Princeton too isolated and subarban-y?

Midwestmomofboys
Fri, 11 Sep 2015 23:24:01 +0000

Princeton is a charming small town, close to major corporate headquarters and research facilities as well as an hour from NYC, so it is also a community that many who work in NYC choose to live in. You will find national stores, including Brooks Bros, J Crew etc., as well as the quirky small proprietor shop – a shop which sells, as best as I recall, olives, olive oil and other savories, as well as a marvelously surprising ice cream shop (“the Bent Spoon”) which sells curious as well as familiar flavors of ice cream. The food scene is quite good, with farm to table restaurants etc., as well as pizza places etc. Culturally, McCarter theater is an excellent smaller theater, where shows that will go onto NYC might open. The Princeton Art Museum has an excellent collection. There is lots going on culturally, this is a world class university, not some remote place. Princeton has a central core campus, and then spills out into the surrounding area. It feels like Cambridge, MA – tree-lined streets, charming (but unbelievably expensive) homes, with lots going on. While Cambridge is about 20 minutes from Boston on the T (subway), Princeton is an hour from Manhattan. Different strokes for different folks.

The P’ton eating clubs offer a lot of variety – for the first two years, students eat in the dining halls. The last two years, students join either “open” or “bicker” eating clubs, the “bicker” ones are often compared to Greek life, and range from more traditional to not so much. We have known athletes and intellectuals who have found their home in their eating club. As I have heard, Greek life is fairly significant at U Penn, so they are not entirely different environments in that regard though obviously, U Penn is in West Philly and Princeton is in Princeton.

Personally, I would have said that the most significant difference between the two schools is that U Penn has a strong pre-professional vibe, whereas Princeton has less of one.