Misguided Aims and the Opportunity To Do More

If Princeton were an embodied being, it would have callouses on its palms from all the patting itself on the back it does.

It’s understandable that the institution errs in this direction; they all do. On the other hand, when a school advertises its intellectual and moral rigor, it should occasionally make an attempt to walk its talk.

As readers pointed out in previous letters on this topic, to put young people through the very real strains of preparing for an interview when admissions has zero intention of enrolling them and saying it’s being done essentially for public relations purposes (“an ambassadorial function”) is so misguided, it’s hard to know where to start. The fact that it’s pointlessly cruel is probably enough of a reason to reform this practice.

Related to Chuck Bethel ’68’s point, we can’t change the world, but we live in a state with numerous impoverished communities — Trenton, Camden, Newark, and the city where Princeton was born, Elizabeth (deep amnesia on that one). Our alumni’s intellectual and moral prowess (and the school’s massive endowment) could be better spent getting to know the young people of this state and learning how we can help them, not lining them up for interviews as part of a bizarre and pointless PR campaign.