A great 60s-tastic shot of Nassau Hall. (photo from www.princeton.edu)

As of this afternoon, Princeton has offered 726 students spots in the Class of 2016 from a 3,443-person applicant pool, the University announced at 3pm today.  It’s the first time Princeton has offered students the option of applying Early Action–meaning that admitted students are not contractually obligated to attend, and may apply to other schools for Regular Decision if they so choose–since 2006, when Harvard, Princeton, and the University of Virginia all simultaneously eliminated their Early Decision programs.  Harvard took 772 students for the Class of 2016 out of 4,245 applicants, with an acceptance rate of 18.2%, while Yale had an 18% dip in Early Action applications this year, due in part to Princeton and Harvard’s reinstated programs.

Jury’s still out on how many admitted students will matriculate, though Dean Janet Rapeleye has said that the accepted Early Action students should represent about a third of the year’s total admits.

To read more about Princeton’s Early Action pool for 2016, including a demographic breakdown for admitted students, click here.

They took first place at the Facebook Camp Hackathon last weekend, beating teams that qualified at earlier competitions throughout the country. Their creation? Color Me Bold, a program that analyzes a photo and offers jewelry and accessory suggestions. Whether you want to give your outfit an extra splash of color or just want to see what it takes to win a hackathon, you can test it here.

Some tips from Zha:

• After uploading a photo from Facebook, click and drag your mouse over areas of the photo where the outfit you want to match is. If coloring inside the lines isn’t your strong suit, you can right click to erase.
• Next choose whether you want jewelry or accessory recommendations – jewelry works best at the moment.
• Princeton’s network isn’t the speediest, so give it some time.

If you’re skeptical about taking fashion advice from a computer algorithm, well, Facebook’s seal of approval is pretty convincing. It’s even more impressive considering they had just 24 hours to put it together.

Princeton’s team was also the only one with more women than men, which might account for the fashion-forward hack. Zha said she got the idea when thinking about day-to-day problems she’d like to solve – “accessorizing can definitely take up as much time as I have available. The girls were totally onboard–and outvoted our one male team member.”

Check out an interview with the Princeton team and video from the hackathon here – considerably tamer than the Hollywood version, but the Ripsticks do look pretty cool.

Triangle sold out so fast when people thought this was a real Sondheim-adapted rap musical.

Cornel West, African-American Studies/Religion professor and one of our many celebrity academics, recently announced that he will be leaving his Princeton post in 2012 to teach Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, the school where he first began his career in academia.

For his time at Princeton, West will be remembered for more than just his commitment to paideia (which I learned is not a Spanish rice dish), his multiple political arrests, and his theological bromance with fellow professor Robbie George.

Oh, and that time his cartoon self roundhouse kicked some R. Kelly supporter in the Boondocks.

Since he began teaching at Princeton in 2001, West’s radical liberal politics have made him a controversial figure. A smattering of editorials and always well-phrased comments in the Prince since his arrival highlight the various opinions on West: “Princeton’s foremost hire” to “clownish entertainer,” “hero” to “charlatan,” and “exemplary human being” to “media whore.” My crowd of friends isn’t a big fan of West either, and as one friend once put it: “Why is he in academics at all? Why does he matter?”

I’ll be honest. Despite his platitudes, gangster proclivities, and propensity for showmanship, I believe Professor West matters.

After following (not creeping) West around and hearing him speak to various communities, both in academics and outside of them, I understand why some in the academic community object to his pathos-heavy, Baptist-preacher style of lecturing. He doesn’t fit the mold of your standard university professor. Princeton kids aren’t used to lecture information being disseminated like a Sunday morning sermon.

But Professor West matters in a different way to the African American community at large. When he spoke at the One Table Café dinner last year, a community dinner comprised of lower-income families and youth from Princeton, Trenton, and Camden, that’s when I really got up close and personal with Professor West. (Literally, two feet from his face.) And that’s the relative distance needed to really understand the impact that he has on the African American community.

As one person I spoke to at the dinner put it best, “He is one of the few black male role models these kids have today who isn’t either an athlete or a rapper.” (Granted, he does have a rap group named after him.) As an academic, West is a model of how intellectualism, faith, and badassery can co-exist for a community with a long history of academic disenfranchisement and systematic oppression. The students at the dinner were enraptured. They asked him question after question about his feelings on the political implications of rap music, intellectualism, President Obama, etc. This was West doing what he does best: engaging, provoking, and inspiring — something he doesn’t change or curtail once behind a lecture podium.

