Princeton Regular Decision

The year 1746 marks the beginning of a private institution named Princeton University. It is located in a suburban area, has an undergraduate enrollment total of 4,773 students (for fall 2020), and its campus spans a total area of 600 acres. It follows an academic calendar that is divided into semesters.

The national universities section of the 2022 edition of Best Colleges places Princeton University in the number one spot. The total amount for tuition and fees is $56,010.

The serene community of Princeton, New Jersey, is home to one of the nation’s oldest educational institutions: Princeton University. A variety of events, activities, and organizations can be found within the confines of Princeton University’s historically significant, ivy-covered campus.

The Princeton Tigers, who compete in the Ivy League, have a reputation for fielding men’s and women’s lacrosse teams that are among the best in the country year after year. Students have the option to join one of more than ten different eating clubs during their junior and senior years, but they are required to live in one of six residential colleges. These colleges offer students a residential community in addition to dining services. Students who participate in eating clubs become members of organizations that provide both social and dining opportunities.

The unofficial motto of Princeton University is “Princeton in the Nation’s Service and the Service of Humanity,” which emphasizes the institution’s dedication to volunteering in the local community.

As one of the most selective universities in the Ivy League, Princeton University has a low acceptance rate for incoming freshmen, transfer students, and students from outside the United States.

Statistics from the admissions process at Princeton University have shed light on the types of students who are granted entry into Princeton as well as the rigorous requirements that must be met to be eligible for admission at Princeton University. Let’s take a look at the Princeton regular decision admissions deadline.

When Is Princeton’s Regular Decision Due?

As a result of a scarcity of available testing locations, Princeton will no longer require applicants to submit standardized test scores beginning with the 2022–2023 admissions cycle (SAT or ACT).

If you need more time to prepare and opt to apply at a later time, it’s important to know when is Princeton’s regular decision due. The regular decision deadline for Princeton University is January 1. From March 31 until the beginning of April, they will announce the admission outcome. You have until May 2 to respond if you are admitted by regular decision.

Here are important dates to take note of for Princeton regular decision:

Mid-August – The Common Application and Princeton Supplement will be available

January 1 – Due for the following:

• Both the Application and the Princeton Supplement
• Graded written paper
• School report, letter from the school counselor, and transcript
• Completed TOEFL, IELTS Academic, or PTE Academic Test
• Teacher Evaluation Forms 1 and 2
• Completed TOEFL, IELTS Academic, or PTE Academic Test (if applicable)

February 1 – The deadline for submitting an application for financial aid

March 31 – Candidates will be notified of the Princeton regular decision results

May 2 – Reply date for the candidates

If you submit your application through the regular decision process, your admission decision could one of three ways:

• Offer admission,
• Refused to allow entry,
• Alternatively, you can be offered a place on the Wait List.

How Selective Is Princeton?

The acceptance rate at Princeton University is only 6 percent, and the early acceptance rate is 14.7 percent, making it one of the most competitive schools in the country. A score between 1450 and 1570 on the SAT or a score between 32 and 35 on the ACT is required for admission to Princeton University for approximately fifty percent of all applicants.

However, one-quarter of applicants who were accepted had scores that were higher than these ranges, while one-quarter of applicants had scores that were lower than these ranges.

At Princeton University, the application deadline is January 1st, and the application fee is currently set at $70.

The cumulative grade point average of a prospective student is given significant weight by admissions officers at Princeton University. The admissions committee at Princeton University places a high level of importance on an applicant’s high school class rank, if it is available, as well as the letters of recommendation the applicant submits.

How selective is Princeton? We’ll be able to tell the answer by looking at the things you should be prepared for during the application process. Your submission will primarily consist of the following key components:

GPA Requirements

Every applicant ought to make it a priority to keep a grade point average (GPA) that is as close to 4.0 as is humanly possible, even though there is no clearly defined minimum GPA that students need to aim for.

Although Princeton University does not publish the average GPA ranges for previous class years like some other colleges do, they do mention that only 2.6 percent of admitted students had a GPA that was lower than 3.5, and nearly 10 percent of the admitted class had a 4.0.

Scores on the SAT and the ACT

The test-optional policy that Princeton University has in place will continue to be in effect for the 2021-2022 admissions cycle. This means that applicants will not be required to submit a score along with their application. On the other hand, test-optional admissions are not the same thing as test-blind admissions.

