As a former member of the admission staff at Princeton under Fred Hargadon, I can reassure Ken Phillips ’62 that he does not raise a new dilemma for Princeton’s admission office, nor is it one that has gone unaddressed in the admission process, as he assumes in his Oct. 10 letter. Fred used to refer to this question as “crowning vs. creation”; i.e., were we “crowning” the prior achievements of the applicants with an offer of admission, or were we offering admission to those students who would be transformed by the Princeton experience, and who were best suited to take advantage of what Princeton would offer them? Although my time in the admission office is long past, I wanted to speak up in defense of the process at Princeton, which was characterized by close attention to this precise question during my time there.
Regardless of the level of achievement of an applicant, our eye was on the question of whether the student would have the initiative and hunger to pursue the education available at Princeton. And, as Fred might have pointed out, the potential to impact our society for the better often is found in young people who also might be called “the best and the brightest based on demonstrated ability and achievement” near the end of their high school careers. Indeed, the same drive, initiative, and intellectual appetite that motivate these early achievements might also be the source of energy that fuels individual contributions to our society. Our alumni ranks are full of such contributors.