I could go on about our need for Afrocentrism, radical academia, and an energized dialogue on race and religion at Princeton, but my point is, Professor Cornel West matters as a role model in the academic sphere — if not for us, then for a generation of young intellectuals coming from places with less privilege than our Orange Bubble.

Okay, maybe I’m just hoping that he’ll secure me a seat on the Council of Zion to combat the rise of the machines.

I know kung fu too, Keanu.

Christopher A. Sims (image source: www.nobelprize.org, Denise Applewhite)

Thomas J. Sargent (image source: www.nobelprize.org, NYU Stern)

After almost four decades of work exploring the causal relationships between policy decisions and the economy, Sims and Sargent received the Nobel Prize this morning in recognition of their independent, but complementary, research.

While Sargent’s research focused on more long-term economic trends as inflation targets, Sims, the Harold H. Helm ‘20 Professor of Economics and Banking, focused more on short-term economic developments. Through statistical analysis, Sims and Sargent investigated whether changes in economic policy cause these developments, or whether policy-makers anticipate these developments when shaping policy.

And although the Nobel Prize website has yet to post details about the research and the winners, congratulations have already begun to flow in from around the world, some more cryptic than others. A personal favorite? “go VIKINGS we fianlly [sic] won.” Surely somebody gets it…

In an interview with the New York Times this morning, Sims said that his research holds real and important implications for the current state of global economic affairs, and recovery from it:

The methods that I’ve used and that Tom has developed are central for finding our way out of this mess.

When pressed for a simple policy solution, though, he hesitated. Whoever finds one of those, it seems, will be in the running for the next Nobel.

Then there’s Peter Hessler ’92, one of 22 MacArthur Fellows for 2011. Hessler is a long form journalist who drew on his experience as an English teacher and foreign correspondent in China in three books where he crafts “richly illuminating accounts of ordinary people in such rapidly changing societies as Reform Era China.”

He’s written about Peace Corps projects in Nepal, a Uighur money-trader seeking asylum in the US, the effects of China’s auto boom on industrial centers and nearly-abandoned villages … yeah, pretty much everything. So, what’s next for a genius writer with half a million dollars to burn? Hessler hopes to head for the Middle East in search of more stories – check out his interview for more.

There's a reason the logo is orange.

Sadly, we can’t do much to help you out with that orgo final. But we can help you bone up on your Princeton knowledge, and maybe rekindle the trivia love that got us on Sporcle’s top 25 colleges last semester.

Quiz time!

1) How many pizzas were consumed at the dodgeball tournament? How many free t-shirts?

2) What’s the farthest spot from campus Princeton’s flag flies?

3) The first Ivy Leaguers to make the cover of Sports Illustrated were from Princeton. Which team took the honor, and in what year?

4) Which Princeton building lent its name to a chemical reaction?

5) What hidden message is embedded in the bricks of the computer science building?

Or maybe the bricks are just slowly falling out?

6) The statues outside Nassau Hall weren’t always tigers. Who brought them to campus, and what did they replace?

7) When was the last Cannon Green bonfire? When will it happen again?

Photo by Bill Allen ’79–NJ Sport/Action

Answers:

1) 2,900 shirts were given out, and we devoured 200 pizzas (it’s usually 300, but they switched it up and gave us pizza and barbecue this year).

2) Pete Conrad ’53, the third man to walk on the moon, kicked off the University’s quest for intergalactic domination when he planted a Princeton pennant along with the US flag on the Ocean of Storms lunar plain.

Also in the “Princeton in Space” category: there’s an asteroid, 508 Princetonia, named for the university.

3) Trick question – it was the Princeton University Band that graced the cover of the October 17, 1955 issue.

4) The “Old Nassau reaction” is a clock reaction discovered by Princeton undergrads in the 1970s, in which solid orange mercury iodide forms until the mercury is used up, at which point the excess iodide and iodate react to form a black starch iodine complex. See? We’re not totally useless for actual academics.

5) It says, “P=NP?” in ASCII code. It’s a major unsolved problem in computer science that basically asks whether there are efficient algorithms to solve a category of difficult problems, like the traveling salesperson problem or breaking encryption standards like the one used to keep your credit card info secret when you shop online. If you’re curious, read more here. The bricks can be altered to say “P=NP!” if it’s ever solved.

