<p>you say: “Yale’s societies are simply places for a handful of seniors (about 10 people)”</p>
<p>the yale daily news says: “Each tomb society admits approximately 15 students per year”</p>
<p>you say: “to gather for dinner on Thursday and Sunday nights”</p>
<p>the YDN says: “Members of some of the non-tomb societies said the main purpose of their organization is often to get students together to drink.”</p>
<p>meanwhile, the fact that princeton’s eating clubs involve such a high fraction of the student body (~75% of upperclassmen as members, probably >90% of all students socially) is what makes the system so egalitarian, as the YDN acknowledges:</p>
<p>“In comparison to Harvard’s final clubs or Yale’s secret societies, Princeton’s eating clubs are in many ways less exclusive. Even the selective bicker clubs have open application; any student can go through the bicker process. Neither final clubs nor secret societies accept applications; students are simply ‘tapped’ for membership, or at Harvard, ‘punched’” and “the eating clubs as a whole may be less restricted than final clubs or secret societies.”</p>