Maybe, but not likely. It’s only for senior year, and it’s secret (more or less). They don’t really have a significant role in the social life of the school.</p>
<p>Every time the eating clubs at Princeton come up, the discussion is essentially the same. I think Princeton folks might do better if they just said that it’s a lot like a Greek system, but better, because it’s co-ed, half of the clubs are non-selective, people don’t live in the clubs, and many social events are open to non-members, etc. Just like schools with a big Greek system, Princeton has a social setting which includes some selective organizations that have a strong impact on social life. This is less true at some other schools, and more true at some other schools. Some people will like it, some will be indifferent, and some won’t like it.</p>
<p>I don’t see the eating clubs as being like a Greek system because the fact that they are coed and the students don’t live there makes a huge difference…</p>
<p>But overall Hunt, I think I can live with your description. It feels fair. I feel most people on this thread have an anti Princeton bias and your post does not.</p>
I can’t speak for Yale, but in four years I only knew one person in a finals club. It was such a tiny part of campus life for most people. That’s a very different proposition from the Princeton eating clubs where a much larger percentage of the population is part of them. That said, everything I’ve heard, is that the eating club options have changed vastly since my day and there are much more egalitarian options. Glad to know financial aid covers the cost, I thought it did.</p>
<p>I also don’t think it’s uncommon for someone who is a bit insecure to start with to see everything as a slight.</p>
<p>My biggest beef against Princeton is its color scheme. ;)</p>
<p>And then someone will ding them for being too cheerleader-y and rah-rah. Can’t win for losing.</p>
<p>I don’t particularly care one way or the other about eating clubs (it wouldn’t have dissuaded me or my kids), but there are plenty of Greek systems where students don’t live in, or if they do it’s only one class (e.g., the junior class only), so trying to distinguish eating clubs based on “well, students don’t live there” feels rather empty and meaningless. Look, it’s a version of the Greek system, just a bit more rarified and upscale. I’m quite certain Tiger Inn’s parties can rival any frat party. Why not just embrace it – it is what it is, and it’s part of the quasi-Southernish-social aspect of Princeton?</p>
<p>From what I’ve seen on the Harvard campus and from what I’ve heard from dozens of HS classmates and friends who went there, Finals Clubs were not taken seriously by more than the tiny minority of the student body. </p>
<p>Moreover, in the '90’s…there seems to be a widespread disdain for them as a haven for extremely wealthy dilettantes. Nearly every one of the dozens of Harvard alums I’ve met/known have at best…never thought about Finals Clubs or felt they were a retrograde blight on the Harvard campus.</p>
<p>LOL @ mathmom - you’re so right, their color scheme IS awful!</p>
<p>I completely agree with QuantTech - nowhere in the article does it say the students that have slighted the writer are “upper class”. Actually one of the comments Ye makes is something like “they dont care about you unless you can help them get an investment banker job”. Which would indicate that those she writes about are not connected in that way, so we may read from that they don’t have much contacts,and are not upper middle class etc.</p>
<p>In agreement with mathmom about both the irrelevance of finals clubs for almost everybody at Harvard, and Princeton’s colors. Black + orange = Halloween.</p>
<p>Agree with Hunt completely. There is no way to compare Princeton’s eating clubs with Yale secret societies which play such a minor role in campus life. Glad to hear that full need students at least have the financial support to join the selective clubs. I have always thought that the random assignment into Yale’s residential colleges, allowing each to be a true microcosm of the student body, to be preferable to the Princeton eating club scene. Even Yale residential college endowments, which over time had developed disparities that allowed some of them to offer exceptional special programming, have lately been equalized to foster the equality of all. Why the amazing Princeton student body continues to self-select into exclusive clubs that disenfranchise others in such large numbers surprises me.</p>
<p>I think that the residential college system and the way that it is organized is the best thing about Yale. (Not, of course, that it doesn’t have other strengths. )</p>
I was in a “rich” college, so I can’t help grumbling about this–but I understand it. I don’t agree with the decision to go to generic dishes for all the colleges, though.</p>
