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What is it? Its self-doubt and crippling stress; its the feeling of failure and rejection; its powering through Princeton without ever enjoying the process of learning. Maybe its preparation for the real world. Maybe its the way all colleges are, a post-adolescent malaise, or maybe its the essence of Princeton in particular.
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<p>The environment suggested by the article as well as the comments seems to be one of strain and dissatisfaction. To what extent do current students here find this to be true?</p>
<p>That editorial could have been written by a sophomore (but probably not an upperclassman) at any elite college in the country at any time in the past 35 years. The students at those colleges include lots of people who put a lot of pressure on themselves to succeed, and some of them will have a hard time when they have to cope with the fact that they aren’t necessarily stars anymore, and are actually sort of at the bottom of the academic totem pole. They feel burned out; they question their goals. They think they are about to be exposed as frauds. They are furious with themselves and blame the institution. </p>
<p>And then . . . they grow out of it. They learn more stuff and start feeling competent again, with good reason. They start setting their own goals rather than having goals handed to them by their parents and teachers, or having their only goal to be #1 all the time. They get laid. They fall in love. It gets better.</p>
<p>The author thinks he was writing an indictment of Princeton, but it comes across as an indictment of being 19 and maybe having expectations of yourself that aren’t connected to reality. Believe me, that happens at Brown, too.</p>
<p>Certainly, the themes that Brandon touches on are endemic to people in the college years. I was interested to read other students’ opinions on the resonance of the author’s suggestion that students experiencing Princeton’s institutional culture are especially and unnaturally plagued by these sorts of problems. I appreciate the wisdom behind your stance on that matter, though, JHS.</p>
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<p>At the risk of eliciting charges that paint the post count embarrassingly, yes, I am graduating high school this year.</p>
<p>Well, your thoughtful contributions on this board have been and continue to be insightful and informative. Thank you. I was surprised when I started to realize you weren’t some alum, professor, or counselor.</p>
<p>That was… eye opening, to say the least. If next year I don’t make my top choice school and by some miracle make it into Princeton, I’ll definitely have to take all of that into account when making a matriculation decision…</p>
<p>It’s terrible to hear this about Princeton, but then again, it seems pretty generic, and much of the problem could seemingly be generalized to any upper-echelon school. A lot of the students here were among the very smartest people they knew in high school only to come here and find themselves below average, whether within a major or in general. For instance, I met a few people during Frosh Week who had 800 Math SATs, a 5 on BC Calc, and maybe took multivariable calc in high school (but no real other math experience, especially with proofs) and planned to be math majors, only to realize after two lectures in Math 215 (the class most math majors take freshman fall) that they aren’t prepared to be math majors here. Some people quickly realize that they may not be near the top academically at Princeton but can dismiss any resulting trouble with another talent they have that puts them near the top of something. But for others, many of whom face immense pressure from their parents to stay at the top of the class, it’s very rough to experience firsthand that 60% of us are in the third, fourth, and fifth quintiles. Some can deal just fine near the bottom, and others don’t handle that position so well.</p>
<p>From personal experience (even though I’m only a freshman), I would argue with any contention that “it” is “the essence of Princeton in particular.” Are students stressed out here? Of course. Princeton is hard. Assignments are difficult. But quite often, people end up putting things off until as late as possible (I do this all the time), creating short, intensely stressful periods for many of us. Lingering feelings of stress appear much less commonly, though. But what’s great is that when we have problems, people here really try to help each other. And for those who don’t go to their friends with their troubles, or for those with problems their friends can’t solve, there are plenty of other resources that I feel are underutilized: RCAs, college staff/administration, the McGraw Center, and UHS specifically. There really is help for anyone here who asks, and while sometimes it’s hard to realize you can’t take on the world on your own, it is helpful to remember that you don’t have to.</p>
<p>Quite frankly, I think that this feeling is aggravated at Princeton because of the grading policy. Because assignments/exams are graded on the curve, students have no clue where they stand: You can have a 90% and up with a B or you can have a 60% and get an A; cooperation is discouraged, especially in the smaller classes where you can see who you’re competing with; exams are ridiculously hard to ensure that not too many students do well because of the imposed cap of As. Students sign up for classes that they shouldn’t be taking (the kid with AP Calculus BC, etc. taking intro to calculus, the student graduating from an immersion language program taking French 1) which means that the real beginners are way over their head. Add to this that the peer institutions don’t follow this grading policy, and neither do employers or med school admissions know or care that a 3.3 at Princeton is equivalent to a 3.6 at Harvard (or whatever the averages are), pressure at Princeton is higher than at the other ivies or similar elite colleges.</p>
