The Class of 2026 came to Princeton from across the world, with 13.1 percent of them being international students, and over 40 states and Washington, D.C., represented. Among the Class of 2026, most respondents were white, at 63.9 percent, which is around 20 percentage points higher than the national enrollment average of 41 percent white students. 46.2 percent of the graduating class have parents who obtained a masters or professional degree, which was higher than the 14.4 percent national average in 2022. Continue reading to learn more about the demographics of the Class of 2026.
Among the Class of 2026, 63.9 percent of respondents are white, 33.5 percent are Asian, and 9.8 percent are Black or African American. 9.1 percent of respondents identify as Hispanic or Latine, and 67 percent are straight. The Class of 2026 holds a variety of religious beliefs, with 23.2 percent agnostic, 15.5 percent Catholic, and 9.2 percent Jewish.
Most members of the Class of 2026 don’t have any other family members who attended Princeton: 23.4 percent of respondents having some sort of legacy status, whether a parent, grandparent, sibling, or some combination of those. However, some eating clubs have an even higher proportion of legacy students — with Tower, Charter, Ivy, and Cottage having 31.7, 27.5, 27.8, and 26.7 percent of members with some form of legacy, respectively. 17.7 percent of students reported having an annual total household income above $500,000, a 0.9 percentage point increase from last year’s graduating class.
The largest home state represented by the Class of 2026 is New Jersey with 17.8 percent of domestic students coming from the Garden State. The state that is home to the next-largest percentage of the Class of 2026 is New York, with 14.88 percent; California follows closely behind, at 12.2 percent. There were no respondents from Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Maine, Mississippi, North or South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, or Wyoming.