<p>"Why the amazing Princeton student body continues to self-select into exclusive clubs that disenfranchise others in such large numbers surprises me. "</p>
<p>And that sentence accurately summarizes why Princeton continues to be viewed by many as overall being too “Frat like”. The eating clubs are nothing more than a way for students to pick and choose who they want to associate with. If that doesn’t smack of institutionally approved discrimination, what does?</p>
<p>Fraternities tend to have large parties open to everyone, and indeed the goal is to attract lots of students–esp. for each frat’s annual signature party. Only the semi-formals are closed affairs for brothers and their dates. In contrast, Princeton’s eating clubs have bouncers at the door with a list of members and approved guests. If your name isn’t on that list, you don’t get in. Also, D was told by her Princeton hostess that there is one eating club which only the extremely rich are ever admitted to, and from there on down there’s a hierarchy as far as socio-economic level of the clubs. Does any other Ivy have a system which compares?</p>
<p>^I mention this because I don’t think it’s fair to label anyone who considers this system to be snobby, as some insecure lower-class person with a chip on their shoulder. I think many people of varying backgrounds would consider this social scene snobby.</p>
<p>I had to respond to your glaringly inaccurate statements. Every eating club at Princeton holds numerous events open to ALL students. In fact, clubs usually have parties on Thursday and Saturday nights, generally open to all. Even if a party is “closed”, it’s pretty easy to get a pass to a party. By contrast, try being a freshman male at other schools trying to get into a closed frat party–it’s almost impossible.</p>
<p>And I have no idea what you mean by a socio-economic hierarchy of the clubs. While in the past, Ivy Club has been known to be more exclusive, even when I was at Princeton (in the dark ages), Ivy accepted a number of students who were neither wealthy nor socially well-connected. Generally, clubs will have many members from a specific campus group (i.e., the Triangle Club or the crew team), but obviously those groups are economically diverse.</p>
<p>Just jumping in here to point out the obvious… after 7 pages, much of what this thread was about has completely vanished from the page. The conversation has been reduced to a “you don’t know what you’re talking about” pointing finger fest.</p>
<p>As for the OP… no, it wasn’t all that well written, and yes, I imagine the competition to get published in the paper is pretty fierce. But I also don’t think the subject matter is all that enlightening and seems a letter written to student affairs would have more impact beyond another “can’t we all just love one another” diatribe promoting a kinder, gentler country. And sorry, was it really surprising that she ran across a cheerleader who was a snobby mean girl?</p>
<p>This said… I know exactly four people who have graduated from Princeton. Two are very quick to say they graduated from Princeton, one of whom is also the most judgmental, critical person I’ve ever known (ok, maybe not the MOST, but close). Two others… just normal folk.</p>
<p>At the end of the day… the piece rambled, read like a precursor to a college essay and told us nothing new. I would have scratched it as well.</p>
<p>Wait…are you telling me that at other colleges students do NOT pick and choose who they want to associate with. Does someone else pick and choose for them then? :)</p>
<p>I hope students reading this thread to gain a sense of the social scene at Princeton will take it all with a grain of salt and form their own judgments, preferably based on direct observation. Why adults who neither attended Princeton nor have a child there bother to post on the topic is a mystery to me.</p>
<p>The notion that there is a socio-economic hierarchy to the eating clubs is absurd. Let me repeat some basics: Princeton is a top notch academic institution with it’s own past and traditions. It has, based on my observation of my D’s experience, successfully made the transition to the 21st century. People may dislike it based on whim, gut feeling, academic offerings, mid-Atlantic location, etc., etc. but please don’t believe that it is pervasively and only a snobby school for elitists. You would be doing a disservice to the students whose hard work and talent landed them there and who love their school.</p>
<p>Cobrat, perceptions like that about Princeton were floating around when I was a high school student in the early '70s, and, I’m sure, decades before that! Then again, several kids from my high school class went to Princeton, and they weren’t like that at all. Not like the arrogant, snobby kids who went to Harvard! (I went to Yale, where everyone was nice, of course.)</p>
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