Dear reader,
Welcome to The Daily Princetonian’s fourth-annual Frosh Survey. Our team has spent months diligently analyzing responses from over 700 first-years, seeking to tell the story of the Great Class of 2028.
Our survey was conducted over a period of 22 days, from July 1 to July 22, 2024. On six occasions, the ‘Prince’ sent emails containing a link to the survey to members of the Class of 2028 included in the Residential College Student Facebook as of July 1 — a total of 1,438 people. We received 732 responses, comprising just over 50 percent of the class.
Every question on the survey was optional. On select sensitive questions, respondents could explicitly decline to answer. Although all responses were fully anonymous, the Google Form was limited to individuals with a University-issued email address and multiple submissions were disabled. To protect respondents’ anonymity and data, only select members of our survey team received access to the raw data, and none made any effort to identify individual respondents. As part of our commitment to comprehensive privacy, we collected and aggregated all raw data on Google accounts unaffiliated with the University.
Upon receiving hundreds of submissions, we embarked on a months-long process of compiling and checking each tabulation. A minimum of two ‘Prince’ editors from the Data team verified every datapoint.
We exercised discretion when presenting the data in question. Our team carefully considered the implications of various cross-tabulations and sought to ensure that the responses of individual students could not be identified. When utilizing percentages, rather than using raw numbers to represent data, our team rounded the value to the nearest tenth of a percent. As every query was optional, many questions garnered sample sizes one to two percent smaller than the overall respondent pool; in our narratives, “respondent” refers to any student who responded to a given question.
Special thanks to 2022 Senior Survey Director Caroline di Vittorio ’22 for her work developing programs to generate charts and web generation.
Despite our best efforts, our survey includes limitations. We did not complete statistical analysis of data points cross-tabulated from two or more questions, nor did we make any attempt to increase or decrease the weight of various demographic groups to more accurately match the overall picture of a larger group. At the same time, a check of our respondent pool’s composition against data previously released by the University regarding the demographics of the Class of 2028 indicates a fairly representative and large sample.
In sincerity, all that we report is a little out of date; between the survey and now, some respondents have likely had their first drink, experienced changes in their financial situation, and changed their major — then switched it back, then changed it again. We’re pretty sure at least some of the 23 percent of respondents in a relationship during the time they responded to the survey … aren’t anymore. Our survey constitutes a glance at the Class of 2028 as it existed in July, unresponsive to other life interruptions which may have taken place since.
Thank you for taking the time to read, consider, and interrogate our work. The Frosh Survey is meant to serve as a collaborative reflection, initiating dialogue for the greater Princeton community while preserving the stories of this consummately unique class. We also hope that it is, and continues to be, a whole lot of fun.
Suthi Navaratnam-Tomayko
Head Data Editor & 2028 Frosh Survey Director
