Princeton is indeed somewhat preppy

<p>And ICarGirl and I cross-posted but isn't she an example of what I am saying? And a very nice and articulate one at that?</p>

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What the majority of Princeton students are lacking is originality, creativity, and imaginations; they’re all cookie-cutters. In Princeton, you will not have a hard time to find, bunch of stiff, pre-professional, conservatives.

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<p>Here's a comic from todays Daily Princetonian lacking originality, creativity, and imagination?</p>

<p><a href="http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/photoExpansion.jsp?id=7295%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/photoExpansion.jsp?id=7295&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I think I saw a similar cartoon from The New Yorker magazine. Well, imitation is a great grandmother of invention, anyhoo.</p>

<p>BTW fo shizzle ma bizzle !</p>

<p>I personally fault the Princetonian’s lack of originality/creativity/imagination with the school’s grade deflation policy. This policy discourages many students taking non-major courses, exploring other possibilities beyond their comfort zone. As a result, students are taking easiest courses as possible (or pdfing hard courses): doing absolute bare minimum for fulfilling distribution requirements, foregoing opportunity for learning new things, exploring new ideas/thoughts, for fear of getting low GPA. I feel for students, though.
Rightfully or wrongly, Med schools put a major emphasis on GPA.</p>

<p>GDP should be discarded immediately or students would become myopic and parochial</p>

<p>I'll concede originality then.
It's an adaptation of Michelangelo's Creation of Adam.</p>

<p>^^^ your humble apology accepted :confused:</p>

<p>wow, is any school bashed more on its OWN board than princeton? BMW, your "honest, straight answer" is just ridiculous. "stiff, pre-professional, conservatives"? i've already cited the stats showing princeton students to be liberal by a wide margin. and with its eating clubs and lack of professional schools, it should, if anything, be the oppostie of stiff and pre-professional. if you really dislike pre-professionalism, anyway, why do you laud princeton's peers for their identification with their business, law, and medical schools? also, to quibble, princeton's better known for politics than columbia. it has, after all, produced the current secretary of defense, senate majority leader, white house chief of staff, director of the FBI, and the latest supreme court judge, among others. as for students lacking "originality, creativity, and imaginations," i'll direct you only to jonathan safran foer '99, often called the best young american literary novelist. he turned his creative writing senior thesis into one of the most acclaimed novels of his generation, now a movie. other such types include writer/director ethan coen, comic book artist jim lee, and painter frank stella. i might even include wendy kopp, who turned HER senior thesis into the highly successful teach for america program.</p>

<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_safran_foer%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_safran_foer&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>^^ I would value your honest opinion on my feeling against "GDP"</p>

<p>ah, so now princeton's grade deflation policy is to blame, even though not a single class has gone through princeton for four years under such policy. and even though princeton's distribution requirements and P/D/F policy force students to take a broad spectrum of classes, but allow them not be punished for that fact with possible lower grades. riiight, riiight. stick to what you know.</p>

<p>When I read most of the criticism directed at Princeton, I am struck by how little relationship any of it bears to the school I attend. </p>

<p>There is a kernel of truth in the Princeton stereotype. We do have more of a "preppy" style than other schools, although I don't think that this is a bad thing. And, of course any system that involves 12 or 13 different dining options, some of which affect where you choose to live, is going to lead to a degree of stratification. Similarly, any elite school is going to contain some students who care more about getting ahead than how they get there, just as the best students in high school were sometimes the most ambituous rather than the most passionate. This is a give-in when considering any group of high-achievers.</p>

<p>What I don't see is an oppressive atmosphere stifling originality and imaginataion. I don't see passionless drones who care only about their grades. I don't see snooty elitists whose aim is to exclude others from their clique. For the most part, I see a diverse group of very bright, committed students dedicated to learning as much as possible on the path to succesful and satisfiying careers, all while making the most of the whole college experience. Am I, or could I be the intimate friend of every person on this campus? Of course not. But there is no lack of people who will share your interests and values, whatever they are.</p>

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stick to what you know[\quote]</p>

<p>Why such an anger ? :confused:</p>

<p>Look, it's one thing when stupid college high school seniors waste their time on message boards writing worthless tripe to one another. </p>

