Princeton has long been committed to maintaining a competitive varsity athletics program as part of its broad conception of undergraduate education.  We make every reasonable effort to schedule your competitions at times that do not conflict with your academic commitments.

In cases where those conflicts are unavoidable, our policy is not to penalize you for missed class time resulting from attending or traveling to/from varsity competitions.  

We ask for your cooperation and collaboration here.  Notify your professors about potential conflicts as close to the beginning of the semester as possible but by no later than the end of the add/drop period.  We understand that you may have post-season conflicts that you do not know about at the beginning of the semester.  Please address these conflicts with your instructors as soon as they arise. 

Please meet with your professors to identify any class meetings you are likely to miss because of varsity athletic competition or related travel, and to discuss plans to cover the assigned material.  For example: you might propose reviewing a classmate’s notes (only with the instructor’s permission); meeting with your professor during office hours; writing a short essay on the assigned readings discussed during your absence; or completing another assignment the professor considers fair and equivalent. The McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning offers a number of educational technologies that can help mitigate the academic disruptions caused by missed classes (https://mcgraw.princeton.edu/digital-pedagogy). 

Remember: student athletes are not permitted to miss class to attend practices. 

While the University permits you to miss classes for sanctioned varsity athletic competitions and related travel, those absences must not compromise your ability to remain in good standing in your courses — something which could happen if you miss additional classes (for personal travel, job interviews, or other extracurricular commitments) than those required for athletic competitions.

Certain athletic competitions fall outside of the scope of this memo, such as national team and Olympic competitions.  We encourage instructors to make allowances in such cases, though the decision about how to handle conflicts remains the instructor’s prerogative.

First-year students, please note: Writing Seminar classes missed for athletic competitions do count towards the Writing Program’s limit of four absences.  Students who miss more than four seminar meetings, for whatever reason (including illness) will not receive credit for the course.

If you have any questions, please contact Dean Alec Dun at 609-258-9310 or by email at [email protected].  

We wish you a very successful semester, in class and in your sport!