The submission of an impressive test score can actually work to your advantage because it demonstrates your ongoing academic commitment and overall readiness for college. When it comes to the SAT and ACT score ranges, the majority of students who are accepted to Princeton are performing at or near the top percentiles.

The most recent range for the middle 50 percent of ACT scores for admitted students was 32-38, and the most recent range for the middle 50 percent of SAT scores for admitted students was 740-800 (Math) and 710-800 (Verbal) (EBRW).

Be sure to keep these pieces of information in mind as you work on developing your test-taking strategies.

Personal Statement

Students will have their performance judged based not only on hard factors such as their grades and test scores but also on soft factors.

The quality of the applicant’s personal statement, which is typically an essay consisting of between 500 and 600 words, is considered one of the most important non-cognitive factors. Students have the opportunity to demonstrate their writing skills as well as reveal something about themselves that they haven’t shared before in this document.

When applying to Princeton, prospective students will have access to a variety of different prompts, some of which will change subtly depending on whether the student chooses to submit their application through the Common Application or the Coalition Application.

Because personal statements are such an important component of your application, you should not put off working on them until the eleventh hour. Coming up with ideas, writing drafts, and going back then editing them are all necessary steps in producing quality essays, getting a head start on the process is extremely beneficial.

Admission Essays

In addition to a personal statement, applicants to Princeton will be required to provide responses to essay prompts that have been provided by the university.

A large number of colleges and universities call this “demonstrated interest” and require students to submit supplemental essays in order to prove that they have sufficient knowledge about the institution to which they are applying. In some schools, students are subjected to offbeat examinations that are designed to reveal more about their personalities.

Since the essay questions for the Common Application can change from one year to the next, it is extremely important to check Princeton’s website for the most up-to-date information about the various supplements.

Recommendation Letters (also known as LORs)

The admissions officers at Princeton want to have a complete picture of each applicant before they make their decisions.

They accomplish this goal by requesting letters of recommendation from instructors and guidance counselors, which give them insight into the ways in which applicants contribute to the learning environment in which they are employed.

In most cases, we recommend that students choose teachers from their junior year because those instructors will have the most recent information on the students’ current academic standing. At the beginning of your senior year, you should ask your teachers to write your letters so that you can get the ball rolling. They will have sufficient time to consider their academic journey and compose something compelling as a result of this.

Don’t forget to also get in touch with your school counselor, as Princeton requires applicants to submit a letter of recommendation from their guidance counselor as part of the application process.

Interviews for Gaining Admission

A significant number of applicants to Princeton will have the opportunity to take part in interviews with former students.

These conversations provide an outstanding opportunity to acquire additional knowledge regarding the university’s grounds and to demonstrate your desire to attend Princeton. Students will be contacted via email by a member of the Princeton Alumni Schools Committee in order to schedule an interview with them.

Contribution Made to the Community of Princeton

Admissions officers at Princeton, like admissions officers at most other colleges, look for evidence that a student will contribute meaningfully to campus life. As you are putting together your application, you should keep asking yourself, “What does this reveal about me and the role I will play once I am enrolled?”

When reviewing your application, admissions officers should come away with a comprehensive understanding of exactly what classes you want to take, the clubs you would join, and what you hope to do after you graduate.

What Is Princeton’s Acceptance Rate for Regular Admission?

The statistics for Princeton University’s Class of 2026 were not made public by the university. According to the Common Data Sets that the university made publicly available, Princeton granted admission to 1,647 students (from early and regular decision applications) for the Class of 2025. This represents 4.38 percent of the total 37,601 applicants.

In the previous academic year, Princeton University accepted early and regular decision applications from a total of 32,835 prospective students and offered admission to 1,848 of those students. This represents a 5.63 percent acceptance rate. The table below shows what is Princeton’s acceptance rate for regular admission:

Class (Year)	The Princeton Regular Decision’s Accepted Applications	The Princeton Regular Decision’s Received Applications	Acceptance Rate for the Princeton Regular Decision Admissions
2026	NA	NA	NA
2025	NA	NA	NA
2024	1,032	27,836	3.71%
2023	1,152	27,469	4.19%
2022	1,142	29,303	3.89%
2021	1,120	26,053	4.30%
2020	1,109	25,074	4.42%

What Are the Odds of Getting Off the Waitlist?

