Alumni include US Presidents James Madison and Woodrow Wilson and the former first lady Michelle Obama. Currently the university has 5,267 students mentored by 1,289 faculty – Akhila Damodaran Established almost three centuries ago — 19 years before declaration of the United States of America as a sovereign nation — Princeton University (estb.1746) has matured into a globally venerated institution. This vintage private Ivy League research varsity is routinely ranked among the world’s Top 10 and among the Top 3 in the US by most rating agencies. In the annual U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges Rankings, Princeton has been ranked #1 or #2 for almost two decades (2001-2019) and in the latest World University Rankings of the London-based Times Higher Education, it is ranked #6 worldwide. Alumni include US Presidents James Madison and Woodrow Wilson and former first lady Michelle Obama. Currently its four faculties — humanities, engineering, natural and social sciences — provide fouryear liberal arts undergrad, postgraduate and doctoral programmes to 5,267 students mentored by 1,289 faculty. With the rampaging Covid-19 pandemic having hugely disrupted education and forced closure of education institutions globally, in March, Princeton had moved all classes and lectures online. However on July 6, the university issued a statement that undergraduates will be able to return to campus for one semester during the 2020-21 academic year, with first-year students and juniors welcomed back to campus for the fall semester (beginning August 31), and sophomores and seniors for the spring semester. (Since then as we go to press, this plan has been rescinded.) In the case of graduate students, “the university will welcome all its graduate students to campus” in the fall (autumn) with the option to study remotely. “Over the past two months, my colleagues and I have been studying the pandemic and identifying measures we can take to accommodate students on campus. Covid-19 is still a very new disease, and much remains unknown about it. Several points have, however, become clear. Based on the information now available to us, we believe Princeton will be able to offer all of our undergraduate students at least one semester of on-campus education this academic year, but we will need to do much of our teaching online and remotely,” says Christopher L. Eisgruber, president of the university. Princeton. A municipality (estimated pop. 31,187) of New Jersey City, Princeton is the outcome of a 2013 amalgamation of the now-defunct Borough of Princeton with Princeton Township. Almost equidistant from the mega-metros of New York City and Philadelphia, this woody cosmopolitan town offers large well-preserved open spaces and community recreation spaces including bars, restaurants, and shopping areas. Princeton also hosts the McCarter Theatre Center, winner of a Tony Award for the best regional theatre in the US, and the 200-year-old Morven Museum and Garden, which houses unique fine and decorative arts collections. Princeton has a continental climate. Summers are hot and humid with temperatures soaring to 38°C. Winters are cold and windy with temperature dipping to -18°C and copious…
