Learn more about the methodology behind the Daily Princetonian’s fifth annual senior survey, and meet the team that made it possible.
To our readers,
Welcome to The Daily Princetonian’s fifth annual senior survey! Our team has spent months collecting, analyzing, and interpreting responses from 476 seniors from the Class of 2026.
Many of the statistics in this project contain information that is not widely accessible, and as a result, this annual survey represents one of the most comprehensive views of the graduating class, covering their views, demographics, opinions, postgraduate plans, and experiences.
Our survey was conducted over a period of 37 days, from Feb. 23 to March 31, 2026. Periodically throughout those days, the ‘Prince’ emailed a Google Form to all members of the Class of 2026 with Princeton email addresses — a total of 1,491 people. 476 students responded, yielding a 31.9 percent response rate.
Every question on the survey was optional. On certain sensitive questions, respondents could explicitly decline to answer. To protect respondents’ anonymity, only select members of our Data team accessed the raw numbers, and none made any effort to identify any individual seniors.
Our team exercised discretion when presenting the data, carefully examining the implications of various graphs to ensure privacy at every juncture. Some cross-analyses were omitted due to their small sizes, to avoid potentially identifying individual participants. We did not calculate the significance test results of data drawing from two or more questions, and we did not weight responses based on demographics. In our narratives, “respondent,” “senior,” “student,” or any similar phrase refers to those who answered a given question.
Thank you for taking the time to read and interrogate our work. We hope that the senior survey can help preserve the stories of the Class of 2026, and that it is fun to read, use, and engage with.
Best,
Madeline Wadsworth ’28
Head Data Editor