<p>Right, exactly. A lot of legacies who are unqualified that just apply to maximize any legacy influence get deferred out of politeness. In addition, I feel like Princeton, even though HYPSM and other EA schools assert that they will only accept students they are sure they will accept regular decision, will be a little more flexible than the rest of its peers because, at least in my opinion, not only is it less selective than the other four but it seems to be more forgiving in admissions. And it also seems to reward/favor those who show preference to the institution. So yes while it is not binding, I feel like Princeton really wants to attract students who will be loyal to the University and continue the strong connection with its alumni. Yeah, I understand most people will be loyal to Princeton once they have the undergraduate experience under their belts but I just have this lingering suspicion that they will be nicer, if that’s even possible, SCEA than Yale, Harvard, and especially Stanford.</p>
<p>gibby - while princeton certainly recruits for its athletic teams, they dont recruit the entire athletic team. The rest may get a “tip” or be a walk on. Also, dont forget that the reason Pton is an Ivy, is b/c its in the Ivy Athletic League, not D1 athletic league.</p>
<p>^^^ mhmm: A 2003 article quotes former Princeton President William G. Bowen as saying:</p>
<p>"Recruited athletes, who make up as much as a quarter of the student bodies at their institutions – almost 14 percent at Princeton – tend to . . . . "</p>
<p>If today’s numbers are similar, that would mean about 14% of Princeton’s entire student body is a recruited athlete. What I’m suggesting is that those recruited athletes – if they are really interested in Princeton – would be applying SCEA this year.</p>
<p>Gibby–all that I’ve been trying to suggest is that your numbers are very off. Rather than accepting 600 legacy and recruited athletes in the EA pool, the number would probably be between 350-400 max, because (i) a group of legacies will not apply early, (ii) some legacies will be deferred EA and then accepted in the regular pool and (iii) there are a number of legacies who are also recruited athletes.</p>
<p>So, just out of curiosity, does anyone know how many “priority” applicants P had last year? They didn’t have EA but they encouraged applicants to apply early. Thanks.</p>
<p>All in all - regardless of how many applicants there were for Princeton - I’m just keeping my fingers crossed for that mid-December admissions results!
Do you guys reckon P will send out the results any earlier, say, beginning of December?</p>