6) Woody Woo’s Class of 1879 donated the bronze tigers outside Nassau Hall in 1911, but listen to the full story before you applaud their generosity. See, the 1879-ers also donated a pair of lion statues the year they graduated from Princeton, before we’d really cemented the tiger as our mascot. The 1911 gift was just making up for the fact that they’d accidentally put Columbia’s mascot in front of campus headquarters.

7) Students last set the cannon ablaze – a tradition observed whenever Princeton football sweeps Harvard and Yale in a season – in 2006, the 25^th such sweep in Princeton history. When will it happen again? As a Cubs fan, I know the answer to that one: there’s always next year…

A campus trend of late is to put stunningly lifelike cardboard cut outs of gossip.com’s favorite male heartthrobs in dorm windows, turn on the room lights when night falls and let the silhouettes do their creepy business.  Our current cardboard residents include Robert Pattinson adorned with a delightful mustache and delightfully menacing eyebrows, Anderson Cooper dressed in a snazz-tastic power suit and our love Justin Bieber frozen in his oh-so dashing hands-in-pocket shrug.

Pictures?  Why, of course.

Butler College: 1915 Hall, 4th Entry Way, 1st Floor

I wonder how Bella feels about those brows.

Whitman: Lauritzen Hall, 2nd floor

Power tie!

Spelman 7, 3rd floor, across from building with the STARCRAFT sign

At least in this case we know why his hair doesn't move

So, who’s going to be next on our cardboard mancrush list?

I’m thinking this guy.

Sydney Johnson, in simpler times

I hate Lane Kiffin.

I disliked him at Tennessee, but ever since he jumped ship after a year of SEC football and left for the greener pastures of USC and the PAC-10, I’ve loathed Lane Kiffin. To me, he symbolizes everything that’s wrong with coaches in NCAA sports — phony smiles, good haircuts, no loyalty, and a devotion to winning only as an end to their own means.

So, why am I talking about Lane Kiffin? Just to make it clear that Sydney Johnson is no Lane Kiffin.

Because after a week+ now of having the Tiger sports fan inside me curled up in the fetal position, mourning the loss of our men’s basketball coach, I think it’s starting to all make sense. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think I would have done the exact same thing. Is this the sports fan equivalent of Stockholm Syndrome? Entirely possible! But hear me out anyways.

The Princeton Ceiling

What was Sydney Johnson’s ceiling at Princeton?

Pretty much exactly what he accomplished last year.

Winning the Ivy League tournament, and keeping the first round game respectable in the NCAA tournament, is about as well as Johnson could ever hope for one of his teams to do. Maybe if he stuck around another few decades, he might be lucky enough to have a team upset a higher seed in the first round, like his ‘96 Tigers did so memorably against UCLA.

But he’ll never compete for a national title. And he’ll probably never even make a run like Cornell did, which was built on the backs of 7 foot tall transfer students from big name programs.

He had almost no shot of becoming the greatest Princeton coach of all time; that honor belongs to Hall of Famer Pete Carril*, who coached from ‘67-’96. He could have been great, but not the greatest. Sydney Johnson was the hometown hero who came back and took his basketball team to the tournament. And we couldn’t ask much more of him, because Princeton isn’t designed to give much more.

The Argument for Leaving

If Sydney Johnson was intent on leaving Princeton at some point, then this was his year.

Kareem Maddox and Dan Mavraides are graduating. We’ve still got talent, to be sure, but after winning the Ivy League by the slimmest of margins this year, it’ll be hard to repeat as Ivy League champions.

Without the benefit of athletic scholarships, transfers, and other recruiting tools, Johnson had to hope to capture lightning in a bottle once with his team and parlay that into a better offer.

This was that lightning-in-a-bottle year. And so Johnson cashed in.

A lot of the confusion and hurt of Princeton fans has been Johnson’s choice of Fairfield. If he was leaving for UNC, or Kansas, or another storied program, then we’d be ok with it. But FAIRFIELD?

