I got accepted without first quarter grades request (that I know of)
4.0, 35 ACT, Hispanic, handful of leadership positions and an internship with a small non profit. I definitely think my essays made the difference because I didn’t have any major awards or extracurriculars
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Got in!!
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SAT/ACT scores alone won’t tell you much. Higher is better, of course, but some kids with SAT scores in the 1400s – and even the 1300s – get accepted, and some kids with perfect scores get rejected.
Like many schools, Princeton could assemble an incoming class consisting entirely of students with perfect/near-perfect test scores. But that’s not its goal.
My accepted D22-
-unweighted gpa of 4.0 (her school doesn’t weigh gpa or rank)
-SAT super score of 1580 (single sitting 1560). Took test 3 times. 11APs, 4 honors,1 dual credit.
-NASA intern/President of Student Body/ President of French Honor Society/Captain of Robotics team/Editor of School Paper and Yearbook
-okish awards, nothing too different than anyone else
-Hooked- URM, Female STEM
-Strong LORs from teachers who she really respected and who had known her all throughout HS
-Wrote great essays. She didn’t have a life altering/shattering event (which I think so many incorrectly think they have to write about) so she wrote about the things that “make her,her” (hobby of making ethnic foods, her political activism, and watching football with her dad)
-She did have an interview
-Submitted SAT scores
-Her school automatically submits Q1 grades
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Hi TigerInWinter,
I agree there is more to an application than test scores, I was just wondering if there seemed to be a threshold or cutoff for those who have been admitted.
Thanks.
Wow! great stats for your daughter. And congrats on her acceptance - well deserved!
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Congrats! What a terrific profile.
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Son got in, 1510 SAT, 4.0UW/4.5 W GPA, 3 varsity + 1 club sports, two captains, some math competition awards, debate award, etc.
But, as lots of people have realized, what really depicts the kids should be the entire package. What we probably would never get the chance seeing are LORs and essays, which in my opinion, matter the most.
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Based on our experience (2 accepted into T10 schools in last 2 years), I think the LORs are the deciding factor for most high stat, great EC, great essay kids that aren’t recruited athletes, nationally known entertainers or have other hook. The stats simply get one over the hurdle to be seriously considered.
I’ve watched these forums for several years and always the same observation. One of my daughters got her admission file back and that supported my belief.
#1 Their large public high school has a strong track record of sending a few kids each year to a school (e.g 5-6 annually to Harvard) so the College is well aware of the school profile.
#2. That adds even more credibility when the LOR says things like “best ever seen” or “a humble, true leader”. If you’ve seen the LOR template, it is very easy to damn someone with faint praise. On the surface, it’s looks like a great LOR with high quantitative ratings, but the commentary is vital.
I was all over my girls to ask their teachers and counselors early, spend a lot of time writing up their Brag sheets and choose recommenders that were known to write great letters for older kids who got into great schools. A great LOR is as dependent on the Recommender ability to write as much as the material they have to work with.
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Although Princeton announced its SCEA decisions last night, it did not release any statistics. Instead, it released this interesting statement.
Key message:
"We have in recent years stopped reporting the annual admission rate, as well as the admission rate by SAT score range and average GPA. We have now made the decision not to release admission data during the early action, regular decision and transfer admission cycles. Instead, we will publish an announcement later in 2022 that focuses on the enrolled students who will join Princeton as the Class of 2026.
We believe this decision will help us keep students central to our work and tamp down the anxiety of applicants."
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deferred. 4.0 unweighted/1st in class.
(I also posted this in Fall 2022 EA Trends): I think that hiding admission stats only serves university purposes. Schools who say that this is a “student centered decision” are not being honest, in my opinion. My daughter is a freshman at Princeton and her first response to this information was that Princeton is trying to guard against their rankings dropping a couple of years from now when they open 2 new residential colleges and take a much larger freshman class, which will result in their acceptance rate increasing. She thinks they won’t want to publicize increased acceptance rates because it makes Princeton “look bad” so they are deciding now not to publish acceptance rates at all so they can hide behind that decision in a couple of years when their acceptance rate will likely climb. I totally applaud Princeton for increasing enrollment because there are so many kids who could thrive there who don’t get a chance to attend, but it would really bother me if my daughter were right. Admissions is so perplexing and stressful and fraught (I have a high school senior who is going through it now too), and it is hard to see how reducing transparency is the right decision.
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what class will be a larger class?
I just checked Princeton’s website and it says construction should be completed summer 2022. I was wrong about the timeline. It doesn’t say when students will be moving in. I would guess Fall 2023? The website also says a 10% increase in undergraduate population, but the math doesn’t work out because it says each college will house an additional 500 students (across all “grades”), which ultimately would be an increase of closer to 20%. I doubt they’ll increase capacity by that much all at once. I should have done my research before I posted my daughter’s musings, and I want her musings and my thoughts to all be taken with a grain of salt. It is clear that Princeton will have more undergraduates 5 years from now, but I don’t know that it is going to have the effect I speculated about in my last post.
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We know 2 legacy families who were deferred. I was under the impression that legacies would get in during the early round. Of the 6 applicants at our school who applied RD we do not have high hopes !
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OK SO BASICALLY i screwed up my princeton why essay, i said “oh a bunch of influential scientists went” which is bad BUT during the interview my interviewer asked the same question and i gave a good answer citing multiple programs and stuff, do I still have a chance?? thanks