Princeton Undergraduate Student Government

Students have consistently expressed their concern over Princeton's unique academic calendar. After multiple assessments, the Committee on the Course of Study (COCOS) determined that it is not in the interests of the students to pursue an academic calendar reform, given the sacrifices that would be necessary.

In the spring of 2007, the COCOS released a survey of revised academic calendars to the student body and faculty to ascertain which revised calendar was most amenable to the University community. Changes to the academic calendar included: moving fall term examinations before winter break, removing fall break, and beginning classes earlier in the fall. As many academic calendars were presented as only slight variations of each other, no consensus was reached and revising the academic calendar was dropped as an item on the COCOS agenda.

Recognizing that there was still dissatisfaction with the current academic calendar, we released a survey to assess the sources of student dissatisfaction. From this survey, we determined that a majority of those surveyed were in favor of moving fall term examinations before winter break (as opposed to eliminating fall break and adding a 13th week of class), but we were unable to determine whether or not students were interested in making the necessary scheduling sacrifices.

In order to assess whether students would want to make the necessary sacrifices, we included a set of questions on the Committee on Background and Opportunity (COMBO II) survey pertaining to the academic calendar (and fall term examinations specifically). From COMBO II, we determined that a majority of students surveyed did not want to move fall semester examinations and final papers before the winter break. Thus, we have decided that it would be unwise to further pursue the academic calendar initiative, as we are lacking a mandate from the student body.

Please contact Ben Lund with any questions, comments, or concerns.