<p>I know I'll look back on this in 2 years and shake my head at how stupidly I wasted my life. God knows how many times I've done this in life already. </p>

<p>But dude, you sounds like a serious adult. You should be looking down upon this the same way mothers look upon 5-year olds squabbling about broken crayons. </p>

<p>Just wasting your time responding to an idiot like myself degrades you, even if you wrote a mature, eloquent, cogent response.</p>

<p>BTW, fo shizzle ma bizzle</p>

<p>hehehe my bad</p>

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stick to what you know

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<p>hope this works</p>

<p>i'm hardly a "serious adult," BMW, but to the extent that your misperception stems from any decent writing abilities i might have shown, well, you can credit that to my princeton education. i just wonder, though, why you keep posting negative things about princeton here if you believe yourself to be an "idiot" and your postings on this and other topics to be "worthless tripe." maybe you're wasting both our time by posting. just a thought.</p>

<p>So what Princeton is a little preppy
This girl in our neighborhood goes to Princeton with amazing scholarship ! And her family's not definately poor (700K+ house 125+ income) :o Her mom told my mom its very tough academically though. Be warned !</p>

<p>BMW--I don't understand your post about Princeton's so-called grade deflation. Since you are apparently still in high school and since the policy is quite new, how would you possibly know that it discourages people from taking courses outside of their major, leads to them taking easy courses, and in the most baffling claim of all, leads to a lack of "originality/creativity/imagination"? </p>

<p>I don't understand why so many seeming Princeton haters appear on this board. I think that every school can be criticized in certain respects, but the level of vitriol seems to be quite high here. Personally, I think that Princeton is an amazing school, with wonderful professors who focus on undergraduate teaching. The students are by and large extremely bright, dedicated and interesting. I think that Shirley Tilghman is a terrific role model and a terrific administrator. The current administration is adding four-year residential colleges to the mix of living/eating options and there is a push to enhance opportunities in the arts. I think that Princeton is slightly more conservative than some of the schools that are its peers. However, overall the school is fairly liberal and I think that having a strong conservative voice is a good thing-it leads to an interesting dialogue and means that students must defend their positions rather than just parroting what their parents/peers have said (by the way, I am rather liberal myself, but enjoy the opportunity to hear and debate other views). I don't know if Princeton is preppier than its peers--it is a very different, much more diverse school than when I attended and the "preppy" stereotype is probably not that valid anymore. Many of the people bashing Princeton here have never attended the school, or have only visited for a day or two, and I truly feel that most of the negative comments reflect a lack of current knowledge and information, or in some cases, are just mean-spirited.</p>

<p>BMW, it does not follow logic that members of Princeton's student body would be inherently different from members of Harvard's and Yale's. The vast majority of qualified high school seniors apply to all three and would be delighted to be accepted to any one of them. The students at all of these schools generally come from the same pool. I don't see how, then, you can single Princeton's students out for anything without saying the same of other elite American institutions.</p>

<p>Also, your grade deflation argument holds not. Princeton in fact does not allow me to take more than 12 courses in my concentration (8 minimum for the degree) -- the other 19 must be taken outside my concentration, of which about half consists of distribution requirements.</p>

<p>BMW is clearly a troll. Probably one we know. These are stupid untrue statements intended to mislead the unfortunate.</p>

<p>And midatl, mom, hi to a fellow alum. I believe the reason Princeton gets these troll-bashers can be linked to the fact that we are always tied with Harvard for the #1 school in the nation.</p>

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<p>Yeah, Harvard is (although it happens to be mercifully quiet over there right now).</p>

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<p>Yup, that's exactly what the Harvard students say about their school when they read the the H bashing here on CC too.</p>

<p>Personally, I don't think either school deserves the bashing they get. I guess it's the price of being #1 -- it paints a big target on you.</p>

<p>princeton's not preppy at all. and i just came back from the april hosting program. </p>

<p>the student body was so diverse that it surprised me. i live in socal which is very mixed ethnically, but princeton had people from literally all over the world (and different types of people). so it's very wrong and ignorant to generalize the student body as preppy.</p>

<p>and i'm sure that it's the same for harvard and yale, as they attract a diverse student body.</p>