Waitlist acceptance rates, also known as the percentage of waitlisted students to whom a school ultimately grants admission, have seen significant shifts in recent years at both the University and a large number of its comparable educational establishments. Now, what are the odds of getting off the waitlist?

The lengths of waitlists have, for the most part, not changed. This phenomenon stands in stark contrast to acceptance rates for undergraduate programs as a whole, which have been steadily declining over the course of several decades.

Between the years 2003 and 2020, Princeton University gave a place on the waitlist to an average of 1,153 prospective undergraduate students. In general, 823 applicants took advantage of this offer. Both of these numbers rarely changed by a significant margin, and the analysis conducted by ‘The Prince’ found that the majority of Princeton waitlists contained between 789 and 906 students.

How Do You Increase Your Chances of Getting into Princeton?

In practice, Princeton is looking for young people who are already among the best in the world at something, or who have the ability to become among the very best in the world at that particular thing.

In addition to this, they place a significant amount of importance on diversity in terms of both ethnicity and socioeconomic background. The admissions committee has stated that one of their primary goals is to find new students who bring a “variety of talents, personal qualities, experiences, and points of view” to the institution.

Integrity, a significant interest in furthering one’s education, and a commitment to activities both inside and outside of the classroom are three characteristics that we expect all Princeton students to possess. Many students also bring with them notable academic talents and achievements, in addition to their accomplishments outside of the classroom.

If you take a look at the list of notable Tiger alumni, you’ll get a sense of what the university is looking for in its students: the next generation of politicians (such as Ralph Nadar and Woodrow Wilson, who are currently the subject of debate on campus), award-winning writers (such as Michael Lewis and Jennifer Weiner), successful businesspeople (such as Jeff Bezos and Steve Forbes), and actors/actresses/filmmakers (such as Jimmy Stewart, Ethan Cohen, and Brooke Shields

In addition to this, athletes who are recruited have a significant advantage. This is because Princeton has 38 sports teams competing in Division I of the NCAA and athletes make up 20% of the student body. Princeton takes great pride in these teams.

If you are one of the more than 37,000 students who are applying to Princeton for the next admissions cycle, you should be aware of how do you increase your chances of getting into Princeton:

• Princeton does, on occasion, extend an invitation to qualified applicants to take part in an interview with alumni of the university. Even though this is not a required part of one’s application, students should take advantage of the opportunity if it is available to them and an interview can be arranged in their region.
• As a second point of interest, Princeton does not consider “demonstrated interest,” which means that you will not be evaluated based on whether or not you visited the campus, communicated with an admissions officer, or other similar activities.
• Make sure that you give the required supplemental essays and short answers a sufficient amount of time and effort before submitting them to Princeton.

The following is how they appeared during the cycle of 2021-22:

Essay Questions for Princeton

1. Please briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences that was particularly meaningful to you. (About 150 words)
2. At Princeton, we value diverse perspectives and the ability to have respectful dialogue about difficult issues. Share a time when you had a conversation with a person or a group of people about a difficult topic. What insight did you gain, and how would you incorporate that knowledge into your thinking in the future? (About 250 words)
3. Princeton has a longstanding commitment to service and civic engagement. Tell us how your story intersects (or will intersect) with these ideals. (About 250 words)
4. What is a new skill you would like to learn in college? (50 words or fewer)
5. What brings you joy? (50 words or fewer)
6. What song represents the soundtrack of your life at this moment? (50 words or fewer)
7. As part of the application process to attend Princeton, you are required to hand in a written paper that will be graded. You are free to send this material in at this time or at any other time up until the application deadline.

You have the option of mailing, e-mailing, or uploading your required paper through the applicant portal at this time if you do not wish to upload it through the applicant portal at this time.

The admissions process at Princeton is notoriously competitive. It is going to take a lot of effort and commitment. You can check AdmissionSight’s take on Princeton application mistakes and how to avoid them at all costs. Your chances of getting into Princeton may also improve if you have assistance in the application process. At AdmissionSight, we can assist you in preparing for your college admissions at Princeton with our ten years of experience assisting students in navigating the challenging admissions process. Start with booking a consultation with us!