<p>^^When the parents have saved, invested, and lived reasonably frugally. Our EFC is 100% and D1 graduated with no debt. And D2 probably will too if God grants that I don’t lose my job in the current economic mess.</p>
<p>^</p>
<p>I was referring to the posters statement that Princeton ensures that students graduate w/ no debt.</p>
<p>I was not commenting on parental saving habits, or lack thereof.</p>
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<p>I’m a senior at Princeton, and I have not yet learned about Princeton’s MBA program 
Maybe you were thinking about the Masters in Finance program, which is not really comparable to an MBA.</p>
<p>As a student at Princeton with some friends who are athletes (particularly on the track team), I think you should judge your commitment to sports. If it is not very high (and if you understandably only plan to play for the first or second years), consider Princeton. We have many athletes who have dropped out of athletic programs, especially in track and field.</p>
<p>Princeton is very intense. I think the administration has set the academic system up in a way that is detrimental to underclassmen, particularly those in large departments. Speaking as an econ/pol. major (I don’t want to divulge too much!), my economics classes have been terrible with large classes and poor preceptors. My politics lectures have been better, but they are way too big. If your son is considering pursuing a field like Classics, Physics, East Asian Studies, or something like that before going into business, Princeton may be a great place. However, if he is planning on a traditional route in econ. or ORFE, don’t necessarily rely on the “small classes” at Princeton.</p>
<p>Also keep in mind Grade Deflation. There have been big student campaigns against it, but the administration does not plan to reverse it. And although 30% of students still get A’s and A-'s (3.7 and 4.0), remember that 70% of the class at Princeton (a very smart pool of students!) gets B+'s or below. It does foster a sense of competition behind the scenes; moreover, if you want to consider law school, this can be detrimental.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong. Princeton is a great place. The only reason I’ve been complaining about it is because everyone seems to tell applicants the “good stuff.” We have a great social life, fantastic professors who do try to take time to advise students, good independent work, awesome friends who have accomplished a lot of stuff, proximity to NYC and Philadelphia, one of the best and closest alumni networks in the nation, and occasionally, good weather.</p>
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<p>Huh? How can this be? People on CC have been endlessly repeating for years how absolutely <em>devoted</em> Princeton is to its undergraduates.</p>
<p>Many people participating in this forum have real decisions to make and what is put forth here has an influence to one degree or another on their actions. It is important to try to put the interests of those parties first. In an effort to keep a discussion going, some notions get introduced that just are not quite on the mark, like Princeton having a business school MBA program. There is also a notion that this is a forum where generalizations about a school can be shown to be obviously false. The stock of shared comparative facts about colleges seem to grow, but the stock of knowledge about how a school actually operates does not. Take for example the issue of grade deflation at Princeton. Now keep in mind that the students know the deans who put this forward very well. The students are also smart enough to know the point of limitations on the number of A’s given. If you want to know if you are really good enough to make a contribution to a subject, you are not going to find that out if you get an A in every course you work at. If you get an A+ at Princeton in a subject, you know you are the real deal - big career dead ahead. If you do not, you know you aren’t the real deal. Now no one at Princeton takes whining about grade deflation at all seriously and no one here should take it seriously either. This looks very different once you are out of school. At Princeton, there are usually several preceptor (discussion/review) classes for every lecture class. One is usually taken by the prof. The graduate departments are small and are by nature very selective. I know in one instance that the preceptor of an into ethics class was a fellow the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton - you now, the place where Einstein hung out. She did it for fun. In another case, a preceptor for an intro music class was the guy who published the first article on music ever to appear in the journal Science. It used math usually reserved for quantum mechanics. So our commentator on the econ department must be the unluckiest guy on campus. The ‘no loan’ concept is to provide as much financial aid as a grant as is necessary to make sure you have no loans. The determination of ability of a family and the student to contribute is very inclusive of costs. It is not unusual for the amount of grant-in-aid to be revised on the fly due to changes in a family’s financial circumstances. The membership fees for the social clubs are not covered and these can be extremely steep. Princeton is working to develop into a residential college based system to provide more options to students without the resources to participate in the eating clubs.</p>
