I thought I’d borrow this thread idea from another forum as a place for parents of Princeton Class of 2020 students to to ask questions and share information.
Here’s something I learned from a helpful fellow CC poster recently: the date for Freshman Families weekend that was published in the booklet sent out with the SCEA acceptances is incorrect. The actual date is what’s shown on the Path to Princeton website - October 14-16, 2016.
Any parents of older Princetonians out there with thoughts on what you wish you’d known before move-in?
I will gladly hear any and all advice, and my question is about student employment: the Path to Princeton site said something about kids being matched to employers before arrival, but that not being binding? It seemed confusing to me.
Bonus question: when do freshmen sign up for classes, and will they have enough spots, because it seems like some classes are already filling up…?
@fretfulmother Freshmen typically sign up for classes in the fall just before classes begin during their orientation week (if they still do it the same way as they did when my son was a freshman in 2012). They will meet with an academic advisor who will help them create their class schedule. My son had absolutely no difficulty getting the classes he wanted.
@GnocchiB one thing I hadn’t realized before move in day - if you plan to come with your son/daughter, book your hotel room as FAR in advance as possible. This is true for any and all celebratory weekends (ie - parents’ weekend etc) Hotels in the area tend to fill up quickly and the prices rise as you get closer to the date. With graduation, book your hotel ONE YEAR in advance. The hotel costs are crazy for grad and book up very quickly.
Very true. I hate paying high lodging prices so I often use hotwire.com, where you choose an area a star rating and they give you some options but you don’t know the exact property until after you commit. We visited Princeton many times while our son as there and hotwire worked great. I always selected both the “Princeton - Lawrenceville” and the “Princeton North - Plainsboro - Monmouth Junction” areas and consistently got 3 or 4 star hotels either on or just off Route 1 at good prices. The only time it didn’t work was graduation weekend, when prices were through the roof and we ended up booking a place about 45 minutes away to save money.
Just for kicks, we stayed at the Nassau Inn once for the convenience factor but I can’t say I recommend it.
Rising seniors, juniors, and sophomores have already registered for their fall classes (in pecking order). There will be one add/drop period for current students during May 16-20. After that, current students cannot make any changes until after freshmen register for their classes during orientation. Don’t worry, @fretfulmother, classes will not continue to fill up over the summer!
Also, spots in some classes are reserved for incoming freshmen. If you click on a course number on the Registrar’s Course Offerings website, you will see that in the description. Additionally, Freshmen Seminars are only for freshmen. Also, beginning on the first day of classes, all students can add or drop courses for two weeks, and there will be some shifting around. And if a class is full, a student can email a professor in September and ask to be added to the class.
I’ll try to get some info about student jobs from my DD.
That is all very helpful. And is HUM (the big sequence, which DS is signed up for ) - still meeting at ten on Tue, Wed, Thu and plus the same discussion sections?
I feel like I could look that up online or have DS do it, but I don’t exactly remember or understand the numbering system. After all, I’m used to MIT’s extremely efficient but idiosyncratic numbers.
The reason I ask is, does having something blocking out that slot on both a Monday/Wednesday and a Tuesday/Thursday mean it’s hard to schedule other things?
HUM 216-217 (the fall semester of the HUM sequence) is a double course, which means the workload is that of two courses, two grades are given for the course, and it counts as two courses toward the degree. The lecture portion will be Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday from 10 - 10:50 AM, and the precepts (small group discussions led by faculty members) will be Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, with two sections from 1:30-2:50 PM and two sections from 3-4:20 PM (the class of approximately 60 students is divided into four groups with approximately 15 students in each precept). There are plenty of other time slots for a HUM student’s other classes, including any day at 9 AM or 11 AM, Monday and Wednesday afternoons, and all day Friday.
I agree it can be confusing when you look at the course offerings. You have to click on a department, then a course number to see the course description. In the table at the bottom, if there are multiple entries with a smaller number for the maximum enrollment, these are generally either precepts or lab sections. Some precepts may not have times listed yet, but the times for the HUM sequence are set and are the same as this year.
@fretfulmother This year, the HUM trips during the course were to The Metropolitan Museum of Art (twice), the Cloisters, a production of Antigone at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and Elektra at The Metropolitan Opera House. All trips were on Sundays except for Elektra, which was on a Thursday evening. Transportation was by coach bus, and the students were accompanied by the faculty member in charge of the course, which in the spring semester was the Chairman of the Classics Department. (I was impressed that a senior faculty member takes a group of freshmen to NYC on the weekend.) The trips were optional and a lot of fun!
I know a lot about the HUM sequence because my DD likes to share
Hello fellow Princeton 2020 parents! My daughter was initially accepted into the class of 2019, and then applied for and was accepted into the Bridge Year India program, from which she will return in exactly two weeks! We are eager to internalize the wisdom of parents and students who have already made the adjustment to campus life at Princeton. Also, if any of you are interested in the Princeton Bridge Year Program, I am happy to respond to your questions.
We live in the NY area, and have easy access to campus over the summer. I’d like to know if academic advising services for incoming freshmen can be accessed over the summer. My daughter would like to spend some quality time with an advisor and register for her fall classes earlier rather than later. Any advice is appreciated.
Welcome! My daughter is in the class of 2019, and she took her last final yesterday. She worked hard, learned a lot, enjoyed her classes and extracurricular activities, made friends to hang out and study with, and had a fantastic year! I’m sure your daughter will have a lot of stories to share about her Bridge Year in India- what a fantastic opportunity she had!
The academic advising will take place during freshman orientation in September. There is an entire program planned, which includes an academic fair and meetings between students and their individual advisors, and the freshmen register for classes at that time. They can then literally walk across Nassau Street to the bookstore and purchase their books. The bookstore has the book lists for each class, and used books may be available as well as new ones. All the info about orientation will be posted on Your Path to Princeton later in the summer. My daughter recently told me that current students call freshman orientation “Camp Princeton” because it is just so much fun- there are lots of fun activities planned in addition to imparting all the info new students need to know.
In the meantime though, there is a lot you and your daughter can do to learn about the academic opportunities at Princeton! The academic guide for the class of 2020 should arrive in the mail to your home this week, and at some point, will also be available online. There are different requirements for AB and BSE degree candidates. You can google Princeton University Course Offerings to see what classes will be offered this fall. You can narrow the search by distribution requirement. If she is an AB degree candidate, she will need to decide how she will fulfill the language requirement- she may have done so already with an AP score or a subject test score. Descriptions of the Freshman Seminars that will be offered this fall will be available online later in the summer. Reading the academic guide and Your Path to Princeton is really helpful!
My son is a 2020 and a possible ORFE or ChemE student. We are from the Austin, TX area.
I found an amazing resource that for past 2 years features a group of Princeton students answering Princeton question almost daily. They have answered over 10k of questions thus far!
It is on Tumblr which is an odd site for this kind of resource, but it is truly amazing. Just google “realtalkprinceton” and “tumblr” and you should find it. It has meta-tags and a word cloud to look up various Princeton related topics.
I highly recommend it, but look forward to this thread being a useful resource too. ~:>
I just read them, @fretfulmother. They’re awful. Please understand that these comments may not have been posted by Princeton students or anyone in the Princeton community. I have noticed one person who posts regularly on the Daily Princetonian who also posts comments on other Ivy League newspapers.
) - still meeting at ten on Tue, Wed, Thu and plus the same discussion sections?