<p>First, let’s make sure everyone know what eating clubs are and how they work. Eating clubs are places where juniors and seniors take their meals and where, along with other locations, the entire student body socializes. Midway through sophomore year, students decide if they want to join a club. Of the 10 clubs, 5 are selective and 5 are not. The selective clubs are called bicker clubs, and the non-selective clubs are called sign-ins. The first step in the membership process is deciding whether you want to join a bicker club. If you do, you go through the bicker process at one and only one club. Roughly 2/3 of students who bicker are accepted. Those who want to join a sign-in club rank the sign-in clubs in order of preference, and a lottery process is used to assign students to each club. This is called the first round of sign-ins. After that, students who bickered a club and were not accepted have the chance to join one of the sign-ins which still have spaces open. There are always eating slub with spots open, so you don’t have to worry about not being able to join a club. </p>
<p>Approximately 80% of juniors and seniors are club members. Although the clubs are more expensive than a standard meal contract, juniors and seniors on financial aid receive a $2,500 increase in their aid package to make up the difference between the average cost of board at a club and the cost of the standard meal contract. Those who don’t join a club have a number of other options: living and eating in one of the four year residential colleges, joining a coop, and being independent. Independent students cook their own meals and have access to kitchen facilities, often in their dorm rooms.</p>
<p>Most of those who are in sign-in clubs joined in the first round. It’s not as if the sign-in members couldn’t get into bicker clubs. Each club has its own unique characteristics, and most students base their decision of what club to join on these factors rather than on a desire to join a bicker club. </p>
<p>One of the most common charges leveled against the clubs (and Princeton in general) is that they are elitist. For example, one prospective applicant recently asked:</p>
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<p>The short answer is that the elitist stereotype is outdated, and the eating clubs are much less exclusive than their counterparts at Harvard and Yale. I’m only a sophomore, so I can’t tell you what it’s like to be a club member. But I can say that after spending a year hanging out at the clubs on weekends, I have not gotten an elitist vibe at all. Even at the clubs where I probably wouldn’t fit in, the members have been very welcoming. Below are some of the most insightful past posts on the subject:</p>
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<p>For balance, here’s a more critical take on the clubs:</p>
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<p>And finally, what I consider the best post on what the clubs are really like:</p>
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<p>For many years, Princeton was deserving of its elitist stereotype, but times have changed. Princeton is now an incredibly diverse place, in terms of its racial, socioeconomic, and ideological makeup. I won’t pretend that you won’t run into some extremely wealthy people here, but you will also meet students from extremely disadvantaged backgrounds. More often than not, it will be something in between.</p>
<p>High schoolers often see something mystical about the Ivy League, believing it to be almost otherworldly. Tagging Princeton with the snobby label is one way of making these views seem justified. The truth is that Princeton is not all that different from any other college. Sure, we have a bigger endowment and our students have higher test scores. But once you’re here, you go to class during the week, unwind on the weekends, and take exams at the end of each term…just like you would anywhere else. Fundamentally, Princeton is made up of students trying to get an education, many of whom share the same passions, goals, hopes, and fears as yourself.</p>