Aurelius

1.) yes, but i haven't been without a car for the last 10 years so i'm probably pretty biased. you could manage on foot if you lived in a good location close to campus. 2.) i think it's great, aside from roving tourists. realize this isn't a conventional "college town" in any sense, so being short a few thousand undergrads isn't even noticeable. i don't know what a soc program is like, but you don't get to just disappear for a summer. 3.) no idea, sorry.

2nd year phd student here, I'd mostly echo Ikn's statements. Can't agree with there being "no decent restaurants", though it's not really great. I really enjoy the cute downtown area adjacent to campus. If you have a car, the surrounding area has tons of great options, and of course being a train ride from manhattan or philly is awesome. good set of reviews: http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~wayne/princeton.restaurants/ I went to a large state school for undergrad (aka total college town), and naturally the social scene at Princeton is wildly different (students are in the minority at town bars.) The social life is absolutely what you make of it, and what friends you make -- to a large extent. I (male) have had great success in the dating life (particularly if you extend your search outside of other grad students), and it's only natural that an event like speed dating at the grad college is going to get more male signups than female. The social divide between undergrads and grad students here is definitely unusual, and some people might find the relatively small population of grad students to be restrictive, but I personally don't mind it. I do really like this place, but if you're looking for a grad school with a huge party scene, this isn't the place for you. But if you want a nice peaceful town/campus to live and work in for a few years, and prefer a smaller group of friends for dinner and drinks instead of massive ragers, this is a pretty great place. Full disclosure: I live off campus. I have no idea what's going through the minds of people that show up here and want to live in what are effectively dorms.

For the former/current Princeton residents, I was wondering about living in the Plainsboro area. The on-campus grad student housing for a couple looks rather... uninviting compared to what we're used to, and not really all that cheap compared to the much nicer (judging by websites) apartments that are in the Plainsboro area. It's very strange for me to go from a large college town where basically 100% of grad students live in off-campus apartments and there's an amazing free public bus system to a smaller town where 75% live on campus, and there's very little in the way of student-oriented apartments or public transport. So I'd like any thoughts you have on living in that area, where a ~$1200/month 2BR apartment for a couple is much much nicer than the ~$1000 student housing option, the commute, how common it is... does it interfere with enjoying campus life (the grad student-only d-bar sounds just awesome)... any thoughts at all would be appreciated. Thanks!