The University has scheduled two one-day placeholder dates for Princeton Preview this spring, but it has not fully decided whether Preview will once again be a day-long event or if it will later be expanded into a multi-day form, Dean of Admission Janet Rapelye said this week.
Preview is currently scheduled for Monday, April 13, and Tuesday, April 28, according to the Office of Undergraduate Admissions. The news that Preview would take place over one day again was first discussed at last week's Undergraduate Student Government senate meeting.
The University announced at the end of last March that Princeton Preview would be shortened from a three-day overnight stay to a single-day program because of concerns related to the meningitis outbreak.
No new cases of meningitis have been reported at the University since last December. However, a female student at Drexel University died of the same strain of meningitis in March. Local health authorities said at the time that her death was linked to contact with Princeton football players who had attended a mixer at Drexel. Her death prompted the University to shorten Preview last year to one day and forbid overnight stays for admitted students.
The University also paid for hotel accommodations in Newark and Philadelphia for any overnight stays thatwould have otherwise been spent on campus for admitted students attending Preview through the Office of Admission's "fly-in" program, which covers travel expenses for a number of admitted students on financial aid.
“Because the University has been in touch with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about the meningitis outbreak we’ve had, the University has taken efforts to vaccinate our students, but since there was a case where a student became fatally ill, that caused us to reconsider the Princeton Preview program,” Rapelye said in an interview last spring before last year's Preview.
More recently, Rapelye said in an interview on Monday that a decision will be made at a later date this year as to whether it’s safe to hold an extended Preview.
“If at some point the outbreak is cleared, then we’re going to be able to have Princeton Preview in a more expanded version,” Rapelye said. “But until that happens, we just have the placeholders right now.”
Rapelye explained that although the Office of Admissions is being updated and is working with other offices on Preview now, the office does not make the final decision as to whether or not it’s safe to hold Preview in its extended form. Last year, several offices and community members collaborated to make the decision along with the input of the CDC.
Although there were concerns last year that shortening Preview might have an effect on the yield for the Class of 2018, Rapelye noted that the yield actually increased. The University reported a yield of 69.2 percent for the Class of 2018, up from 68.7 percent for the Class of 2017.
The University and students who helped put Preview together last spring had to make a number of last-minute adjustments. Students who flew in for Preview were put up in hotels in Philadelphia and Newark if their flights were scheduled to arrive the day before.
Rapelye said that the University will once again put students who fly in up in hotels if the University does have another one-day Preview event.
Rapelye noted that although a final decision on the duration and form of Preview has not been reached, Preview will at the very least occur on the two scheduled days and that a decision will be reached before the end of March.
Correction: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this article did not properly explain the conditions under which the University paid for overnight stays for admitted students in Newark and Philadelphia hotels during last year's Princeton Preview. The University paid those expenses through their "fly-in" program, which covers travel expenses for some admitted students on financial aid. The 'Prince' regrets the error.
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