<p>^I think the difference in philosophy is this: I define a “preppy” school as one where the school culture is predominantly preppy. For that to happen, necessarily a large proportion of the students must subscribe to that lifestyle/viewpoint/whatever. You appear to define a “preppy” school as one which old-money preps view as acceptable destinations. Since your own definition of old-money preps is very narrow, I don’t particularly care what schools THEY view as acceptable; for example, there are surely preppy people at Vassar, but the school culture is not preppy in the slightest and it’s almost easier to be non-preppy than to be preppy there.</p>