I'm surprised that someone that visited Princeton actually kept that impression of snobbiness or elitism about the school. I was worried about that, especially coming from a rather low-income, hispanic, first-generation to college background (basically the complete antithesis of an elitist). The students were incredibly down-to-earth, friendly, yet brilliant. You can tell they're intelligent, of course, but you wouldn't know how remarkably brilliant these students are without directly asking them of their achievements. They were humble, helpful, and excited to help us little prefreshmen around. There was a lot of economic, intellectual, and ethnic diversity, and unlike other places where people tend to group into segregated socioeconomic clusters, Princeton seemed rather well mixed, which is very, very cool. I found it fantastic, and I did not even expect to like it.
Were there some people that probably sounded rather snobby/preppy/elitist? Yeah, I suppose, but I never even directly talked to any of them, and you can find people like that at a California or Florida community college quite easily. You will find arrogance and snobbiness no matter where you go. I'd rather the elitist/snobby/arrogant people at least have some basis for their ridiculous self-worth!
For the record, I don't care about eating clubs: it just sounds like a way more sophisticated form of a fraternity to me, and not everyone even joins them. Not all of them are even exclusive!
But in all honesty, I really think everyone should visit the school before making this sort of assumption: almost everyone I've seen that has visited the school is surprised by how friendly and down-to-earth the students are--sw_haldar is definitely an exception.
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