<p>Are there a lot of Asians? Jews? Blacks? Any information will be greatly appreciated!</p>
<p>in my dorm, white is the minority</p>
<p>My dorm is 1/8 white.</p>
<p>Aside from racial diversity, what's the intellectual diversity on campus? Princeton has a reputation for being East-Coast preppy (which I don't mind). Is that the case? Is there something that "unites" all Princeton students (everyone has something in common)?</p>
<p>I would be interested in students' perspectives on the political and viewpoint diversity on campus among the students and faculty.</p>
<p>Oh yeah, also, is there a lot of Chinese or Korean people? Thanks for all your replies!</p>
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<p>Aside from racial diversity, what's the intellectual diversity on campus?</p>
<p>I would be interested in students' perspectives on the political and viewpoint diversity on campus among the students and faculty.</p>
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<p>you should know, if you don't already, that the faculties and administrations of ALL elite universities tilt very, very heavily to the left. princeton's faculty and administration, in this respect, are no exceptions. as for the student bodies of such universities, they also tilt to the left, albeit less heavily. princeton's student body likewise tilts this way, although less heavily than most of its peers. it's been estimated, pretty fairly, that the student body breaks down 2:1 liberal to conservative. the conservative element, however, is relatively active, making for true two-sided rather than one-sided debate. and the truth is, while most students identify with one side or the other, most are fairly centrist. in short, whatever your opinions might be, you'll find plenty of like-minded students, and plenty of people interested in persuading you otherwise.</p>
<p>Speaking in very general terms, the faculty is more universally liberal than the student body, but the very active and well funded James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions provides a conservative counterpoint. I'd say that within the student body, things are pretty intellectually diverse, although if you're looking for far-left radical theatrics, you'd probably be happier in Cambridge or Berkeley. That's not to say that there aren't students who are pretty far left, but campus culture tends to favor discussion over taking to the streets.</p>
<p>The thing I find most impressive is how civil discourse tends to be among students and faculty who are approaching things from wildly different perspectives. There seems to be more emphasis on establishing common ground and looking for solutions to problems than posturing and fretting about ideological purity.</p>
<p>Thanks for your responses, f.scottie & hbarns. I had heard that Princeton had more viewpoint diversity than most of the other Ivies, but it's good to hear personal perspectives. I'm especially pleased to hear that there tends to be civil discourse. Anyone else?</p>
<p>I might also add to this thread that Princeton has a very large Evangelical Christian community (probably the largest of any of the Ivies)
This in and of itself is very diverse.</p>
<p>Just to add another wrinkle, although the James Madison program is undeniably conservative, a significant majority of the junior fellows (undergrads) are or have been on the liberal/progressive end.</p>
<p>For more on Princeton politically, check this out: <a href="http://www.filibusterfrist.com/%5B/url%5D">http://www.filibusterfrist.com/</a></p>
<p>Harvard and Yale, not Princeton, have by far the most vibrant and outspoken intellectual communities of conservatives from everything I have ever seen or heard (incidentally, they along with Cornell also have the most vibrant leftist communities). Princeton is much better off than say, Brown or Columbia, though. This has nothing to do with the percentage of people who vote for Bush, it has more to do with the communities themselves and what resources and organizations they have available. However, overall I agree with f.scottie that generally all views will be represented when you get to any university of this size.</p>
<p>Overall, Princeton has a diverse undergraduate population as you might expect of any Ivy League School. It does not have quite as many Jewish students as MIT, Yale, Harvard or UPenn, but there is an active Jewish community there and otherwise its "ratios" of ethnic groups are about the same as the other top schools. </p>
<p>But the main reason Princeton is often considered less diverse - and less hospitable for many - is its relative lack of large, affiliated graduate and professional schools. At Princeton, you will not find law, business and medical students, or hordes of art students, who tend to come from all over the world, have different perspectives on life than the average "top student" undergraduate, and help make places like Harvard and Yale very diverse. Contrary to conventional wisdom, undergrads and graduate students at universities do interact to a significant degree, at least informally, and such incredible on-campus diversity also attracts a far greater range of faculty, events and, I would argue, undergraduate students as well. Additionally, Princeton is surrounded by middle-aged, quiet areas of homogenous suburban tract housing and there is therefore little or no interaction with other university students or other 20-somethings. As a result, in my opinion, walking around the campus simply does not give you the same sense of diversity that you might find elsewhere. I know several Princeton graduate students who, because of the boredom, live in Manhattan and commute to Princeton a few times per week. </p>
