Alumni, Admission Office Help Find Cream of High School Crop

In a little booklet sent to Harvard alumni about luring "qualified" boys here for their college educations, the authors rather wistfully point out that "we don't want unintelligent boys. Princeton's wonderful football team of 1950 was composed of excellent scholars."

They get quite a chuckle out of this little story back in Nassau Hall.

Director of Admissions C. William Edwards and his assistant William Craig have a right to be happy. At present Princeton is considered far ahead in the race to get good all-around men with a liberal sprinkling of the elusive "scholar-athlete" type.

This year's freshman class at Princeton is, of course, the "best ever." From a total of 2700 applicants the Princeton admissions board picked a freshman class of 804 which is packed with class presidents, valedictorians, and "scholar-athletes." So far as the ratio of applicants to places available is concerned, Princeton is well above Harvard.

What is it that Princeton has and Harvard hasn't? "Just a very hard-working group of alumni," Craig admits quite frankly. The persistence and persuasiveness of Princeton alumni on the track of a "good well-qualified" boy is regarded with awe by other college admission offices. "We'd like to be able to explain those teams by saying they bought the players," says one high Ivy Group official, "but it just isn't so."

Statistically this year's freshman class at the New Jersey college doesn't appear much different from the Class of 1955 here. The Tiger year-lings averaged in the 580's in the verbal part of the College Boards, and about 600 on the math part. Freshmen here scored slightly higher on the verbal part, and about the same on the math.

More Prep School Men

The geographical distribution of Nassau freshmen is also about the same as that of their Cambridge counterparts. About 42 percent of them come from the three states of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Sixty percent of them went to private schools while 40 percent are high school graduates. This is markedly different from Harvard--here it is a 50-50 proposition.

The impression that Princeton is more of a rich boy's school than Harvard would, however, be unjustified. Fully 40 percent of the freshman class is receiving financial aid in some form. The Nassau Hall admissions policy has always been to accept freshmen without regard to their scholarship needs, and to worry about their finances later.

Princeton puts more emphasis on each boy's being "well-rounded" as an individual than Harvard does. As Craig says "We look the boys over as persons, not as part of a college-wide balance system. We prefer that a boy have other qualities in addition to pure scholarship."

No Introverts Here

The reason that Princeton shies away from the brilliant boy who seems unable or uninterested so far as participating in activities is concerned is that, as Craig points out, "Princeton is a fairly small college in a very small town. There isn't much to do around here so far as entertainment is concerned. In such a close community personal relationships are more important than they would be in a large University, and we

The two biggest agencies are the one which runs the Campus Center snack bar--which has served over 1000 people in a day and the tailor shop which did a $90,000 business last year. Men start off in an agency of their own choosing in freshman year, do "coolie jobs at hourly wages," then work themselves up to foremen, junior managers, and managers. The latter receive a flat sum of $75 a month in large agencies, $50 in the small ones. Surplus money made from the more profitable agencies goes into the scholarship fund. Ideas for new agencies are suggested by students.

How to Make Jobs

A unique Princeton feature is the In-Term Work-Study program in which 50 selected honor students are paid $400 a year to assist faculty members in research projects. This system not only creates jobs but gives the student educational background and takes some of the dirty work from faculty members' shoulders.

Morgan's office is working hard to put over another great job project -- student waiters in the 17 Prospect Street upperclass eating clubs. At present the clubs employ professional help from the town and are reluctant to give up this bit of luxury, but Morgan says, "It's something that is inevitable, only the date is not certain."

In addition to the jobs included in the agency system the Bureau acts as a center for odd-job information that will net students over $30,000 this year. Outside the Bureau's jurisdiction is the Press Club, where students who work for wire service and metropolitan dailies enjoy as much as $1,000 in a year.

All in all, 800 of the college's 2900 men have steady jobs, and another 300 do regular work for the Bureau. Princeton men may be playboys, but they made it the hard way