<p>Many people participating in this forum have real decisions to make and what is put forth here has an influence to one degree or another on their actions. It is important to try to put the interests of those parties first. In an effort to keep a discussion going, some notions get introduced that just are not quite on the mark, like Princeton having a business school MBA program. There is also a notion that this is a forum where generalizations about a school can be shown to be obviously false. The stock of shared comparative facts about colleges seem to grow, but the stock of knowledge about how a school actually operates does not. Take for example the issue of grade deflation at Princeton. Now keep in mind that the students know the deans who put this forward very well. The students are also smart enough to know the point of limitations on the number of A’s given. If you want to know if you are really good enough to make a contribution to a subject, you are not going to find that out if you get an A in every course you work at. If you get an A+ at Princeton in a subject, you know you are the real deal - big career dead ahead. If you do not, you know you aren’t the real deal. Now no one at Princeton takes whining about grade deflation at all seriously and no one here should take it seriously either. This looks very different once you are out of school. At Princeton, there are usually several preceptor (discussion/review) classes for every lecture class. One is usually taken by the prof. The graduate departments are small and are by nature very selective. I know in one instance that the preceptor of an into ethics class was a fellow the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton - you now, the place where Einstein hung out. She did it for fun. In another case, a preceptor for an intro music class was the guy who published the first article on music ever to appear in the journal Science. It used math usually reserved for quantum mechanics. So our commentator on the econ department must be the unluckiest guy on campus. The ‘no loan’ concept is to provide as much financial aid as a grant as is necessary to make sure you have no loans. The determination of ability of a family and the student to contribute is very inclusive of costs. It is not unusual for the amount of grant-in-aid to be revised on the fly due to changes in a family’s financial circumstances. The membership fees for the social clubs are not covered and these can be extremely steep. Princeton is working to develop into a residential college based system to provide more options to students without the resources to participate in the eating clubs.</p>
<p>“If you get an A+ at Princeton in a subject, you know you are the real deal - big career dead ahead.”</p>
<p>I don’t think there ever has been research indicating a correlation between general career success and college grades. Obviously if one’s idea of a successful career is to go to, for instance, Harvard medical school, if one is getting A+ grades at Princeton, one would have a better chance of going to HMS than would someone who’s getting C grades.</p>
<p>However, A+ grades wouldn’t mean that one is guaranteed to, for instance, do an excellent job starting a business, running a family business, or doing an excellent job in many fields including even medicine. For instance, I remember that one of my college roommates got some C grades in her premed courses, yet ended up at Columbia, where she was initiated into the med school honor society. Now, she’s a faculty member at a well regarded medical school and has done some ground breaking research in her field.</p>
<p>I also know some people who got stellar grades at Harvard, but imploded afterward, and didn’t have big careers at all. Career success depends on far more than college grades.</p>
<p>Here are my thoughts based purely on someone going into business: Princeton is going to plug you into the Northeast. it means you;ll likely pursue finance/ consulting in a more financially driven area. Stanford is in Silicon Valley. It means venture capital and start-ups. Your social and business network will be strongest in Silicon valley.</p>
<p>^ While that may be true to an extent, that would be the last thing on my mind because a degree from either school will take the kid where he needs to go.</p>
<p>There is a big problem with the way these discussions progress. Any specific piece of information about a school such as Princeton gets interpreted against the 'common experience" of other forum participants. What I have seen among the Ivies and other schools is a great unexamined divergence of experience. The point about an A+ at Princeton is specific to Princeton. They have arranged to use grades to indicate to students that they have or do not have a future as a contributor to the field. At a school where the students can do almost anything well, this is enormously useful thing to convey to a student. If a school does not have a student body filled with people who are good at nearly everything they do, using grades in this way wouldn’t have that kind of value. Further, it is only an indication. A student can recognize a talent when it is pointed out to them and choose another path, but be glad of the affirmation. Others may take a long time to respond to all that they get from a school. One former student who never finished his senior thesis asked for the opportunity to do so, twenty-five years late. And Dean Williams said, lets talk.</p>
<p>ViolaMom, since your son is a nationally ranked track athlete, the first question to answer would be about the importance of continuing as a student-athlete. It does seem that there are more than subtle differences between the athletic programs at Princeton and Stanford. Please note that both Stanford and Princeton must have larq quotas of high school star athletes who decided to forego participating in athletics because of the compromises to education.</p>
<p>As far as education, I think that this thread could run for three more years, and you would be none the wiser. Last year, there were lengthy threads about Stanford versus [fill the Ivy League school.] </p>
<p>Your son has a wonderful chance to decide among two superlative programs. I believe that your (and his) best bet is to discuss his future with people who are currently in the programs he is considering, both at the student and faculty level.</p>
<p>If this student is a runner and really has a passion for the sport, to me there is absolutely no comparison between the two programs. It has to be Stanford. Princeton gets great recruits, but I am less impressed by how the runners develop during their college years. And- there is the weather factor.
