Our survey was conducted over a period of 22 days, from June 9 to July 1, 2021. On three occasions, The Daily Princetonian emailed questions, assembled in a Google Form, to members of the Class of 2025 included in the Residential College Student Facebook as of May 27 — a total of 1,321 people. All told, we received 766 responses, comprising just over 58 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 a feature from Google enabled the ‘Prince’ to prevent multiple submissions. To protect respondents’ anonymity and data, only select members of our surveys 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 an abundance of submissions, we embarked on a months-long process of compiling and checking each tabulation. A minimum of two ‘Prince’ staffers from the Surveys team verified every datapoint. Team members were chosen based on comfort with data analysis, interest in information aggregation, previous experience with last year’s survey, and seniority.

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 may 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; in our charts, the reported sample size is always referencing the Class of 2025, regardless of whether or not data from the Class of 2024 is displayed alongside it.

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. All the same, a check of our respondent pool’s composition against data previously released by the University indicates a fairly representative and large sample.

Other conditions are more idiosyncratic: The survey was taken during a time of relative COVID-19 safety in the United States — the Delta variant was not prevalent and discourse surrounding breakthrough cases was limited. As such, it is best to view our data on COVID-19 as a time capsule, rather than enduring. Given the volatility of the current situation, opinions are likely to be volatile too.

In sincerity, all which we report is a little out of date; between the survey and now, some respondents have almost certainly had their first drink, experienced changes in their financial situation, and changed their concentration. Then switched it back. Then changed it again.

Our survey constitutes a glance at the Class of 2025 as it existed in June and early July, unresponsive to the spontaneous gap years or other life interruptions which may have taken place since. As a consequence of the prevalence of students who opted in the summer of 2020 to take a gap year, this year’s survey also represents the values and experiences of a small group who also took the survey last year before their gap year.

As you browse the pages, we ask that you do so with a careful and discerning eye. The information contained within, synthesized from over 96,000 individual pieces of data, reveals a portrait of our community — a tale that speaks to what our University is and may become, as well as the people who define it.