Committee
How Princeton's first readers rate applications
How former Princeton officers described first readers sorting applications into bands and judging each file against the applicant's own background and context.
SourceBased on what we at Aristo learned from former Princeton admissions officers and deans, speaking on the record.
Princeton's first readers sort applications into four bands, running from Unlikely at the bottom to High Priority at the top, according to former officers and deans who spoke on the record for the Daily Princetonian's 2020 investigation into Princeton admissions. Regional readers score academics and activities against each applicant's own background, which means the same record can be read quite differently depending on where it came from. The band a file lands in shapes much of what happens to it afterward.
What decides the band, and how long a reader spends deciding it, is the part most families never hear.
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