Princeton University

Princeton simultaneously strives to be one of the leading research universities and the most outstanding undergraduate college in the world. As a research university, it seeks to achieve the highest levels of distinction in the discovery and transmission of knowledge and understanding, and in the education of graduate students. At the same time, Princeton is distinctive among research universities in its commitment to undergraduate teaching. Princeton University is a private university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League and is considered one of the Colonial Colleges.

www.princeton.edu

Founded in 1746 at Elizabeth, New Jersey, as the College of New Jersey, it was moved to Newark in 1747, then to Princeton in 1756 and renamed "Princeton University" in 1896. (The present-day The College of New Jersey in nearby Ewing, New Jersey, is an unrelated institution.)

Princeton was the fourth institution of higher education in the U.S. to conduct classes. The university, unlike most American universities that were founded at the same time, did not have an official religious affiliation. At one time, it had close ties to the Presbyterian Church, but today it is nonsectarian and makes no religious demands of its students.The university has ties with the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton Theological Seminary, and the Westminster Choir College of Rider University.

Though Princeton University has traditionally focused on undergraduate education, it has almost 2,500 graduate students enrolled,and its Carnegie classification is "research university". Princeton is a liberal arts university and does not offer professional schooling generally, but it does offer professional master's degrees (mostly through the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs) and doctoral programs in the sciences, humanities, and social sciences, as well as engineering. In addition to the research conducted on the main campus, the Forrestal Campus has special facilities for the study of plasma physics and meteorology.

History

The history of Princeton goes back to its establishment by "New Light" Presbyterians; Princeton was originally intended to train Presbyterian ministers. It opened at Elizabeth, New Jersey, under the presidency of Jonathan Dickinson as the College of New Jersey. Its second president was Aaron Burr, Sr.; the third was Jonathan Edwards, all graduates of Yale. In 1756, the college moved to Princeton, New Jersey.

Between the time of the college's move to Princeton in 1756 and the construction of Stanhope Hall in 1803, the college's sole building was Nassau Hall, named for the Dutch William III of England of the House of Orange-Nassau. (A proposal was made to name it for the colonial Governor, Jonathan Belcher, but he declined.) The college also adopted orange as its school color from William III. During the American Revolution, Princeton was occupied by British and American forces on different occasions and, consequently, the college's buildings were heavily damaged. The Battle of Princeton, fought in a nearby field in January of 1777, proved to be a decisive victory for General George Washington and his troops. Two of Princeton's leading citizens signed the United States Declaration of Independence: Richard Stockton and Clergyman John Witherspoon, who was later president of the college. During the summer of 1783, the Continental Congress met in Nassau Hall, making Princeton the country's capital for four months. The much-abused landmark survived bombardment with cannonballs in the Revolutionary War when General Washington struggled to wrest the building from British control, as well as later fires in 1802 and 1855 that left only its walls standing. Rebuilt by Joseph Henry Latrobe, John Notman and John Witherspoon, the modern Nassau Hall has been much revised and expanded from the original one that was designed by Robert Smith. Over the centuries, its role shifted from an all-purpose building, comprising office, dormitory, library, and classroom space, to classroom space exclusively, to its present role as the administrative center of the university. Originally, the sculptures in front of the building were lions, as a gift in 1879. These were later replaced with tigers in 1911.

In 1812 Princeton Theological Seminary was established as a separate institution in the interest of advancing and extending the theological curriculum of the college. The plan met with enthusiastic approval on the part of the College, for they were coming to see that specialized training in theology required more attention than they could give. The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church established The Theological Seminary at Princeton, New Jersey in 1812, as the first graduate theological school in the United States. Archibald Alexander, a professor at the college, was its first professor and principal. The Seminary remains an institution of the Presbyterian Church (USA), being the largest of the ten theological seminaries affiliated with the 2.5-million member denomination. The two institutions currently enjoy a close relationship based on common history and shared resources.

James McCosh took office as the college's president in 1868 and lifted the institution out of a low period that had been brought about by the Civil War. During his two decades of service, he overhauled the curriculum, oversaw an expansion of inquiry into the sciences, and supervised the addition of a number of buildings in the High Victorian Gothic style to the campus.McCosh Hall is named in his honor.

In 1896, the college officially changed its name from the College of New Jersey to Princeton University to honor the town in which it resides. During this year, the college also underwent large expansion and officially became a university. Under Woodrow Wilson, Princeton introduced the preceptorial system in 1905, a then-unique concept that augmented the standard lecture method of teaching with a more personal form in which small groups of students, or precepts, could interact with a single instructor, or preceptor, in their field of interest.

In 1969, Princeton University first admitted women as undergraduates. In 1887, the university had actually maintained and staffed a sister college, Evelyn College for Women, in the town of Princeton on Evelyn and Nassau streets. It was closed after roughly a decade of operation. After abortive discussions with Sarah Lawrence College to relocate the women's college to Princeton and merge it with the University in 1967, the administration decided to admit women and turned to the issue of transforming the school's operations and facilities into a female-friendly campus.