Well, Fairfield has a few things going for it. First, and somewhat importantly, he’ll make more money, maybe a lot more (hard to find exact figures, but the common wisdom of the internet seems to think he’ll be going from the neighborhood of 200k to more like 600k). More importantly, FAIRFIELD ISN’T PRINCETON. Johnson will have the opportunity to recruit with scholarships, aggressively pursue transfer students, and do all the sorts of things he couldn’t do at Princeton. He’ll have the chance to build a real program, compete in a small conference Fairfield already dominates, and make some runs in the tournament.

And then he’ll leave Fairfield for a major conference school.

If Johnson’s goal was not to be the Princeton coach for the rest of his life, then it makes sense that his goal would be to raise himself to be part of the conversation of other great coaches — to compete for, and possibly win, a national title. He was the youngest coach in the Ivy League when he started coaching Princeton in 2007; he’s still well on pace to be the coach at a serious program by the time he’s 40.

The old coach of Fairfield left for Providence and a shot to compete in the Big East.** If I were Sydney, I’d want to go somewhere where I had a real chance to win it all, too.

But that’s why I don’t hate Sydney Johnson, and why I wish him the best. He gave us what he could. I believe his tears were genuine. And now it’s time for him to become a legendary coach somewhere, down the line. It’ll happen. Just you wait.

*An earlier version of this blog post misspelled former Princeton coach Pete Carril’s name, rather egregiously. Thanks to commenter Hank Moody for the heads up.

**An earlier version of this blog post erroneously suggested that Providence is in the Atlantic 10. It’s not; it’s part of the Big East. The author was probably thinking of Xavier, which he frequently confuses with Providence. This is even more embarrasing because the author’s uncle is a proud Providence College alum. Thanks to eagle-eyed commenter ’05 for the tip.

Randall Munroe, creator of xkcd, will be giving a public lecture Monday, April 11, at 8 p.m. in New Frick (full details here). And to prove Mr. Munroe has some insight into the world of higher education and standardized tests, here are some classic xkcd comics:

Spring Break 2011: Geeks Gone Wild

Calling all math nerds, Pi lovers and Einstein devotees! If you’re staying on campus for spring break (so near and yet so painfully far), don’t miss out on the second year of a recently birthed Princeton tradition: Pi Day.

Mimi Omicienski of the Princeton Tour Company dreamed up this celebration of all things geeky last year, when she realized that March 14th coincides with Albert Einstein’s birthday. Last year, Omicienski worked with the Princeton Public Library and Joy Chen from JOY Cards (on Chambers Street, close to Masala Grill, FYI. Check it out if you want a cute alternative to Paper Source) to create the first ever Pi Day. It included pie-eating contests, an Einstein look-alike competition, and an intense pi recitation showdown. The winner? Gareth Conway, son of our own superstar mathlete John Conway.

But this year, the Pi Day people are stepping up their game. March 14th has been extended to an entire “Geek Freak Weekend,” featuring Dinky and plane rides with Einstein (as in, Einstein re-enactors. Not his dead body. That would be morbid), presentations from our plasma physics lab, pi-themed sales, more pie eating, and a math competition with a $314.159 prize.

“Think Disney, and instead of Cinderella, you have Einstein,” Omicienski said.

Yeah. Get excited.

Einstein Aficionados: Extreme

By the way, Omicienski is just about the biggest fan of Princeton you’ll ever meet. Or just the biggest fan of Princeton ever, period. No offense to Orange Key, but Omicienski’s tours blow other Princeton tours out of the water. She eats breakfast with townie old-timers at Carousel at 6 a.m., just so she can get their stories about the days when Princetonians were still segregated/woman-less/fighting in Vietnam. She has a website devoted expressly to Princeton’s black squirrels. She won the Nassoons’ #1 Fan Contest earlier this fall.

She also tells genuinely creepy stories about our campus being haunted, like how the Fitzrandolph family’s ghosts visit their corpses, which are supposedly buried in the walls of an arch in Rocky … I was skeptical, until she pointed out how many devoted alumni throng to Reunions every year. Did I really think that they wouldn’t keep coming back to Old Nassau after they crossed to the “other side”?

Hm. Good point.

Even if you won’t be around for the Pi festivities, you can still celebrate (read: procrastinate on studying for midterms. I mean, this is semi-academic anyway, right?) by contributing to Omicienski’s online collection of Pi paraphernalia. Example:

PI TRANSPOSED INTO MUSIC FORM. WHOA.

More pi, ghosts, and Omicienski at the Princeton Echo.