For B.S.E Degree Applicants

Please describe why you are interested in studying engineering at Princeton. Include any of your experiences in or exposure to engineering, and how you think the programs offered at the University suit your particular interests. (Please respond in 250 words or fewer.)

You may wanna address the elephant in the room, which is… “are you pursuing engineering because your parents made you”? hahah. It’s either gonna be EXACTLY your situation (you wanna be an artist but your parents say “Nuh Unh”), or the exact opposite (your parents want you to be an artist, and YOU say, nope, me like engineering), or it’s somewhere in between. It doesn’t matter which one it is. What matters is emerging with the reader saying “this kid is GENUINE about it.” More often than not, the argument you THINK makes for the most compelling sell on why you’re interested in something (in this case engineering), is the least convincing. Usually, because it makes… too much sense. Sounds too perfect. Is too predictable. The best arguments are the ones that are surprising, unpredictable, off-balance somehow.

“Hey so, both my parents are engineers and have kinda insisted that I also be an engineer and have threatened to disown me if I don’t become an engineer, so that’s part of it. I decided to do it, but I decided that I would HATE it. Because I was a kid and that’s what kids do in response to anything their parents say. So that’s what I did. I took classes with a “Harumph” arms-folded attitude, cuz it’s all I had. The thing is? No matter how hard I tried, I frickin loved it. DAMNIT! Must. Not. Let. Parents. Win…” yada yada. It’s possible to take what COULD have been a predictable version (parents said I had to) and turn INTO something a little surprising.

You just need to find the element that’s true to YOUR experience and bring it front and center. That’s your ticket into to SELLING your interest in engineering, your plans for it, your love of the study OF it, etc.

All that selling of YOUR draw toward engineering, your plans, etc., should take up maybe 70% of the thing. The final piece is convincing us that of all the engineering programs out there, somehow the one at PRINCETON snaps into place with you and your interests and skillset… differently and better than others. In order to make that argument, you need to map specific elements of the Princeton engineering program to specific aspects of what YOU NEED in order to excel… the most. This isn’t easy. And it’s all about specificity and making those connections. Not simply in IDENTIFYING aspects of the programs which seem promising or noteworthy. Gotta connect to something specific about you.

Learn more and explore each step of Princeton’s undergraduate application process here.

Princeton values community and encourages students, faculty, staff and leadership to engage in respectful conversations that can expand their perspectives and challenge their ideas and beliefs. As a prospective member of this community, reflect on how your lived experiences will impact the conversations you will have in the classroom, the dining hall or other campus spaces. What lessons have you learned in life thus far? What will your classmates learn from you? In short, how has your lived experience shaped you?  (Please respond in 500 words or fewer.)

The prompt itself is nearly 100 words, and you may be tempted to answer each question sequentially… RESIST this urge, and instead, take the time to find a strong point of view coming into this essay. 

Here are the essential parts:

• How has your lived experience shaped you? They’re looking to build an incoming class with a diversity of lived experience – and by extension, ideological diversity. Find ONE LENS to describe the uniqueness of your lived experience, and ONE KEY STORY that illustrates it. 
• How will this make you an engaged member of the Princeton community? They’re digging to learn if you have perspectives that may challenge the ideas of others WHILE ALSO being open to having your own beliefs challenged. While the latter without the former may imply a lack of character development, the former without the latter might make you sound like an ideologue. 

Make a list of the ways in which your lived experience is unique/notable: this can be the influence of a person, a community, specific experiences you’ve had, aspects of your identity, etc. Next to each item, write a few sentences or bullets about how it’s shaped you, as well as an anecdote that exemplifies this. Finally, reflect on how each shapes the way you engage with others, including and especially people who are different from you. 

Go back through your list. Your ideal lens will be: different from what many others could say, showing values in relationship to others, and attached to an engaging story. Ideally, the story should be one that at least one other person observed… stories that center around an internal epiphany tend to fall flat as essay topics. 

Once you’ve landed on a thesis, do weave in the various questions in the prompt, but don’t structure your essay by answering them sequentially. They’re all pointing in the same direction… the uniqueness of your lived experience and what that says about how you’ll engage with and add to the Princeton community. 

Princeton has a longstanding commitment to understanding our responsibility to society through service and civic engagement. How does your own story intersect with these ideals? (Please respond in 250 words or fewer.)

This one’s pretty straightforward: Princeton wants to know that, not only are they admitting the sharpest crayons in the box, but that their admits are committed to giving back to the communities around them through service and civic engagement. 

Make a list of your biggest commitments that fall under the broad umbrella of ‘service and civic engagement’. Examples could run the gamut from volunteerism, work for a religious or secular community organization, involvement in politics or elections, individual activism or involvement in collective action, etc. 

Note the language, ‘How does your own story intersect with these ideals?’ Not only do they want to know about a way you’ve been involved in service or civic engagement, they want to hear about how that work intersects with your broader story… that is, they want the ‘on ramp’ to that activity, as well as how it’s shaped where you’re going. So, for each bullet point in this list, write a column for ‘how I got there’ and ‘where I’m going/how it’s shaped me’. The best topics will involve the development of your character… what initially drove you to get involved, what you learned, and how it changed you. If what initially drove you was ‘I had to for XYZ external reason,’ that’s totally fine IF you had some kind of important learning during the process, and it drove you to do more of ABC without an exogenous requirement. If one of your options is something that you’ve always done because your family does it and there’s not a whole lot of what’s uniquely you in the story, it might not be your strongest option.

You can also read through our Princeton school profile.

Learn more and explore each step of Princeton’s undergraduate application process here.

Please respond to each question in 50 words or fewer. There are no right or wrong answers. Be yourself!

1. What is a new skill you would like to learn in college?
2. What brings you joy? 
3. What song represents the soundtrack of your life at this moment?

As an addendum to the prompt, we'd say... there are no wrong answers per se, and definitely be yourself... however, don't answer these questions as if they were standalone questions... it's important to select your answers as complements to the rest of your application.

Embrace contradictions. If the rest of your application paints you as the the withdrawn but brilliant “I hate everything” suffering artist type, it’ll blow people’s minds to hear that taking your little cousin to the trampoline park every Saturday and squealing with joy as you both SOAR or that you're a diehard Swiftie. If you’re the ATHLETE, or the SCIENCE GUY, or the CLASS PRESIDENT/VALEDICTORIAN gal, or the whatever… it gets MUCH cooler if of of your answers to these question BETRAYS our predictions for what “that type of kid” would probably write. Long and short of it is… knock people off balance a bit. But you gotta do this deliberately. There’s an art to it.

On a similar note, if there's an important part of your life that you haven't gotten the chance to fully address elsewhere in your application, find a way to work it into one of these answers. As in, 'I'm really into X activity, so I want to learn Y in college to continue developing this passion' or 'Doing ABC every Sunday brings me joy, since I get to connect with X community, or myself, etc.'

Consider these questions 'is there anything else we should know about you?'-type questions... 50 words is JUST enough space to pique their curiosity about as in, 'Wow! we knew she was an engineering whiz but... she's a Bach nerd too and plays the oboe?? What can't she do?!'

Learn more and explore each step of Princeton’s undergraduate application process here.