<p>Are you a student here? What makes you think cooperation is discouraged? Why does everyone think people are competing against other people in small classes? This is entirely false. There is NO grade quota in individual small classes, just extremely large ones (like nearly every university in the country). I actually work more with people in smaller classes because they’re my friends and we all want to do well. And all assignments are graded on a curve at nearly every institution in the country. We force all students who have taken a language before to take a placement test so that they cannot take the intro course to that student is in the right class; there might be students with three years of Spanish taking SPA 101 with true beginners, but that’s because their Spanish was not suitable to place them out of 101. We also recommend math placement to make sure anyone with a 5 on BC Calc doesn’t take MAT 103-104 (intro calc) because their academic advisor won’t let them sign up for the course. Even if exams are ridiculously hard (and from my experience, they’re fairly reasonable - median scores range from 60% to 80% normally), they’re hard for everyone.</p>
<p>If you aren’t a student here, you don’t need to be telling people about the environment.</p>
<p>Speaking only as a parent of a student here I will say my opinion is that it IS an adjustment to go from always being the best to being one of many very smart students. But this is going to be true of ANY top school. For my son, I think he was a bit relieved to know it was really OK to get a B. It took a lot of pressure off him. </p>
<p>He has found the student body to be very warm and helpful. I know in his Computer Science classes they are really encouraged to work in pairs/groups.</p>
<p>I think this environment has actually helped my son to be LESS grade conscious and really try to get the most out of his classes without stressing. I suspect the students who have trouble in this environment are still very caught up in having to be the best.</p>
<p>^Yes, and to the extent that the concept of grade deflation (rather than the reality) may discourage some cross-admits who think they can get easier As elsewhere and continue to nurse a need to feel exceptional, it is a good thing, as helps shape a student body that on the whole is more grounded, eager to learn and less intensely competitive.</p>
<p>There seems to be a lot of turmoil on campus these days. Grade deflation, Dr. Calvo’s suicide, honor code changes, banning fraternity and sorority rush of freshmen. This “it” opinion piece is describing an atmosphere of discontent with many dimensions. It’s not just one opinion writer’s sophomore angst to be discounted. It’s seems to be much bigger than that. I wonder if this is the canary in the mine. The comments following articles on all these issues contain a lot of emotion against the administration, discipline committees, fraternities, sports teams, etc. And the commentary appears not to be coming from just students but from faculty and alumni too. I wonder where this is all heading. It gives me the willies.</p>
<p>^ really, come on tigermom. You can’t take the anonymous comments on articles in the Daily Prince as representative of anything. Yes, there are disgruntled students who love to take that opportunity to make their grievances known, but that has always been the case–not just since you started following those responses to published pieces. Is there particular turmoil now? Not from the feedback I’m hearing. But I suppose all is in the eyes of the beholder.</p>
<p>I’m very familiar and have first-hand experience with the grading policy at Princeton and its impact on the learning/teaching environment as well as on scholarship awards, internship and job placement, and grad/professional school admission. While I’m very glad that FighttheTide has a different experience at Princeton, I stand by everything I said. Read the numerous articles in the Daily Princetonian and talk to students, parents, alumni, recent grads, and, yes, faculty.</p>
<p>Please tell us then, what is your relationship with Princeton. You seem to have a fondness for Stanford in your posts…advising students to choose Stanford over Harvard and Princeton. That’s fine of course. You are entitled to your opinion. But when you say you have first hand experience with the grading policy at Princeton just what are you referring to?</p>
<p>Did you teach there? Does your son attend? Did you attend? Your comments would have more credibility if you told us.</p>
<p>I would actually be interested in your connection to Princeton as well. From what I can tell, your children were recruited athletes, but I’m not sure that either of them attended Princeton. To say that you have “first-hand experience with the grading policy at Princeton and its impact on the learning/teaching environment as well as on scholarship awards, internship and job placement, and grad/professional school admission” argues a level of familiarity that few would claim–</p>
Grade deflation: learned about this when two classmate of my older D’s at the end of Freshman year at P complained vociferously about this policy. I heard this second hand, yes, but my D heard it directly from two different kids on separate occasions, unsolicited.
P is recently rated as “happiest” or with “happiest students”…???
Eating Clubs: situation does not sound wonderful, could be adding to stress??</p>
<p>These are very simplistic takes, obviously. But there is a lot of smoke, so is there fire???</p>