More on Harvard/Princeton cross-admit story

<p>Thank you for the compliment, but I would not claim the savvy of B. in these matters.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, Playfair, the university agrees with you and/or Byerly ;) : Several students have told me the university wants to increase the size of its graduate school in order to enhance its reputation. One of them actually said, "They want to turn us into Harvard. They don't get that we came here for something different. They don't care." </p>

<p>Many of the studies of admissions at Princeton are based on the Hargadon years, which were characterized by some very questionable admissions practices; under Rapelye those are changing. To answer your question, I think P would do far better at competing by recognizing what it does so very well and keeping on doing it. Making sure that very bright students from all sorts of schools and backgrounds know what Princeton offers is a great move and one that Princeton is beginning to make. Offering alternatives to the eating clubs makes sense. </p>

<p>Dramatically changing the school's character and size, however, does not sound to me like a good idea. Re graduate school, it is not clear right now what the university is planning. They are hoping to take over the current Princeton Medical Center so that the grad students would be living and working in the center of town, which seems likely to be more fun and interesting for them; I don't know whether that really does mean they plan to "grow" the grad school. Really it is the lack of professional schools that makes Princeton different from H or Y or S. We hear rumors they are thinking of starting a law school, and they have also begun a cooperative program with Robert Wood Johnson med school for M.D./Ph.D. students. We shall see.</p>

<p>And although the grade quotas may be intended to somehow address the trend in the paper you linked us to, I am hearing a lot of students -- very bright, high achievers -- wondering why they would go to a school that is limiting the number of A-range grades and deliberately pitting students against one another and possibly hurting their law/med/grad school admissions, when they could go to grade-inflated Harvard. As I've said before here, I really admire the way P students are not allowing themselves to turn on one another despite this new policy, but I really have trouble understanding the admin's logic on this one.</p>

<p>I think so too, bulldog. However, he did list Princeton as his #1 undergraduate school... maybe Byerly is trying to throw us off?</p>

<p>I want to add that I am not such a believer in the capitalist system that I believe all competition is beneficial. Competition can improve institutions/companies and create value; it can also squash a great deal of diversity and richness. I see P as occupying a niche somewhere between Harvard and Williams, which is a wonderful place to be. I would hate to see P becoming a Harvard-wannabe. So even if P's admin is focused on marketing, as a consumer (i.e., as a student or parent), it is very appropriate to be thinking differently.</p>

<p>The admissions operation at Princeton is getting a thorough overhaul. The ghost of Hargadon is fading away. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2004/04/21/news/10356.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2004/04/21/news/10356.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I still say that if you really really want to get into Princeton, don't submit the common app.</p>

<p>Playfair's sycophancy does bolster crimsonbulldog's hypothesis.</p>

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<p>I'd like to agree with it. If nothing else, it gives you more flexibility to express your interest in Princeton (unlike commonapp)
Not an extensive or a scientific poll, but we tried to figure it out at one time. check the link
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=62115%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=62115&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>"Rapelye dismissed the idea that students who opted to use the Common Application might be less committed to the possibility of attending Princeton compared to those students who completed the University's own one.</p>

<pre><code>"The Common Application was designed to have exactly the same questions as our Princeton application — so that students had to make a considerable effort in filling out the [additional Princeton] supplement because it had extra essay questions," Rapelye said, noting that traditional elements from Princeton's application, including questions about applicants' favorite mementos and favorite sources of news, were part of the Common Application supplement.

Though exact figures about the popularity of the Common Application compared with Princeton's own application were unavailable, Rapelye said that roughly half of all applicants used each the Common Application and the University's own."
</code></pre>

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Dramatically changing the school's character and size, however, does not sound to me like a good idea.(aparent)

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<p>That is all a relative affair. In the 1950s there were a couple of hundreds undergraduates per class, today there are some 1180, in 4 years there will be some 1300. Look at how many buildings (not just Whitman college, but also the Genomics Center etc.etc.) weren't there in the 1970's. As far as that is concerned: think about the scale of P (and H, too!) in the 19th century. If someone in Ralph Nader's class would have predicted that by the turn of the century the university president would be a Jew, followed by a woman, he would have been declared insane. :) Black stundents probably would not have arrived on campus for a long time, if it weren't for WWII and so on. </p>

<p>Today's adminstration knows damn well that they have to keep adapting the place to keep it competitive. My bet is that P will heavily invest in the engineering and life sciences facilities to stay abreast.</p>

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I am not such a believer in the capitalist system that I believe all competition is beneficial (aparent)

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<p>Competition is not the only driver of higher achievement, but it is a fact of life in a "market" system (by that I mean a system where people are "free to choose" (Milton Friedman). Besides: HYPSM have a deeply competitive culture, that's their very raison d'etre, I would say.</p>

<p>As I predicted earlier, we will soon see a commitment from Princeton to substantially increase its investment in science and engineering facilities - and an enlargement of graduate programs in these areas. </p>

<p>Why? Because you can't stand still while the competition is advancing, and because Princeton has - or will find - the necessary resouces. </p>

<p>Just within the Ivies, Yale has a $1 billion campaign to upgrade the sciences, and Harvard is contemplating a multi-billion dollar science and engineering campus on the Allston side of the Charles. When finished, the Harvard engineering program - long a tiny "boutique" - will be larger than Cornell's (currently the largest and highest-ranked Ivy engineering program.</p>

<p>P's equivalent to the Allston property: :D</p>

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Road and parking lots behind the Prospect Avenue eating clubs also could offer opportunities for expansion, particularly for science and engineering facilities.

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<p><a href="http://www.princeton.edu/pr/home/04/0323_cpuc/hmcap.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.princeton.edu/pr/home/04/0323_cpuc/hmcap.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>"HYPSM have a deeply competitive culture, that's their very raison d'etre, I would say."</p>

<p>Really? Silly me, I thought it was the advancement of knowledge and the creation of future leaders! </p>

<p>I am not naive enough to be ignorant of the fact that these universities compete with one another. I would certainly hope that no one -- no administrator, professor, or certainly student -- is so driven to compete that they lose sight of the value of their own individual merits and mission.</p>

<p>Let's hope so.</p>

<p>Interesting. On the Parents' board somebody posted the college destinations of the Thomas Jefferson magnet school in VA. Three are going to Harvard, 3 to Yale...and 14 to Princeton. <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=73712%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=73712&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>No, but they might be so driven to compete that they hack into their competitor school's admissions database to gain some sort of intelligence.</p>

<p>Coureur, is someone here defending that action? None of the administrators involved is working in admissions anymore, btw, and I don't think Janet Rapelye is the hacking type. However, my concerns about the admins appreciation of P's particular niche still stand.</p>

<p>And for Thomas Jefferson, 7 to Stanford. I don't think that 14 going to Princeton shows anything about the school...most of them may not have been admitted to HSY.</p>

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<p>No one is currently defending it. I was using it as an example of how, at even the best universities, it is certainly possible for the Admissions staff to get caught up in the competition as lose sight of what the real mission is.</p>

<p>"most of them may not have been admitted to HSY."</p>

<p>A silly assumption, given the high standards at TJ. A more likely explanation is Princeton's long-standing popularity with Southerners. It's VA, even if we are talking about the D.C. suburbs.</p>