Anyone who wants to can join an eating club. Many do. Many don’t. Half of them you just sign up. Maybe there’s a lottery depending on numbers. It’s not really a big deal unless you actually care about being in one of the exclusive ones. The most awesome one is terrace (look it up on Wikipedia) - basically an eating club for people who wouldn’t otherwise be into eating clubs.
Vibes are not especially pre professional.
It’s worth seeing the campus because it’s really nice.
Self guided is fine but noted above you can also just join a tour and no one will notice. At some colleges you might worry about having your interest registered but Princeton doesn’t care about demonstrated interest.
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Alright! Wanted to follow up, to say thank you to all of you who weighed in with suggestions. We went up to Princeton yesterday, driving up from DC in the morning and then back down at the end of the day. The tl;dr is that it was a good visit, and Princeton is now on both kids’ shortlists. More on the specifics below.
Per @blossom’s recommendation, a couple of weeks before the trip, the kids reached out to an alum from their high school that they knew who’s now a sophomore at Princeton. He offered to meet up with them and give them a personal tour for a little bit in the afternoon. This ended up being an extremely high-signal opportunity for them to understand more about Princeton. He took them to see the campus radio station (where he’s a DJ), which was a huge hit. They got to look into the Einstein lecture room, saw some beautiful libraries and architecture, and walked along the row of eating clubs (and heard, as @TonyGrace noted, that the eating clubs aren’t the bastions of privilege they were in the past).
As @isitmayyet predicted, when we checked for tour openings closer to the day of the visit, we were able to get two openings. We actually checked on the drive up to Princeton, so — future readers — don’t hesitate to check at the very last minute! The tour conflicted with the pre-established personal tour, so the kids skipped the official tour, and that was honestly fine. We’ve seen from a couple of visits now that they respond far more favorably to that one-on-one time with a student, especially one who went to their high school and knows the context they’re coming from. My wife and I found the info session and tour to be helpful-ish, though I think if the kids had been with us on the official tour, they would have ended the day much less enthusiastic about the school (and, I suspect, would have dropped it from their lists).
Food: lunch was at Lan Ramen; dinner was burgers at Diesel and Duke. Both were good, but the highlight of the day was ice cream at Thomas Sweet.
All-in-all it was a successful visit, in that it seems like a solid option that will go on the list. I’m glad we made it happen. Thanks, all, for your help in mapping out a plan.
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Can’t beat a T Sweets blend-in.
Glad you had a good visit, despite the nutty weather yesterday. Amazingly, despite all the rain (non-stop), for Preview (accepted students day) it was sunny and in the 70s, with everyone out and about. They couldn’t have wished for a more perfect day.
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The rain on the drive up was absolutely nuts! We parked and had lunch though, and the rain had mostly stopped. Storm fully wrapped up before we walked to campus. The only time I had to open the umbrella on campus was to shake off the rain from the walk to lunch.
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