At a Glance
Princeton admits 4.4% of applicants.
What You'll Actually Pay
See what families at different income levels actually pay after aid.
What families actually pay, by income level
After grants and scholarships. Before loans. Public school prices shown at in-state rates.
Source: College Scorecard / IPEDS, 2024-25
Where the Sticker Price Goes
Based on average need-based grant. Actual cost varies by family income — see chart above.
Debt at Graduation
68.8%
receive need-based grant aid
$21,251
average debt at graduation
Princeton graduates carry an average of $21,251 in debt.
Merit Aid
Not reported by this school — some schools award aid based on need alone, without merit scholarships.
Getting In
Princeton admits 4.4% of applicants.
SAT — Middle 50% of those who submitted · 60% of the class submitted
ACT — Middle 50% of those who submitted · 20% of the class submitted
What They Value
Academic
Nonacademic
Princeton University rates your personal essay as Very Important — equal weight to your GPA. Don't underestimate it. Demonstrated interest is Not Considered here — campus visits and emails to admissions won't affect your odds.
Student Life
72% of Princeton classes have fewer than 20 students.
Share of undergraduate class sections at each size, from CDS Section I-3. More red = more large lectures.
At Princeton, 72% of your classes will have fewer than 20 students.
Class size data reflects all undergraduate sections including labs, seminars, and lectures. Large research universities often have smaller upper-division and graduate-level sections that improve the overall distribution. First and second-year students typically experience larger classes than these averages suggest.
Source: Common Data Set 2025–26, Section I-3 (class sizes)
8:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus Life
From out of state (freshman class)
73.2%
Live on campus
94%
Who Attends
Racial and ethnic breakdown of enrolled undergraduates, as reported in each school's Common Data Set. "Unknown / Other" includes students who did not report or selected "other."
Princeton's student body is 31% white.
Popular Majors
Will They Graduate?
Princeton graduates 72.8% of students in 4 years.
Graduating late means paying for extra semesters. The 6-year rate tells you who eventually finishes — the 4-year rate tells you what it actually costs.
Princeton graduates 72.8% of students in 4 years.
What finishing late actually costs
Based on each school's published cost of attendance. Public school costs shown at in-state rates.
Princeton
72.8%
4-yr grad rate
Extra year cost: $84,040
Graduation rate data from Common Data Set 2025–26, Fall 2018 cohort (most recent available). 4-year rate = students completing in 4 years or less. 6-year rate = students completing within 6 years.
97%
Overall 6-yr rate
98%
Pell recipient rate
Lower-income students graduate at nearly the same rate as their peers — a sign of strong institutional support.
Freshman Retention
98.6%
98.6% of first-year students return for sophomore year.
City & Culture
Beyond the data — what it's actually like to spend four years in Princeton.
A small, wealthy New Jersey town where the campus meets the high street directly — Gothic quadrangles on one side of Nassau Street, shops and restaurants on the other. The campus runs south from Nassau Hall down to Lake Carnegie and is contained enough that most students get through four years without a car. New York and Philadelphia are each about an hour away by train.
Notable Alumni
Michelle Obama
First Lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017. She graduated here in sociology in 1985, writing her senior thesis on the experience of Black Princeton graduates, and went on to Harvard Law School.
Class of 1985
Jeff Bezos
Founded Amazon in 1994 and built it into the largest online retailer in the world. He graduated here in electrical engineering and computer science in 1986, with highest honours.
Class of 1986
Sonia Sotomayor
First Latina justice of the United States Supreme Court. She graduated here in history in 1976 and won the Pyne Prize, the highest distinction the university gives an undergraduate.
Class of 1976
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Wrote The Great Gatsby, and set his first novel, This Side of Paradise, on this campus. He entered with the class of 1917 and withdrew twice without finishing — the second time to join the army.
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
The City
College town
Princeton, NJ
Best For
Traditions
The senior thesis
Every senior writes one, or in some engineering departments completes a substantial independent project, working one-to-one with a faculty adviser. A shorter junior paper the year before is the rehearsal for it. It is the single structural fact that shapes the last two years here.
Precepts and first-year seminars
Lectures are paired with precepts — small discussion sections where students are expected to argue the material rather than take it down. About 75 first-year seminars are offered each year, each capped at 15 students and taught by a faculty member.
The eating clubs
First- and second-year students live and eat in one of seven residential colleges; most juniors and seniors then join one of the eating clubs on Prospect Avenue, which is where much of upperclass social life sits. Students who want none of it can stay on a college meal plan, and some do — but this is the shape of the social calendar, and worth knowing before deciding.
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Princeton
New York City
About an hour by trainNJ Transit runs from Princeton Junction, a short shuttle ride from campus, into Penn Station.
Philadelphia
About 1 hourSouth down Route 1 or by rail, for the museums, the Italian Market and a city that is cheaper than New York.
The Jersey Shore
About 1 hour 15 minutesAsbury Park, Point Pleasant and the barrier-island beaches — the standard warm-weather escape.
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Newark Liberty International (EWR)
About 50 minutes from campus
Flies international — you can start a trip abroad from here.
Pro sports nearby
- Philadelphia Eagles NFLAbout 1 hour away
- Philadelphia Phillies MLBAbout 1 hour away
- Philadelphia 76ers NBAAbout 1 hour away
- New Jersey Devils NHLAbout 1 hour away
Career Proximity
Princeton sits in the middle of New Jersey's pharmaceutical corridor, with New York and Philadelphia each about an hour away by train.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- Bristol Myers Squibb
- Johnson & Johnson
- Novo Nordisk
- Educational Testing Service
- Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
The Route 1 corridor between Princeton and New Brunswick, with New York and Philadelphia each about an hour away
Who Thrives Here
Princeton admits 4.4% of applicants and offers no early decision plan at all, so there is no binding-application shortcut to improve those odds. It is small for a research university: 5,916 undergraduates, 8 students per faculty member, 72.0% of classes under 20, and 94% living on campus. The defining requirement is the senior thesis, written one-to-one with a faculty adviser, and lectures come paired with precepts — small sections where students are expected to argue the material rather than take it down. Princeton reports no fraternity or sorority membership in its own filing; most juniors and seniors join one of the eating clubs on Prospect Avenue instead, which is a social structure worth understanding before committing to it. On cost, 68.8% of undergraduates are awarded need-based aid, need is met in full, and the average graduate borrows $21,251. One number needs context: 72.8% finish in four years against 97.0% in six, because the four-year figure counts only degrees completed by August 31 of the fourth year — a single extra semester moves a student out of it.