On Monday, May 20, at 3:43 p.m., TigerCall Program Manager Madison McCall and the AG24 Co-Chairs sent an email to 79 members of the Class of 2024 who “indicated an interest in potentially volunteering with the Senior Pledge Campaign, also known as AG24.” McCall shared a spreadsheet listing all members of the class with their pledge status, alongside their major, contact information, and data about their activity on campus, including residential college information, eating clubs, sports, and other extracurriculars.
Later that day, access to the spreadsheet was revoked.
The Daily Princetonian obtained a copy of the spreadsheet, looked at how many students indicated they planned to donate, and broke down the numbers by major and area of study.
The sheet lists 1,404 people as members of the Class of 2024, 101 more than are listed on the Residential College Facebook as individuals in the Class. The ‘Prince’ removed all individuals from the list which could not be found on the Facebook and conducted the analyses only on the 1,277 matches. Beyond verifying names of members of the Class of 2024, the ‘Prince’ did not make attempts to analyze personal information on an individual basis, instead using the data to make a collective sample.
Across all fields, graduates using the courtesy title “Ms.” pledged to donate at a higher rate. “Mr.” and “Ms.” were the only courtesy titles used in the spreadsheet. Those using the title “Ms.” made up less than 44 percent of engineering majors, but over 54 percent of engineering majors who pledged to donate. In the humanities, those using the title “Ms.” made up over 52 percent of graduates, but over 67 percent of those who pledged to donate.
According to the McCall’s email, Annual Giving is hoping for 65 percent of the Class to pledge, which will be fulfilled in the first reunion year. When the email was sent, the attached spreadsheet reported 34.5 percent of the Class having pledged. In the ‘Prince’ 2024 Senior Survey, only 17 percent of respondents reported intending to donate to Princeton within one year of graduation.
The most popular concentrations for the Class of 2024 are Computer Science, Public Policy, Economics, Operations Research and Financial Engineering, and History. Of those, most departments had donation rates between 37 and 45 percent, with the exception of History, where just 18 percent of graduates have pledged to donate to Annual Giving.
Engineers pledged to donate at higher rates than their peers. 34 percent of the class majored in engineering, yet over 40 percent pledged to donate. In comparison, humanities majors have pledged to donate at lower rates. While over 16 percent of the class majored in the humanities, only 12 percent of them pledged to donate.
Annual Giving is the annual campaign for alumni donations run by the University. According to the 2022–23 Annual Giving Report, almost half of undergraduate alumni donate to Annual Giving. The campaign raised a total of $73.8 million. In the report foreword, Assistant Vice President for Annual Giving Sue Walsh wrote, “Annual Giving flows directly into the University’s operating budget for educational expenses,” meaning that it helps fund initiatives such as financial aid, stipends for summer service internships, and research funding for students.
The FAQs section of AG24 Senior Pledge Campaign website mentions under “Will my pledge really make a difference?” that “alumni participation is a key factor in the U.S. News & World Report rankings. For the 13th consecutive year, Princeton has been ranked No. 1 overall in the Best National Universities category.”
For their 2024 rankings, the U.S. News & World Report dropped the alumni giving rate criteria from its methodology. In previous years it accounted for three percent of the score. Other dropped indicators include class size, terminal degree faculty, graduate debt proportion borrowing, and high school class standing.
In the 2022–23 Annual Giving cycle, only eight individual classes surpassed their participation goals. Last years’ goals for the first four years of Annual Giving after graduation were 55 percent of the class giving a total of $100,000 — averaging $140 per person of the roughly 1,300 person class, seven times the highest option on the pledge.
Suthi Navaratnam-Tomayko is a head Data editor and Sports contributor for the ‘Prince.’
Andrew Bosworth is a head Data editor and staff Sports writer for the ‘Prince.’
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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