Princeton University advances learning through scholarship, research, and teaching of unsurpassed quality, with an emphasis on undergraduate and doctoral education that is distinctive among the world’s great universities, and with a pervasive commitment to serve the nation and the world.
The University’s defining characteristics and aspirations include:
- a focus on the arts and humanities, the social sciences, the natural sciences, and engineering, with world-class excellence across all of its departments;
- a commitment to innovation, free inquiry, and the discovery of new knowledge and new ideas, coupled with a commitment to preserve and transmit the intellectual, artistic, and cultural heritage of the past;
- a faculty of world-class scholars who are engaged with and accessible to students and devoted to the thorough integration of teaching and research;
- a focus on undergraduate education that is unique for a major research university, with a program of liberal arts that simultaneously prepares students for meaningful lives and careers, broadens their outlooks, and helps form their characters and values;
- a graduate school that is unusual in its emphasis on doctoral education, while also offering high quality masters programs in selected areas;
- a human scale that nurtures a strong sense of community, invites high levels of engagement, and fosters personal communication;
- exceptional student aid programs at the undergraduate and graduate level that ensure Princeton is affordable to all;
- a commitment to welcome, support, and engage students, faculty, and staff with a broad range of backgrounds and experiences, and to encourage all members of the University community to learn from the robust expression of diverse perspectives;
- a commitment to support and promote the mental and physical well-being of its students, staff, and faculty so that they have a genuine opportunity to thrive and engage fully with the University’s mission of research, teaching, and service;
- a vibrant and immersive residential experience on a campus with a distinctive sense of place that promotes interaction, reflection, and lifelong attachment;
- a commitment to prepare students for lives of service, civic engagement, and ethical leadership; and
- an intensely engaged and generously supportive alumni community.