Chartered in 1746 as the College of New Jersey, the fourth college in British North America, renamed in 1896 and fully coeducational since 1969[1]. Christopher L. Eisgruber has been president since 2013[2].
Most research universities of Princeton's standing are built around their graduate schools, with undergraduates fitted in at the edges. Princeton runs that fork the other way: 5726 undergraduates against 3324 graduate students[3], no medical, law or business school, and a senior thesis required of every arts-and-sciences bachelor's student. That choice decides who should apply. If you want a degree where senior faculty run small discussion sections and supervise your own research project, the trade is unusually good. If you want professional schools inside one university, or several undergraduate colleges to move between, a bigger institution suits you better. Below: the full cost, the admission route, the aid rules that set the real price, and the document and visa steps a family abroad has to plan.
Location
Princeton, United States
Establishment year
1746
Students
8,765
International students
2,032
Female students
47%
Acceptance rate
6%
Place in ratings
There's not enough data to display the dynamics of this rating.
By subject
Subject
Place in QS 2024
Natural Sciences
10
Arts & Humanities
14
Social Sciences & Management
17
Accounting & Finance
26
Engineering & Technology
32
Life Sciences & Medicine
142
Studying abroad doesn’t break the bank anymore
Universities for any budget
Scholarship options
Installment plans up to 2 years
Princeton: key figures for applicants
Princeton is =3rd in THE World University Rankings 2026[4] and 27th in QS 2027[5] — the tables measure different things. These rows matter more.
Students
5726 undergraduate, 3324 graduate (2024-25)
International share
24% overall; 13% of undergraduates, 44% of graduates
Admit rate
4.4%, Class of 2029
English
TOEFL, IELTS, Duolingo or PTE; no minimum published; waived after 3+ years of English-medium schooling[6]
Tuition, 2026-27
68,140 USD, identical for international students
Financial aid
Need-blind for internationals; assessed need met in full with grants
Nearest deadlines
1 November 2026, then 1 January 2027
Advantages of studying at Princeton
💰 Need-blind for internationals, and 100% of assessed need is then met
Fewer than ten US universities do both. Need is met for admitted international students exactly as for Americans[7], so applying for aid costs nothing.
🚫 Aid is grants only — loans left the packages in 2001
The trustees voted them out on 27 January 2001[8]: nothing is repaid, and no debt builds in a currency you do not earn.
📝 The degree is built around supervised research, not lecture attendance
Lectures pair with precepts, discussion sections of a handful of students, feeding junior papers and a senior thesis worth two course credits[9].
🏠 Housing is guaranteed for four years and 98% of undergraduates live on campus
First- and second-years join one of seven residential colleges with their own dining halls and advisers[2] — no rental hunt near New York.
Limits and trade-offs at Princeton
📉 Over 40000 applications compete for about 1400 places, with no formula to game
No minimum grade, no rank cut-off: review is holistic, so your record is weighed against the school you attended. Apply if you fit, but as one line in a portfolio.
💵 No merit scholarships at any level, so a high-income family pays the full budget
Nothing is awarded for grades, sport or an olympiad medal. If the assessment says your family can pay, it will expect payment.
🏫 A narrow institution, and a testing rule that changes right after this cycle
Study runs through 37 departments plus the schools of public affairs and architecture[10]; professional training means applying out. And SAT or ACT, optional this cycle, is required from the next[11]: defer a year and a test-free file turns test-required.
Degrees, campus and the shape of the year
Undergraduates pick one of two degrees on entry: the A.B. across humanities and sciences, which requires the thesis, or the B.S.E. through six engineering departments. Neither track fixes your final concentration[12].
The core campus covers 500 acres and 190 buildings[2], and New College West and Yeh College opened in 2022 as the sixth and seventh residential colleges[13]. The town is small and quiet, roughly 80 km from both New York City and Philadelphia[1].
Tuition is about seven-tenths of the bill, and every line below is the price before aid. The figures are the university's own 2026-27 estimates for a first- or second-year undergraduate[14].
Item, 2026-27
Amount
Tuition
68,140 USD
Housing
13,010 USD
Food
9,110 USD
Fees
314 USD
Books and supplies
1,050 USD
Personal expenses
3,000 USD
Published student budget
94,624 USD
Travel home, excluded above
50-5,000 USD
Student Health Plan, billed separately
4,220 USD
The health plan is billed on top of that budget and can be waived if you already carry comparable cover[15]. Graduate tuition is not published openly — ask the department. What a family finally pays is set by the aid assessment below, not by this table.
