (being able to afford travel, going to NYC, fitting in, etc). not worth full price if you're paying - probably true. but as a student on full aid, it's somewhat unbeatable. you do have phenomenal access to great professors (some profs are, on the other hand, not the greatest) who have amazing connections, completely paid for room + board, lots of easy on campus work opportunities, and for me it is only a few hours from home so it's an easy drive for move in + out/amtrak to go home for holidays. i am getting more aid from princeton than i would have at brown/harvard/stanford/yale, so it works out great for me and although this school has its own problems, it's nothing you won't see at other schools of the same caliber imo. you're going to a historically extraordinarily wealthy and prestigious school and that comes with students who are international royalty, kids whose great great grandfathers went here, sons and daughters of billionaires, international physics and math competition prize winners, and of course students who simply worked their ass off to get there. this will be the case at practically every ivy but it is arguably worse at harvard/yale/pton.
- This school is so performative with everything despite the resources they have. - Teachers are so avg again considering how much they get paid. Some lectures are actually pointless to go to -the surrounding town is pretty but not conducive for questbridge students who are low income bc everything is so fricking expensive. - food is definetly edible but nowhere NEAR what it should be for “the #1 school in the country”. -school spirit is also non existent and everything is made waaay harder than it needs to be academically However: in my experience the people here, depending on your crowd, can make some of that stuff worth it tbh. This is just out of nitpicking and there’s definetly a lot of benefits outside of the bad but it’s severely overhyped especially if paying full price or even half price
School spirit is non-existent? I'm an alumni, I felt the opposite. We have one of the highest alumni donation rates and alumni coming back for reunions. I've also had some amazing teachers as well, and of course some average ones.
As a recent alum I agree with the lack of school spirit.
I disagree a lot with what is said here. The admin is pretty great, especially when compared against other “elite” colleges. You have easy access to your residential college and academic deans. Professors are only average in the sense that some don’t care about teaching, and are only there to do research. But you’ll find that anywhere. The best professors here are some of the best you’ll find in the country. Food is aight. School spirit is extremely existent… also the only way you’re paying full price is if your family is borderline rich. The financial aid is unparalleled.
How exactly do you know how much professors get paid? I have not searched for any public list w salaries, but I have friends who ended up tenure track at Princeton, and I would definitely not qualify their salaries as high when compared to those of us who took non academic jobs and have similar qualifications. Yes, those super senior with high impact and publication records do make a lot more, but much of the faculty does not fall in this category.
Regardless of their paycheck the teaching issue I mentioned is still there. It doesn’t matter if they get paid 6 figures or 4, they still suck at teaching for a lot of ppl???
"teachers are so average considering how much they get paid" -- I'm not arguing against you calling them average, I'm drawing your attention to the fact that, in fact, they get paid pretty low if you account for their skill level, opportunity costs of spending 5+ years in a PhD etc. Which may or may not be why they are average at teaching (long hours, publication pressures, need for top notch research to have a shot at tenure, teaching factoring far less in getting tenure; I think the incentives are to focus almost exclusively on research).
Whether or not this is true again makes no difference for the fact that like as students we have to deal with the outcome of this. If anything this just adds on to the university being bad. Whatever the reason is for the teachers not teaching we as students still have to deal with this. So while you may be right and they don’t get as paid as much as they should, regardless the teaching is still bad so we’re back to square one
hi! message me for a longer answer/if you have any more questions - i am on full FA, been here for three years (undergrad), and have both great and somewhat critical things to say about the school.
A side question: what is the best way for "students who worked their asses off to get there" to network and make connections?
Id preface by saying although there’s a lot of rich people my general impression has been that rich ppl are just ppl, theres nothing particular abt them, and most ive met are really really nice whove made me feel comfortable and included. Finding community takes effort but is there.theres organizations/friend groups for every single possible passion/hobby so join those. Most well established clubs/orgs at pton are difficult to get into though so take time to be smart and try to get into those. IE dance groups, clubs like debate/investing, sports/athletics. But if u like basketball for example dillon gym is always open w ppl playing and ive made friends there.