I should also mention that I am aware of a few admission “surprises” involving Princeton athletic recruits. I know there is a likely letter here. I would read it carefully.</p>
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<p>I agree. The last Princeton runner I can recall getting to the big time was Craig Masback who competed back in the late 70s and early 80s. Stanford, on the other hand, cranks out a new star or two nearly every year. They’re a running factory.</p>
<p>Just have to visit both, walk around, maybe go visit some older student friends from his high school who have matriculated at the schools. My son was accepted at Stanford but ended up at an Ivy. It never made much sense to me. He thought Stanford was gorgeous and warm and friendly and smart. I think it was just too wonderful for him. He likes a little more adversity. Foul weather, overwraught East Coast intellectual crazy students . . . he needed more misery.</p>
<p>Good luck on helping him find his right match.</p>
<p>“Hanna- that is a naive view of college sports. You do miss classes- the schedules (especially basketball) are grueling, with weeknight games all over the region.”</p>
<p>And if you regularly skip class to attend games, then you are prioritizing basketball over the class. What’s naive about a professor taking notice of that? It’s a simple fact. Why is it so shocking to even imagine skipping a game because of an important class? It is only a shocking idea if basketball is priority #1.</p>
<p>I skipped plenty of college lectures for singing events and still made straight A’s. But I didn’t pretend that I could skip class and still claim that it was my #1 priority. I would have told you straight up that the music meant more to me. Nor would I have objected if a professor observed that I wasn’t as committed as some of my classmates. That’s the price I would have to pay for having the priorities I chose. Let’s have the same honesty from athletes.</p>
<p>Re: posts ##34-36</p>
<p>Yes, the NCAA sets rules which apply to all teams–and the Ivy League sets more stringent rules. Here’s a link to an article about lacrosse explaining that. If the link doesn’t work, try googling. You’ll find LOTS of articles about the more stringent restrictions on pracitce at the Ivies. </p>
<p>[Springtime</a> In February](<a href=“http://www.lax.com/story.phtml?story=1907]Springtime”>http://www.lax.com/story.phtml?story=1907)</p>
<p>The kid thinks he has a shot at the Olympics, sure, go to Stanford. But if the kid doesn’t think so and academics is a high priority, the Ivy League’s resrtrictions make it easier to be a student too, IMO.</p>
<p>In any event, it is a difference between Stanford and Princeton that a student choosing between them should be aware of.</p>
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<p>I think it is very unfair to conclude that all athletes who must skip classes for games/events do not have education as their top priority. Certainly this is true for some; but since we are discussing Stanford and Princeton, I highly doubt that it is true for the majority, if not almost every student-athlete at these schools. (Remember that very few of the sports at these schools have a professional component, so the athletes are not there to “major” in their sport.)</p>
<p>The NCAA requires its member teams to participate in a certain number of games in order to remain NCAA members. If players can choose to skip games/events for class, then coaches won’t have teams that can qualify. It is the university administration’s job to decide if they are going to field NCAA teams or not; and if they are, then it is not fair to the recruited student athletes to be penalized by professors for having to miss class.</p>
<p>My guess is that for both Stanford and Princeton, most professors are likely to be on board with the demands made of their schools’ athletes.</p>
<p>Hanna- you really aren’t getting it. The athletes in revenue sports have to make the sport a top priority. That’s why they are there. It doesn’t mean a number of the athletes don’t care about their educations. It’s not a matter of “skipping classes” for a game. The athletes don’t have a choice. The game schedule is NOT set by them and they go where they are told to go. Professors clearly know what they are dealing with when they have college athletes in their classes. There is a wide range of academic abilities, but the one thing that is a given is that the game/meet schedule has to be accommodated.</p>
<p>Cross-posted with Bay.</p>
<p>^^jonri, great post</p>
<p>“The kid thinks he has a shot at the Olympics, sure, go to Stanford. But if the kid doesn’t think so and academics is a high priority, the Ivy League’s resrtrictions make it easier to be a student too, IMO.”</p>
<p>My daughter is a freshman distance runner for Yale (three season athlete.) In high school she would have described herself as a student first, athlete second, and this is still how she sees herself. </p>
<p>She appreciates the balance of academics and athletics at Yale. She missed a few Fridays first semester, and had excused absenses from classes. She always turned in work or took tests before traveling. No professor or fellow student has ever treated her as less capable than any other student in the class because of wearing a team shirt. And among her peers, she’s no more special than a member of the debate team, who also get excused absences for travel. I don’t think her grades would (or could) have been better if she hadn’t been competing. I don’t know if a Princeton runner would say exactly these things about his experience. Maybe one will chime in!</p>
<p>She visited lots of Ivies, and Stanford. Her reasons for choosing Yale were very personal and can’t be generalized to the OP. We (her parents) did discourage her from applying to other D1/DII or NAIA schools because we felt strongly that running for money might suck all the fun out of it and impact her studies too much. Running for an Ivy- no strings attached- means it feels a little bit like high school: people are on the team because they love it, and the coaches have to keep things sane and balanced or kids will walk away.</p>
<p>Can’t comment on Stanford. Two nephews did undergrad there, but weren’t athletes.
I like the advice to visit. Spend as much time with the team, on their schedule, as possible.
Is it too late to take an official to Princeton? Maybe he did?</p>
<p>Best wishes. Probably can’t go wrong either way, but nice to make a decision and have no regrets, if possible!</p>
<p>I have a student athlete at each school right now. A lot has been said here and I find most of it to be fairly accurate. Stanford athletics are more intense and demand more time. The financial aid is exactly the same for both kids as Stanford has increased their aid and has a no loan policy. However, my D at Stanford has an opportunity to earn an athletic scholarship which is obviously not an option at Princeton. The student productions are better at Princeton (this is coming from my Stanford student). My S loves the eating clubs and my D wishes they had them at Stanford. Overall the food at Princeton is much better. </p>
<p>Another thing to keep in mind is that Stanford is on a quarter system and Princeton is on a semester system. I’ve yet to talk to a student who likes the quarter system.</p>
<p>PM me if you have an specific questions.</p>