<p>
</p>
<p>I’m sure this is true. But Princeton boosters make it seem like there are no class issues at Princeton, that Princeton doesn’t have traditions of wealth and privilege that live on, strongly, to this day.</p>
<p>I will give another example, from something posted on CC. Someone’s daughter was debating between Berkeley and Princeton. She had an interest in linguistics. She went to Princeton, and a grad student there had the temerity to bad-mouth Berkeley’s world-renowned linguistics program. Princeton doesn’t even offer a linguistics major! </p>
<p>Not that the student should have rejected Princeton for that reason. I strongly suggested that she disregard that issue, even though Berkeley clearly has a stronger linguistics program, since her interests might change and in any case you don’t need to be a linguistics major to go on to do graduate work in linguistics. But there seems to be a reflexive Princeton-is-perfect-best-for-everything attitude that I find disconcerting.</p>
<p>Princeton may in fact be wonderful. But Princeton boosters go overboard. It is like there is a coordinated PR campaign to shed the best possible light, at all times and in all places, on Princeton, and all current, past, and future students are in on it. Part of that is to completely deny, in every way and at all costs, Princeton’s obvious heritage as a bastion of wealth and privilege. To erase from everyone’s mind “The Princeton Man”. </p>
<p>It goes way beyond what I observe from other people from other colleges on CC.</p>