Newsweek: P not among Top 25 "Happiest Students"

Colleges and Universities A-Z Princeton University
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<p>Though all of Princeton's main peer schools were ranked highly</p>

<p>1 Stanford
3 Yale
11 Harvard
14 Columbia</p>

<p>Princeton was conspicuous in its absence this year. Vewy intewesting. Could it be the "grade deflation" hobgoblin?</p>

<p>And the data is from the PRINCETON Review, so it must be true ......</p>

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<p>lol stop trolling: Columbia is not a peer of Princeton!</p>

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<p>ah, grade deflation. the bane of my existence.</p>

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<p>I think our Yalie friend, Mancune, is having a little fun but here’s a question for him. What happened at Yale this year that caused it to go from #17 on this list a year ago to #3 this year? It’s amazing how those Yale students suddenly woke up and decided, by golly, that in fact, they are happy! </p>

<p>Here is Princeton Review’s ranking from one year ago:</p>

<p>[Schools</a> With The Happiest Students: Princeton Review List](<a href=“Schools With The Happiest Students: Princeton Review List | HuffPost College”>Schools With The Happiest Students: Princeton Review List | HuffPost College)</p>

<p>2011 Princeton Review Happiest Students</p>

<p>1—Rice
2—Clemson
3—Brown
4—Stanford
5—Bowdoin
6—Loyola Marymount
7—Penn State
8—Franklin Olin College of Engineering
9—Pomona College
10—U. of Mississippi</p>

<p>[ GAP]</p>

<p>17—Yale</p>

<p>(not in top 20: Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton)</p>

<hr>

<p>Now here’s another oddity. It seems that those “unhappy” students at Princeton haven’t dissuaded prospective applicants from ranking it rather highly on their “dream college” list.</p>

<p>2012 Princeton Review: The colleges most named by students as their “dream college” were:</p>

<p>1) Harvard
2) Stanford
3) Columbia University
4) New York University
5) Princeton
6) University of California-Los Angeles<br>
7) Yale
8) Massachusetts Institute of Technology
9) Brown
10) University of Southern California</p>

<hr>

<p>It looks like parents are even less well-informed. Imagine ranking Princeton as their second most dreamt of school for their children. That pit of despair? </p>

<p>2012 Princeton Review: The colleges most named by parents as their “dream college” for their children were:</p>

<p>1) Stanford<br>
2) Princeton<br>
3) Harvard<br>
4) University of Notre Dame<br>
5) Massachusetts Institute of Technology<br>
6) University of Pennsylvania<br>
7) Cornell University<br>
8) Duke<br>
9) Yale<br>
10) University of Southern California</p>

<hr>

<p>For those of you who haven’t yet picked up on my sarcasm, I’m extremely skeptical of the reliability of survey-based rankings that change this much from year to year and have such internal inconsistencies.</p>

<p>(By the way, and as Mancune knows, Princeton Review has no connection whatsoever with Princeton University.)</p>

<p>I’m beginning to think this is “silly post” night.</p>

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<p>PtonGrad, did you graduate in 2000? Perhaps the implementation of the grade deflation policy in '04 has a little to do with it. As a pre-med, I am less happy with the University (yes, I know, even though I chose it) than I would be if it did not deflate grades. Oh well, what’s done is done…</p>

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<p>Yeah, I’m not really sure how anyone could objectively measure what colleges have the happiest students. Princeton Review takes student surveys as their data, which are probably pretty unreliable. </p>

<p>And ptontiger, don’t worry about grade deflation. Every med school knows about it and accounts for it; otherwise our med school acceptance rates probably would have dropped since '04, and they haven’t. Science grades haven’t gone down since the adoption of the policy anyway.</p>

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<p>pgrad2000-</p>

<p>I think it’s clear why Yale soared to #3 from #17 in student happiness this year. A really cool Apple Store opened practically on Campus last fall. Now students can play with Apple gadgets all day instead of going to those god-awfully boring lectures.</p>

<p>If you ask me, Princeton needs an Apple Store, and I mean fast.</p>

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<p>@mancune :)</p>

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<p>Haha how do you even measure this? My roommates and I are very happy here, so that’s at least one counter point.</p>

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<p>Don’t get too worked up about it just yet–you haven’t gotten here yet! I’ve found the grading to be tough but fair.</p>

<p>As for the question of happiness, I think this article from the Daily Prince is worth a look: [Dealing</a> with ?it? - The Daily Princetonian](<a href=“http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2011/04/29/28457/]Dealing”>http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2011/04/29/28457/). As much as I love Princeton, and as many people as I know who do too, I have to admit there’s a level of truth to the concept of “it.”</p>