On Tuesday, March 31, Princeton University released its admissions decisions to regular-decision applicants around the world. However, decision letters aren’t the only thing from admissions now inside students’ homes. In the weeks leading up to decision day, many high school seniors who had applied to the University started finding mysterious cameras hidden around their houses.
“There was one in my desk lamp and another in the grandfather clock in our living room,” explained Thomas Watson, a student who was just accepted into the Class of 2019. “There was also one in the bottom of our cookie jar, which freaked me out because it meant that someone was tracking the number of Oreos I’ve been eaten during these very stressful times.”
Despite being one of the first to discover the cameras, Watson had no idea as to where they could have come from. On the other hand, Madeline Rosenfeld, another recently accepted student, connected the cameras to Princeton almost immediately after finding them.
“The camera that gave it away was the one they put in my piano,” explained Rosenfeld. “When I found that one, I asked myself, ‘Who would want to track how well or how often I played the piano?’ and came up with three possible answers: my piano teacher, this guy I met on Tinder who I told I was a piano prodigy, and the Princeton admissions committee. Also, there was a Princeton crest sticker on the side of the camera, so that sort of gave it away.”
Many other students also saw the Princeton crest sticker, and several of them contacted the University, leading admissions to officially confess to planting these cameras in applicants’ houses using robots developed by grad students in the mechanical engineering department. While the placement of the cameras is clearly controversial, admissions officers firmly believe their decision to plant them was justified.
“In admissions, we rarely feel 100% confident that the applications we are reading are completely genuine,” explained one admissions officer under condition of anonymity. “Placing cameras in students’ homes was a logical way for us to find out whether students were truly Princeton material or if they were lying when they claimed ‘Latemeal’ was their favorite word.”
“At first, I was skeptical about using cameras to watch high school students, but I soon saw how useful they were,” another admissions officer added. “Because of the cameras, we were able to eliminate candidates who looked good on paper but were actually bullying, cheating, or planning on matriculating to Harvard.”
The admissions officer who first proposed to make espionage a part of Princeton admissions further rationalized the cameras.
“When I first came up with the idea, I questioned the ethics of the policy. But then I reminded myself that the NSA is constantly spying on people, and if the US government is doing it, it must be morally sound,” the admissions officer said. “I also reminded myself that Santa Claus practices spying, too, so if our society is ok with being watched by an old fat man who enters homes at night to deliver the newest version of the iPhone to children, I figured people probably wouldn’t have a problem being watched by a committee deciding who gets to attend a university where the most popular class is about children’s books.”
Despite the success of the camera program this year, the admissions team is unsure of whether or not they will use the cameras again next year.
“The purpose of planting the cameras was to see students as they are naturally,” explained the program’s creator. “Once people know they’re there, their value significantly decreases. Plus, the money we spent on cameras was taken from the budget for those little orange cupcakes they have at the pre-rade barbeque, and I really missed them this year.”
While many students are uncomfortable with this whole situation, the ones who got in certainly aren’t complaining.
“It’s weird knowing the admissions committee was watching me play piano,” said Rosenfeld, “but at the end of the day, they picked me, so that must mean they liked what they saw.”
The students who were not offered admission to the University, on the other hand, are left with some very uncomfortable questions.
“Getting rejected is always rough,” said rejected applicant Harry Handson, “but because of these cameras, I’ll always wonder whether I didn’t get in because my SAT score was too low or because I was masturbating to something other than ‘Old Nassau.’”
– ACD ‘16. Illustrated by CSO ’15.
