Alumni Schools Committee
Risa McMillan ’85 SC Chair, ASC
4 South Carolina Students Joining the Great Class of 2025
UPDATE 8/13: The final state totals are 164 SC applicants with 8 admitted, 4 of whom are matriculating. All students will be required to be vaccinated and as of two days ago all students, faculty, and staff will be required to wear masks indoors.
Original Post March 2021: We had 163 applicants from South Carolina this year and 5 were offered admission. (Our very own Peter Cooper interviewed one of the gifted 5 from Heathwood Hall in Columbia)
While that percentage may seem dismally low (which it is), it is really not far off the national average which was also below 4% with total applicants exceeding 35,000. The University did not require test scores this year because of Covid and cancelled tests so I would guess that had something to do with rising numbers of applicants.
Here is a link to the University press release in regards to their decisions.
The Chair’s Report
December 3, 2020
While this has certainly been a trying year for everyone with many adjustments, life at Princeton and the admission process also has its own new set of rules. On this day in years past, we would have already completed the early action portion of interviews (with a ballpark 30 or so applicants) and be well into assigning the regular pool interviews. This year there is no early action and no testing requirements – truly unprecedented.
The biggest change for Alumni Schools Committees is that ALL interviews will be virtual this year via Facetime, Skype, Zoom, etc... This will hopefully facilitate with the recruitment of new volunteers and make it easier to reach out to students in rural parts of the state. If you are not already signed up, I would welcome your help with the interviews – talking to these brilliant students is refreshing and fun. Your class year is irrelevant as we are more ambassadors than anything. Please let me know if you are interested.
Here is a general outline of interviewing changes for the 20/21 season:
From the Office of Admission
- Pause on Early Action—only one Regular Decision program this year with a January 1, 2021 application deadline
- Pause on standardized testing—we are test optional this year
- Some changes to the questions on the Princeton Supplement
- There are now many different online offerings to get to know Princeton on the Princeton Admission website
For ASC work
- ALL INTERVIEWS WILL BE VIRTUAL THIS YEAR—please see the new email template and “Best Practices for Virtual Interviews” in the Documents section of the ASC site
- Pause on alumni participation in college fairs.
- Interviews may be conducted via phone or secure video chat (using platforms such as Zoom, Google Meet, Skype, WhatsApp, etc.)—please use whatever is most convenient for both the interviewer and the applicant. We do not allow video chats using social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat.
- Interviews must not be recorded in any way, either by the interviewer or the applicant (we recommend the interviewer reiterate this rule at the start of the conversation)
- New mandatory training tutorial video on the Interviewer Agreement form
- Some changes to the ASC report form, including new recommendation system
Also of note this year, the Admissions Office asks that you try to limit your interviews to 30 minutes and the reports be no longer than a page.
It will be interesting to see if the number of applicants drops this year with all of the changes. I will keep you posted. Go Tigers!