<ol>
<li> Social ambiance</li>
</ol>
<p>This is the trickiest part for Princeton. The stereotype is out there that Princeton is “elitist”. Is that true? Well, what does elitist mean? Does it mean white? Does it mean rich? Does it mean acting snobby? What about the eating clubs?</p>
<p>Let me just give my anecdotal knowledge. First, the eating clubs. In order to avoid an even more painfully long post, here’s the link to Wikipedia that explains the clubs pretty well. Eating</a> clubs - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. I was in a club in 1977. I hated it. I quit. I hated it because it was weirdly adult and involved a lot of alcohol and being served by African American men older than me wearing white jackets. Just hated it. </p>
<p>My D is now in an eating club that was once sued for not letting in girls. She participates happily in Viking Night. Involves wearing fur hats and for all intents and purposes is like Animal House. Self-serve. Chicken fingers on Friday. Not behaviorally elitist. However, majority white and certainly many scions of enterprise are members. The club that has always had the reputation for being the most elitist is Ivy. Ivy may however now be the most racially diverse of all clubs. This last Saturday night, it was “Casino Night” on Prospect Street. Three bicker clubs including Ivy, a couple of hundred students, many looking just like the cast of “Gossip Girl”, sequined dresses glittering in the rainy night and breathlessly handsome young men in suits and tuxedoes standing with both embarrassment and pride at their sides. However, a sizeable minority of those kids were Asian, African American, not white. So the clubs exist, there is selectivity, and yet the old rules of who is powerful and who is cool are changing.</p>
<p>The good thing about the clubs is that there is always a party you can get into if you want to. However, there’s more drinking than optimal in my opinion. And some kids bicker clubs and get turned down. You can always join a signin club, but still, for some it’s hard. My summary is that if you are highly social, you will love the clubs. If you don’t care about visible social activity and prefer to hang out with a few friends, you won’t care about the clubs. But if you care, and you for one reason or another don’t get in where you want to get in, it can be hard. On the other hand, the president of the senior class was “hosed”. He made it a badge of honor. Again, the dynamics are changing.</p>
<p>My S, as a freshman, lives on a hallway with a child of Nigerian diplomats, a child of a Hawaiian fish farmer, a child of a Christian realtor, a child of journalists from the East Coast, and a Fillipina/Latina girl from LA. All the hallmates hang out together. Anecdotally, Princeton is neither snobby nor segregated. </p>
<p>However, we should be more painstaking than that.</p>
<p>So how about the statistics? Race first. And it will have to wait for another post.</p>