<p>The Newsweek "Top 100 Global Universities" ranking reflects all of this - Harvard, Yale and Stanford are the three "Most Global Universities" in the world. Princeton ranks 15th, below Duke.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14320413/site/newsweek/%5B/url%5D">http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14320413/site/newsweek/</a>
<a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14321230/%5B/url%5D">http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14321230/</a></p>
<p>Does Princeton have speech codes?</p>
<p>some numbers on diversity: among current princeton freshmen, 55% are on financial aid, and 37% are "students of color" - these numbers compare favorably to any and all peer universities. in addition, 10.3% of freshmen are international students, representing 42 countries. (for first-year graduate students, the percentage of internationals is a whopping 39%.) also, the journal of blacks in higher education recently ranked princeton first among the ivies, and third overall, for its "success in integrating african-americans" (harvard eighth, yale thirteenth), and hispanic magazine ranked it second only to harvard in its "top 25 colleges for latinos" (yale fourth).</p>
<p>I think Princeton has a very active Jewish community for its slightly smaller relative size (compared to Yale and Harvard).</p>
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<p>But the main reason Princeton is often considered less diverse - and less hospitable for many - is its relative lack of large, affiliated graduate and professional schools. </p>
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<p>The main reason Princeton is often considered to offer the best undergraduate experience in the country is its relative lack of large, affiliated graduate and professional schools.</p>
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<p>At Princeton, you will not find law, business and medical students, or hordes of art students, who tend to come from all over the world, have different perspectives on life than the average "top student" undergraduate, and help make places like Harvard and Yale very diverse.</p>
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<p>At Princeton, you will not find law, business and medical students, or hordes of art students, who tend to come from all over the world, keep the faculty from focusing on the undergraduates.</p>
<p>I dunno -- if given a choice between some sort of murky-yet-edifying interaction with graduate and professional students and a strong institutional focus on teaching undergraduates, I know which I'd choose. But I'm delighted that there are options out there for those whose lives would be enriched by the scenario you outline at other institutions. American higher education would be awfully tedious if all institutions were the same.</p>
<p>It is true that grad students often find Princeton boring because the undergrad life focuses very much on undergrads. </p>
<p>One thing we noticed in walking around the campuses of peer institutions was that people of particular races very much seemed to cluster together. At Princeton my d has friends from every corner of the world and every ethnic and racial background.</p>
<p>Yes, interaction among different groups is very important - much more important than any percentages of the class. The smaller Ivies (Dartmouth, Yale and Princeton) tend to do this better than the others. In terms of spending per student on student services - key for undergraduate quality - Dartmouth, Yale, Cornell A&S are the top three Ivies (<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=2954783&postcount=125)%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=2954783&postcount=125)</a>, with Princeton fourth.</p>
<p>The best -- or really only -- way to find out about undergraduate interaction among different groups is to visit a few campuses for 2 or 3 days, sit in on a couple classes, eat in the dining halls, talk to as many students and faculty as possible and sample the nightlife. Find out for yourself.</p>
<p>In terms of professional schools at Harvard or Yale, they do not "distract faculty from teaching undergraduates." Professional schools have separate facilities, endowments and faculty. Some faculty members cross over and teach undergraduates (so an undergrad can take a special course in bioethics at the medical school, or a law course taught by a law school professor, or study with a professor of composition at the music conservatory), but typically not, and they aren't counted in the USNWR student to faculty ratios. They can only be seen as a plus to the undergraduate experience at those schools, not a minus. Obviously, there are graduate (Ph.D. arts and sciences) students at every school, including Dartmouth, Princeton, Yale and Harvard, and those students are different - and I would argue less diverse - than professional school students.</p>
<p>I'm a white, Catholic guy, and coming to Princeton from my very homogenous high school has been such a great experience, just because there are so many people with so many different backgrounds. I live in the same dorm as Peachykween, and white people are definitely the minority... but I never even notice that, which is what's so awesome about it.</p>