<p>I visited Princeton a few weeks ago, and basically fell in love with the campus, atmosphere, town, etc. The only thing that puzzled/worried me was the eating club situation. I know it's been frequently discussed on these boards, and my guide spent a lot of time explaining, even defending, the eating club system.</p>
<p>Then she mentioned that a new housing development (the one the founder of Ebay was donating money for??) was being built, and that this would change the structure of some of the residential colleges and make it 4 years, thus eliminating the eating club route (if you choose to live in this house.)</p>
<p>This is just speculation, but is one of the reasons that they are building more colleges and changing the system because of the criticisms or confusions surrounding the eating clubs? Is it coincidence?</p>
<p>Mostly due to the belief in the residential college experience then as a reaction to the eating clubs. The current administration is cautious with the eating club debate as they don't want to offend alumni who view the Street as a great tradition. Remember there are options for upper- classmen who can be independent (do their own cooking) or eat in Frist.</p>
<p>Yes. No coincidence. This is a problem that has irked the administration and the admissions office for years. The old alums (most of them) love the "eating clubs" and the students (who belong to them) are also loyal.</p>
<p>The problem is that Princeton has, for years, lost most common admits to its principal competitors, and surveys have shown that the reason many students who Princeton very much wanted have turned it down is that they are uncomfortable about the "eating clubs".</p>
<p>The administration is now trying hard to develop alternative social settings that will - hopefully - marginalize the "eating clubs" so that Princeton can compete for the top students on an equal basis with HYSM.</p>
<p>The Whitman College is a start in this direction - adopting the residential model long used at Harvard and Yale.</p>
<p>The administration - and the new admissions director - Janet Rapelye - are to be commended for finally dealing with this festering problem - long viewed as the "third rail" at Princeton ... too dangerous to touch.</p>
<p>"The Whitman College is a start in this direction - adopting the residential model long used at Harvard and Yale."</p>
<p>not true. woodrow wilson proposed an oxbridge-style residential college system during his tenure as princeton president, in the first decade of the twentieth century, and princeton has had such a two-year college system since the early 1980s, after a "wilson college" had long existed. now, they're moving to a two-year/four-year hybrid system, which is unlike the three-year model used at both harvard and yale, where freshmen live together in a particular area, rather than in their "houses" or colleges.</p>
<p>Translation: they are moving to adopt the model long used at Harvard and Yale, and hoping to marginalize the controversial "eating clubs" in the process.</p>
<p>I find the eating club concept unique and something of appeal about Princeon. I visited the place although it wasn't the best visit possible but I found the eating clubs quite interesting.</p>
<p>Actually from my reading, Kjoodles is the Princeton type, in the best sense of the word. I'm not an adcom, of course, but that's my sense. Do not be offended young man, this is a compliment.</p>
<p>There isn't really a typical Princeton type. There are many. Brilliant and sometimes eccentric math and physics students are Princeton types. Outgoing, charismatic athletes who study molbio are Princeton types. Social, friendly ballet dancers who major in psychology are Princeton types. Obsessed architecture students who never see the light of day are Princeton types. Kids from India who study economics but then become social activists are Princeton types. Kids with blue hair who haunt 185 Nassau's creative writing program building are Princeton types. But the university is, on the whole, more nurturing, more serene in the environment, and more of a visible and somewhat traditional social structure then some of the larger urban ivies. Some kids like that, some don't.</p>
<p>And I like everything about the school! Me....very social and outgoing young woman active in figure skating, theatre and dance wanting to study Chemistry and Latin American Studies. No blue hair though!</p>
<p>Famed in story and song, the "Priceton type" is hard to define. But as Justice Blackmun's once observed about pornography, "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it"!</p>
<p>Consider this literary exerpt (emphasis added):</p>
<p>"For the past year and a half, I had been playing at the role of
college boy. Joyously, consciously, almost intentionally, I had
sought to efface every trace of my past self. In my clothes, my
speech, and even in my walk, I had recast myself in the mold of
the PRINCETON TYPE. Perhaps I had succeeded all too well.
Perhaps my adaptability to my surroundings implied the absence of
any indigenous form or color, the lack of an individual essence,
and I was merely fading into the landscape, ceasing to exist.
It was with some such dim foreboding that I approached
spring elections to the EATING CLUBS that are Princeton's
equivalent to fraternities in other colleges. Three weeks before
the "bicker," I took a violent step. I wrote a letter to my
father announcing my intention not to join a club. It was not a
protest against the snobbishness of the clubs. More likely, it
was an attempt to check the snobbishness I recognized in the self
I was becoming, a groping effort to return to the self I once had
been. My letter was a plea for help, for moral reinforcement
from the past to buttress my decision to stand firm against the
present, but I did not state this outright, and I should have
felt no rebuff at my father's prompt reply. Gently, he reminded
me that there were real as well as snobbish social values in the
clubs and cautioned me not to be quixotic. A few days later, I
had plunged into the frantic negotiations of the "bicker" with
all the enthusiasm of a born joiner, and when the dust had
settled, I found myself, with most of my friends, a member of the
Cottage Club, my uncle's club, Fitzgerald's club, the club I had
always hoped and secretly expected I would join."</p>
<p>The point is that "the Princeton type" is an enduring phrase - its been around a long while. Freddie Hargadon used it all the time as shorthand.</p>
<p>And even in my day, in the 70's, the Princeton type as defined was only a small part of the school. The school has always had its scientists and artists and scholars. Anyone who went there or has had a kid there knows that.</p>
<p>Would the idea that that Princeton type is a) enduring b) homogenous if extended also imply that all kids at every top school fit the most cartoonish stereotype bandied about?</p>
<p>I suppose I could go onto the Harvard board and make annoying comments about the Harvard type being all sharks but I won't.</p>
<p>To the kids on the board, feel free to ignore exchanges between me and Byerly. I'm just fighting for your right to a fair picture of a wonderful university.</p>
<p>Yes, Byerly, and Hargadon was harshly criticized for it by other admins and by the faculty, as you know if you have read The Chosen. However, Princeton never cornered the market on Ivy League snobbery, as you well know, and students today who would not be described as the "Princeton type" find they enjoy life and socializing in Princeton's eating clubs.</p>