<p>After spending all fall racking up public relations points on their decision to end Early Decision because it is so exclusive, Princeton just filled a whopping 48% its incoming freshman class Early Decision....</p>
<p>Go figure.</p>
<p>I applied RD for financial reasons, and I think this seems like a pretty definitive sign that this would be a good time give up any last remaining shred of hope of ever being accepted.</p>
<p>Ah, well.</p>
<p>Is there an ingenuous collegiate publicity file?</p>
<p>so wonder what the financials are in this princeton class....hmmmm</p>
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Is there an ingenuous collegiate publicity file?
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</p>
<p>Not that I've ever seen. I think it's bred out of the academic community!</p>
<p>I was originally thinking about calling the thread "Stop Me Before I Kill Again", but figured it might be too inflammatory.</p>
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I was originally thinking about calling the thread "Stop Me Before I Kill Again", but figured it might be too inflammatory.
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<p>LOL. Yes, it's important to find some way to handle all those university press releases.</p>
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Is there an ingenuous collegiate publicity file?
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Wow.
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Not that I've ever seen. I think it's bred out of the academic community!
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Wow again.</p>
<p>It's their last hurrah!</p>
<p>Leaves about 600 spots open.</p>
<p>I think this is a little harsh. </p>
<p>For at least the last four years, Princeton has enrolled about half of its class from ED. (49% in 2004, 49% in 2005), not sure about 2006 but it was described as "about half" in the media). Should this year be any different? I don't think so. </p>
<p>To behave differently would be to punish those students who appled ED this year, students who were not part of the decision to end it and some of whom didn't even know Princeton would be ending it when they applied. As you might recall, Princeton's decision followed Harvard's and thus took place in mid-September, after some students had already submitted applications to Princeton and other institutions.</p>
<p>In my experience, the most equitable thing to do when you change a college admissions policy is to continue to admit the current class under your usual process that is known to guidance counselors and documented in college materials and guidebooks. Change should rightfully take place in the next admission cycle. </p>
<p>Can someone amplify why they think this is disingenuous on Princeton's part, to conduct their last ED process in the same way they've conducted it in recent history?</p>
<p>Excellent post, hoedown.</p>
<p>Princeton did not announce that it would water down its ED program this year before eliminating it next year.</p>
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Can someone amplify why they think this is disingenuous on Princeton's part, to conduct their last ED process in the same way they've conducted it in recent history?
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<p>Sure. I'll explain. </p>
<p>If they felt that ED was so evil, why have they been consistently enrolling such a high percentage of their class ED?</p>
<p>Why not scale that percentage back (not just this year, but last year, and the year before that)?</p>
<p>Oh, I know why! Because that wouldn't have generated all the headlines about how concerned Princeton is about equity when they jumped on the Harvard ED bandwagon.</p>
<p>To their credit, it's not as disingenous as the press release trumpeting no tuition increase when they are actually increasing the price 4.1%, but doing it with a 19% room and board hike. How stupid do they think we are?</p>
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Wow.
Wow again.
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<p>Dean J, you can't really be surprised that there is a lot of consumer scepticism about college statements, especially admissions statements. I think anyone who has done the college tour and viewbook circuit has seen it get so deep it sometimes requires hipwaders.</p>
<p>Gordon C. Winston, an expert on the economics of higher education, once made this comment on elite colleges: "colleges are part church and part car dealer. They often talk the talk of Martin Luther King Jr., but, as self-interested institutions focused on their own survival, they more often walk the walk of an investment banker. While corporations maximize profits for shareholders, private colleges are essentially in the business, not necessarily of imparting knowledge or contributing to the public good, but of maximizing their endowments."</p>
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To their credit, it's not as disingenous as the press release trumpeting no tuition increase when they are actually increasing the price 4.1%, but doing it with a 19% room and board hike. How stupid do they think we are?
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<p>idad, thanks for stealing my post!!!!! You got this Princeton bashing thread started, but it would have been common cc courtesy to let me have that one. Now I have nothing left to say about Princeton. Guess I will have to go bash Rutgers.</p>
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Dean J, you can't really be surprised that there is a lot of consumer scepticism about college statements
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I'm surprised by the sweeping generalization. Saying that those in academia aren't candid because of Princeton's action is silly.</p>
<p>Maybe you’d have a few more of us posting (instead of silently reading, as many are) if you weren’t so distrusting of our profession. Then again, maybe you don’t want admission officers to contribute and challenge the belief we’re dishonest bureaucrats. </p>
<p>I guess I’m a glutton for punishment. The four IM conversations I’ve had this morning with students from here make up for the negative comments.</p>
<p>Dean, I guess you can't help but take it personally, but try to recognize many of these posts as an outlet for frustrated middle aged menopausal (men AND women) stressed out parents. It is online, semianonymous, and might save a dog from being kicked. Surely you can weather a little collateral damage (not directed at you personally) to spare a poor helpless puppy! :D</p>
<p>See what happens when we start with the lawyer jokes.</p>
<p>Dean J:</p>
<p>I've actually found that admissions officers are fine folk, helpful, and candid (to a point) on an individual level. The disingenuousness usually surfaces in official statements and press releases, which extends far beyond Princeton.</p>
<p>It's an institutional disingenuousness.</p>
<p>Dean J, </p>
<p>I have found college information sessions put on regionally by various colleges (including the one you work for) to be helpful and informative, and I recommend them to parents and list them on a FAQ page on a Brand X Web site. But all the same, colleges--even fine colleges like yours--could get a little farther out of marketing mode sometimes and little more into frank exchange of views mode. One of my son's most noticed collegiate publicity terms is "diversity." We have NEVER been to a public information about a college in which the college representatives said they were against diversity. But we have also never been to a meeting at which the rather abstract term "diversity" was well defined. So just as I don't necessarily believe that Chrysler cars are the world's best automobiles after watching a Chrysler commercial, so too I go away from some college information meetings shaking my head about how vague and unhelpful some of the publicity statements are. But please don't take that personally: you are joining in on this interactive forum, which allows people to say what they mean and maybe even mean what they say more than a canned presentation at a public meeting ever will allow.</p>
<p>I agree with the criticism of Princeton here. Among the elite colleges, Princeton admits the highest percentage of its class ED. At most of the highly selective schools, the ED target is about 30% of the class, and (adjusting for expected yield) that's about what Harvard, Yale, and Stanford do with SCEA. Harvard and Yale admit about the same number of kids EA as Princeton does ED, but they have (a) larger classes overall, (b) no commitment on the part of the kids they admit EA to enroll, thus no huge disincentive to non-wealthy kids to apply early, and (c) twice the number of EA applicants as Princeton gets ED applicants. So Princeton is making a very deliberate, and unusual, choice to pick more of its class from a smaller, richer pool.</p>
<p>That IS how Princeton has always done it, at least for the past decade or so, and that has always been the wrong thing to do.</p>