<p>Byerly, I think it will be great when Princeton offers fuller options for students who are and are not interested in the eating clubs. </p>
<p>However, the letter above is misleading, since only upperclassmen eat in the clubs and undergrads have long had access to a very nice alternative – the dining halls in each residential college – as well as, more recently, to the Frist campus center. </p>
<p>And although it is true that many prospective students are turned off by the eating clubs, part of the problem is that there is a phenomenal amount of truly fantastical misinformation out there about them, thanks to the Net, certain novels, etc. Their reputation is quite different from the experience many students have of them. </p>
<p>Even in freshman year when friends of my d’s from other, similar schools visit her on the Princeton campus, they were amazed at how many students she knew and what a broad range of friends she had made. The Street – the whole area around and in the eating clubs – is a social center for the whole campus, where students congregate and move from one club to another. Friends at other schools said Saturday night tended to be small, private groups in dorm rooms. Ironically, for all their supposed “clubbiness,” the eating clubs bring students together.</p>