Academic calendar
Semesters
Financial Aid
Yes
Bachelor
48,489USD/year
Master
53,876USD/year
Room and board
on campus18,630USD/year
Other expenses
on campus3,325USD/year
How a class of roughly 1500 is chosen
For the Class of 2029 Princeton took 42303 applications, admitted 1868 and enrolled 1408 — 4.4%[16]; international citizens were 14.1% of that class, from 65 countries[17].
Choose your round: Early Action is non-binding and takes no deposit, but bars early applications to other private US universities that cycle[18].
Open your Common Application account and answer the Princeton-specific questions.
Request the school report, counsellor letter, two teacher evaluations and a full secondary transcript.
Upload a graded written paper from a school subject — an unusual requirement.
Book TOEFL, IELTS Academic, Duolingo or PTE unless three or more years of your schooling were English-medium[6].
File the Princeton Financial Aid Application by 9 November 2026 or 1 February 2027.
Graduate admission works differently: you apply to a department, which decides.
Read the faculty pages first — for a PhD, fit with a research group outweighs transcript strength.
Confirm the department's deadline, then assemble transcripts, references, a statement naming your target faculty and a writing sample if required.
Do not look for a scholarship form: enrolled PhD candidates get tuition plus a stipend for the regular years, whatever their citizenship[19].
Dropping loans is only half the mechanism; the other half is that the size of the grant comes from an assessment of your family's finances rather than from a competition. Families earning up to 150,000 USD a year pay nothing for tuition, housing and food; up to 250,000 USD, no tuition; grant aid reaches past 350,000 USD with several children in higher education, and the average package exceeds 80,000 USD[12]. These are guides, not a formula.
The paperwork is light by US standards: Princeton's own free Financial Aid Application, no CSS Profile, IDOC or ISFAA[20], plus family tax documents translated into English. Among scholarships in the USA, a grant-only need-blind package for internationals is rare.
Campus work, OPT and the STEM route
The Center for Career Development runs the HireTigers fairs and a hub on visa-sponsoring employers[21]; the Davis International Center handles F-1 status, CPT and OPT.
The immigration rules are not the university's to bend. On an F-1 you may work on campus 20 hours a week in term, and off-campus work is barred in your first year. Graduation opens 12 months of Optional Practical Training, plus 24 more for eligible STEM degrees. From 15 September 2026 a Homeland Security rule replaces duration of status with a fixed admission period tied to your I-20, capped at four years.
Princeton evaluates the IB, A-levels or another diploma against what your own school offers[22] and publishes no curriculum list: CBSE and ISC records, WAEC certificates, Philippine senior-high transcripts, British-curriculum UAE records and US diplomas with AP results are read on their own terms. Rather than buying a WES or ECE conversion by reflex, make sure your transcript and school report explain the grading scale and which subjects your school offered.
Send transcripts in the original language with a certified English version (see diploma translation), and pick referees who taught you an academic subject recently — recommendation letters from a well-placed family friend count for nothing. Then the visa: the I-20 follows your May reply, the SEVIS fee is 350 USD and the visa fee 185 USD, social-media accounts must be public for F-visa screening[23], and the funds you must show are set by your I-20 cost of attendance.
Questions that survive the brochure
Is the alumni interview required?
No. It is optional and offered only where a local alumni interviewer exists. Opting out carries no disadvantage[24].
Do AP, IB or A-level results shorten the degree?
They exempt you from introductory courses but do not count toward the total needed to graduate; benchmarks are 5 on AP, 7 on IB, A at A-level[25].
Is there an enrolment deposit when I accept?
Princeton's admitted-student cost pages list none — you confirm by 1 May with no fee stated[26]. Check your own offer letter.
Why is there no press release with this year's admission numbers?
Princeton stopped issuing one after 2021; the figures now live only in its Common Data Set filing[16].
Where do I find graduate tuition rates?
Not on the open web: the Graduate School's rates page sits behind a university login. Ask the department in writing.
Choose Princeton when the aid policy transforms the price for your family, when you want a bachelor's ending in supervised original research, and when your subject sits in the arts, sciences, engineering or public policy.
Look elsewhere when you need a professional degree inside the same institution, want a city rather than a college town, or need a merit award. Among the Ivy League universities, Harvard University has the professional-school depth Princeton lacks and Cornell University a wider subject map.
Have these ready before you apply
Official transcripts plus a school report explaining your grading scale.
Two teacher evaluations from academic subjects, requested a month ahead.
A graded written paper, and an English test booking unless exempt.
Family tax documents for the Princeton Financial Aid Application.
Professional assistance in applying to a foreign university
