<p>Interesting to me that everyone has their own idea of who should be "princeton" material. For some high gpa, sats or great ecs. For some it is a great hook. The reality is that in order to form the balanced, ideal college environment with the most qualified students, Princeton has to make difficult compromises. A star dancer with a 750 verbal but a 600 math score is accepted and a math wiz with many awards has a meager 580 verbal 800 everything else is also accepted. This year we need a new center on the girls basketball team to be competitive and 6 ft. Suzy from Wy. is avg. 25pts / 10 rebs / 8 assists per game gets the nod. She is 8th out of 110 and has scores of 3.8 gpa, 680 math and 710 math. Many 800, 800, 800, 4.3gpa vals who have no other compelling accomplishments (or maybe they play the violin but this is the year 2 violin players with slightly less impressive stats but from first generation parents or underreped states are accepted) and consequently they don't get in. Is it fair? It is if you are the admissions trying to construct the ideal class. It isn't if you are outside looking in. Many brilliant athletes, artists, performers, intellectuals apply and many don't get in. To put down any specialized group represented in the P student body based soley on their perceived lower scores or class ranking is unfair at least and more likely evidence of sour grapes or dissapointment. :(</p>
<p>I would like to second: the coaches do want to know about your academics and are greatly impressed if you have the grades/scores. After all my son, for example, who hopes to fence in college is a #1 ranked student with 5 800's on his SAT record. All of it with 20+hours a week practice plus constant trips to the competitions. Work ethics is work ethics and it does not matter to what area you apply it. If you can be successfull in one area such as sport/violin playing, you will be successfull in everything else.</p>