The administration barely finished these plans by April 1969 when the admission's office began mailing out its acceptance letters. Its five-year coeducation plan provided $7.8 million for the development of new facilities that would eventually house and educate 650 women students at Princeton by 1974. Ultimately, 148 women, consisting of 100 freshwomen and transfer students of other years, entered Princeton on September 6, 1969 amidst much media attention. (Princeton enrolled its first female graduate student, Sabra Follett Meserve, as a Ph.D. candidate in Turkish history in 1961. A handful of undergraduate women had studied at Princeton from 1963 on, spending their junior year there to study "critical languages" in which Princeton's offerings surpassed those of their home institutions. They were considered regular students for their year on campus, but were not candidates for a Princeton degree.)

As a result of a 1979 lawsuit by Sally Frank, Princeton's eating clubs were required to go coeducational in 1991, after Tiger Inn's appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was denied.

Academics

Undergraduate students at Princeton benefit from the resources of a world-class research institution that is simultaneously dedicated to undergraduate teaching. Princeton faculty have a reputation for balancing excellence in their respective fields with a dedication to their students as classroom instructors and as advisors of independent work.

Undergraduates fulfill general education requirements, choose among a wide variety of elective courses, and pursue departmental concentrations and interdisciplinary certificate programs. Required independent work is a hallmark of undergraduate education at Princeton. Students graduate with either the Bachelor of Arts (A.B.) or the Bachelor of Science in engineering (B.S.E.).

The Graduate School offers advanced degrees spanning the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering. Doctoral education is available in all disciplines. It emphasizes original and independent scholarship whereas master's degree programs in architecture, engineering, finance, and public affairs and public policy prepare candidates for careers in public life and professional practice.

Admissions and financial aid

Princeton is one of the most selective colleges in the United States, admitting only 9.25% of undergraduate applicants in 2008. In September 2006, the university announced that all applicants for the Class of 2012 would be considered in a single pool. In this way, the Early Decision program was effectively ended.In 2001, expanding on earlier reforms, Princeton was the first university to eliminate loans for all students who qualify for aid. U.S. News & World Report and Princeton Review both cite Princeton as the university that has the fewest of graduates with debt even though 60% of incoming students are on some type of financial aid.The Office of Financial Aid estimates that Princeton seniors on aid will graduate with an average indebtedness of $2,360, compared to the national average of about $20,000.

Rankings

From 2001 to 2008, Princeton University was ranked first among national universities by U.S. News & World Report (USNWR). In 2009, it ranked second, behind Harvard. It has been ranked eighth among world universities by Shanghai Jiao Tong University , fifth among top 50 for Natural Sciences by THES,and 12th among world universities by THES - QS World University Rankings.This last source also ranked the university third in North America, behind Harvard and Yale.

In the "America's Best Colleges" rankings by the Forbes magazine in 2008, Princeton University was ranked first among all national colleges and universities.The Forbes ranking also takes into consideration national awards won by students and faculty, as well as number of alumni in the 2008 "Who's Who in America" register.

In Princeton Review's rankings of "softer" aspects of students' college experience, Princeton University was ranked first in "Students Happy with Financial Aid" and third in "Happiest Students", behind Clemson and Brown Universities.

The university's individual academic departments have been highly-ranked in their respective fields. The Department of Psychology has been ranked fifth in the nation and its individual graduate programs have received high national rankings as well. The behavioral neuroscience program has been ranked sixth and the social psychology program has been ranked seventh. The Department of History is currently ranked second, relinquishing the top spot to Yale intermittently in the last decade.

Princeton University also participates in the (NAICU)'s University and College Accountability Network (U-CAN).

Princeton University has an IBM BlueGeneL supercomputer, called Orangena, which was ranked as the 89th fastest computer in the world in 2005 (LINPACK performance of 4713 compared to 12250 for other U. S. universities and 280600 for the top-ranked supercomputer, belonging to the U. S. Department of Energy)

Academic Departments & Programs

The University has 34 academic departments that grant both undergraduate and graduate degrees. In addition, students can be admitted into a number of degree-granting Masters or Ph.D. programs.

Undergraduate certificate programs enable students to pursue focused study that supplements the primary work of their concentrations (majors), leading to a certificate upon completion. Further academic interests also can be explored through various undergraduate interdisciplinary programs.

Ph.D. candidates may pursue research in a variety of interdisciplinary programs, enhancing their work in a degree-granting department or program in the Graduate School.

Anthropology
Applied and Computational Mathematics Architecture
Art and Archaeology
Astrophysical Sciences
Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Chemical Engineering Chemistry
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Classics
Comparative Literature
Computer Science
East Asian Art and Archaeology

East Asian Studies Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Economics
Electrical Engineering Engineering and Applied Science
English Finance French and Italian
Geosciences
German
History
Mathematics
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Molecular Biology
Music
Near Eastern Studies
Operations Research and Financial Engineering
Philosophy
Physics
Plasma Physics
Politics
Population Studies
Psychology
Religion
Slavic Languages and Literatures
Sociology
Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs
Public Affairs
Public Policy

Princeton University was ranked 12th in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking