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<p>Yes, I think she does realize that Princeton practices grade deflation.</p>
<p>She did realize it however she originally wrote inflation on accident.</p>
<p>I’ve always found it amusing how Princeton is faulted for having “exclusive eating clubs” that >70% of students join (and those that don’t join do so by choice) while Yale’s secret societies (~10%) and Harvard’s finals clubs (which are by far the worst imo) are somehow better…</p>
<p>The ivies closer to HYP level are Penn and Columbia, not Brown.</p>
<p>Rennaisance, yep you are correct, Princeton might not be the proper school for this</p>
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<p>My Princeton tour guide said kids not interested in joining eating clubs can organize themselves and arrange to cook their own food in upperclassmen dorms. He also said grade deflation was hardly an issue for kids who work hard, and that the university makes sure to alert grad schools and employers regarding grade deflation.</p>
<p>^ Potentially bearing truth and bias together, though.</p>
<p>Given all the attention, can’t we refer to them all as the HYPed schools?</p>
<p>Penn dominates Brown…just fyi</p>
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<p>Its not really ridiculous at all. Eating Clubs are a huge part of Princeton Culture, Secret Societies and Finals Clubs aren’t really anywhere near as big of a deal at Harvard and Yale.</p>
<p>Eating Clubs are put under the microscope because they are the center of the social activity at Princeton, with “The Street” serving as the hangout place at night for a huge number of students on campus. Finals Clubs and Secret Societies are hardly as major a part of life, mostly functioning in the background of social life as opposed to the center of social life.</p>
<p>That’s what separates them. All of those groups are selective, but only Princeton’s Eating Clubs dominate social life at their respective school. Whether you like them or don’t mind them or dislike them is a matter of opinion, but they’re a big part of life at Princeton.</p>
<p>Eating Clubs dominate the social life because they are pretty much accessible to everyone. Its like the frat/sorority scene at any other college. Something can’t be really exclusive AND dominate/be the center of social life at the same time. It’s fine if eating clubs/greek life aren’t your thing and they definitely aren’t everyones, I’m just saying it doesn’t really make sense to fault them for being exclusive when most every school has a similar institution. Princeton’s just has a different name. </p>
<p>And I do agree that Yale’s secret societies aren’t a huge deal but they still are a rather exclusive social scene. I have limited experience with Yale so I’m not going to critique it that much, but yea, Yale seems to have an otherwise decent party scene so the existence of a smaller exclusive scene probably doesn’t make a huge difference. However, Harvard is a completely different story. Harvard’s finals clubs are pretty much the ONLY social output for people here (if you don’t have a fake ID). At least at Princeton theres always someplace where anyone can go on a given Thurs/Fri/Sat night. At Harvard, the finals clubs have by far the best UG parties but are extremely restricted (unless you’re a cute BU girl of course…) </p>
<p>I’m just saying the critique most often leveled on Princeton’s eating clubs is far more applicable to Harvard’s finals clubs.</p>
<p>Columbia, Dartmouth, Brown, and Penn can all easily claim to be better than UChicago at the undergrad level.</p>
<p>Why is there so much Chicago love nowadays? When I applied (which wasnt <em>that</em> long ago), Chicago was almost a safety school (~50% acceptance rate) and definitely not regarded as in the same league as Columbia or Penn.</p>
<p>^ Because times change, and with regards to Chicago, times have changed very quickly.</p>
<p>PimpDaddy1, when I was applying to colleges, Chicago wasn’t even high on the radar. As someone else said earlier, Northwestern was the more preferable school on these boards – more social, more pre-professional, Big Ten athletics, and strong undergraduate focus.</p>
<p>Sorry for being the ignorant one on the thread, but can someone explain to me what an eating club is?</p>
<p>[Eating</a> club (Princeton University) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://■■■■■■/bzfbU8]Eating”>http://■■■■■■/bzfbU8)</p>
<p>Basically, dining clubs which many P’tonians join in their junior or senior year.</p>
<p>The Princeton Eating Clubs are just like frats, except you can only be a member Junior and Senior year and only the 4-5 officers of the club live there.</p>
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<p>At least in terms of popularity. Quality of education at Chicago has never changed.</p>
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<p>Only if you abide by the CC hivemind mentality that the only way to live is to get money as fast as possible while doing the least amount of work. If you want an actual education, Chicago’s better, which is why it produces many more PhDs from its undergraduate program than the aforementioned schools (including Harvard, Yale, and Princeton as well).</p>
<p>Also, Chicago was cited 11th most frequently by academic authorities when asked which schools have the best undergraduate(!) teaching. All the people here think that Chicago’s strengths lie in its graduate program, but its undergraduate program also has an extremely high reputation in academia and elsewhere, demonstrated by this ranking in particular. Most of the people here are bitter because they decided to choose a lower-ranked Ivy or pseudo-Ivy over Chicago when Chicago was an unpopular school, and now are paying for it by getting beat by Chicago in the rankings. That’s what you get for being such prestige whores. -_-;;</p>