<p>I am not a supporter of the club system per se. I am not and never was a loud parties lots of alcohol boys yelling kind of person. </p>
<p>Let’s be clear. Some of the clubs are literally exclusive in that you have to bicker to join and you may wind up excluded. But the club system, overall, does allow anyone who wants to join to be in a club. And very few of the clubs have an “elitist” feel, i.e. it’s for the rich elite of the world. The cost of the clubs no longer separates kids on the basis of their family income.</p>
<p>I didn’t much like the clubs because I am an old hippie and the environment at the clubs was more Republican frats, or Republican country club, or athletes letting it all hang out, or the one “hippie-ish” club was actually too hippie for me. Actually I guess I didn’t much like the club I joined - I never even tried the others:).</p>
<p>But it was no issue to quit my club as a senior - I had bickered into Cap and Gown - and become an independent. I never felt left out, I had friends and loved the school with all my heart. I also learned to cook:).</p>
<p>And from what my daughter tells me, the clubs are evolving all the time, and including more ways of being.</p>
<p>What the clubs ARE NOT is a group of rich kids sitting around feeling better than everyone else and excluding them. </p>
<p>So let’s put the truth about the clubs out there for all prospective applications to see, not a bunch of thinly veiled implications.</p>
<p>There are those who believe that the clubs, by putting all parties in one place where they are visible, not hidden, make Princeton MORE socially inclusive rather than less. There are those who believe that the clubs, by having a place that is visible for drinking, make the campus safer than places where drinking is hidden in rooms.</p>