<p>Phillip: Considering the fact that you are just a freshman, not many would put too much stock on what you said and your extensive experience on the club scene. O so pretentious one.</p>
<p>Considering the fact that I’ve spent an entire year on campus (thus making me a sophomore, not a freshman), have numerous friends actually in all of the clubs, and have been to each one many times, I’d say there’s no pretension about it. There are many things you can get to know about Princeton before arriving on campus (I did my damndest to last year), but sorry to say, the eating club system is something you cannot claim to be well versed in without experiencing it yourself.</p>
<p>manfredman: considering the fact that you just turned 16 today and evidently have never set foot in a princeton eating club, not many would put too much stock on what you said and your extensive experience on the club scene. o so pretentious one.</p>
<p>I am not a freshman, I am a rising junior who went through the bicker process (and got hosed, along with almost all of my friends), and i agree with phil</p>
<p>I would be the first, however, to say that the eating clubs do have an impact on Princeton’s culture. It’s just much more subtle than all this “elitist” silliness. </p>
<p>Princeton has one of the most visible social cultures of the top universities. You can always find a party. You may always know that a party or a gather of people is happening and you may know where it is. If you care, (and that’s a big if that only applies to some of the students as there is a huge contingent of kids who just love their subject matter, their theater, their physics, their architecture, their community service) you have at Princeton almost a training ground for social navigation through a defined peer group. It is my theory that among the super-smarts applying to top schools, the ones most suited to Princeton are either the ones who are fairly blind to social manoeuvres, those who have a built-in network like athletes and artists, or those who thrive on navigating social structures.</p>
<p>And, it’s way too small of a sample, but if you look at industry, Princeton is extremely well-represented there, more so than many other highly selective schools, and just maybe that’s because to thrive in industry you have to want to navigate social structures or even better create them in your own company.</p>
<p>This is a non-substantiated, and probably non-substantiatable (is that even a word:)) theory, but WTH, it’s an Internet board:). And, I’d like to point out, the Princeton forum has more posts than any other Ivy on cc. Hmm. More anecdotal data for an unprovable theory on sociability and university cultures…</p>
<p>ec: thank you very much for sharing your experience with us. I dont wanna open up the wound, but in retrospect, was your social network (or lack thereof it) a major factor for getting punched?</p>
<p>Alumother, </p>
<p>I’d say that the 20,000 people on campus during the Saturday of Reunions substantiates your thesis.</p>
<p>no, my friends were all hosed from different clubs… it was more of a numbers game. I only mentioned it to show that i wasn’t saying eating clubs were great because I was in a selective one… i still often went to the club that I got hosed from afterwards, because my upperclass friends were mostly there, plus all the people that I met during bicker. Everyone says that bicker is really random, and from my experience it really is. Of course your chances change depending on other things, but for the particular club I was interested in, I was in a lot of the groups that compose the clubs and had lots of friends in it, as did other people that got hosed. Whether the randomness makes it a better or worse situation is debatable, I found it better as I didnt really take it as a rejection of me, because I knew quite a few people who deserved to get into their respective prospective eating club more than I did.</p>
<p>Also, the nonselective eating club that I ended up joining is great. While it may not be quite as fun socially, I now know lots of people in the club i tried to bicker, so I can get passes whenever I want. I like my new club so much that I decided not to rebicker in the fall (even though I would be virtually guaranteed a spot at the original club.) It’s really just wherever your friends join, and even if your friends can’t get into the same club as you, its easy to meal-exchange</p>