Pondering over the idea of going to Princeton

[Bravenewworld]

I am currently pondering over the idea of going to Princeton. I will be done with school in another year, 10th grade. Anyone have any things to say about it? I was also thinking about Dartmouth or maybe Penn State. And which one would you say has the greater Physics departments. I am really hooked on the idea of Princeton seeing as how many of my idols walked those halls. Nash, Werner, Ambrose, and many others.

 

[Troponin]

I say, "why not?"

If you don't like it you can transfer to Harvard or Caltech.

 

[Bravenewworld]

I am not really into Harvard nor Caltech, I am starting to move away from Darthmouth as well after talking to an old friend of my fathers who attended and said the department was extremely small. Is this true?

 

[j93]

You should be prepared for disappointment if you think youre a shoe in for Princeton Most likely unless you are an Intel-SemiFinalist if you applied for Harvard, Princeton, or Yale you would only get into one or two or none but it could be any two or single. Admissions is a bit of a toss up at that level since people with 1600 and 4.0s get rejected. Dont plan your life around that possibility but there is nothing wrong with applying you never know what could happen.

 

[phreak]

The fact that you'd want to go to Princeton because of its famous alumni probably shows that you're not cut out for it. If you're good at physics, then you'd succeed everywhere. If you're not, then you're not going to succeed anywhere. Individuals are absolute - institutions matter only for prestige (and trust me, this won't get you into a top graduate school), and are often completely independent of individual success.

 

[theFencer]

I say why not, go for your passion. I applied to Princeton to a large extent because I really fell in love with it after watching "A Beautiful Mind", which prompted me to visit the school. Well even though I got deferred in early decision and subsequently got rejected at the end, it was still a pretty good experience. There is really nothing to lose (well maybe except for your $60 application fees).