<p>baloney.....your numbers are total fabrication. Vast majority of kids at Princeton do not have a desire or belong to eating clubs.</p>
<p>Just because you are in hot water and can't defend on your own, don't drag other schools in mud.</p>
<p>... from a Daily Princetonian editorial, Monday, March 27:</p>
<p>" If there is one thing that is "quintessentially Princeton," it is the beautiful cluster of mansions that line Prospect Avenue. But beyond the beer and the breathtaking backyards lies the indisputable fact that the eating clubs divide the student body along socioeconomic lines. Many students do not really get to choose which club they want to bicker or sign-into or even if they can join a club at all simply because they cannot afford club dues. Students who are forced into this position often feel isolated from their friends and the larger social scene at Princeton. As a result, many of the clubs suffer from a lack of economic diversity, while the clubs and University both get labeled as elitist.</p>
<p>The University has chosen to deal with this problem by introducing social alternatives to the clubs, including the three four-year residential colleges.</p>
<p>But given the fact that about 75 percent of upperclassmen identify with one of the Prospect mansions, it is unlikely that the eating clubs are going anywhere soon. Plans for four-year colleges are likely to intensify the division of students between "haves" and "have nots." The "haves" will continue to join eating clubs, while the "have nots" will join the residential colleges. This kind of two-tiered social life should be avoided at all costs...."</p>
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<p>After all, think of it this way.</p>
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<p>You are talking about theory. I'm talking about observation. It's just a reality that the punch population is pretty small. Remember that unlike fraternity rush, and unlike eating club bicker, punch is not open to all -- you will only be invited to punch if you are already friends with members a year or two older than you. There are two big ways that happens -- through prep schools and through athletic teams. A varsity athlete who went to Andover is going to get several invititations, and a Crimson writer who went to Payton Prep in Chicago may not even know the punch is going on.</p>
<p>
[quote]
don't drag other schools in mud.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I'm surprised that the eating club scene should be described as "mud."</p>
<p>But for what it's worth, I will second what Coureur, Bandit TX and Hanna have said about the role of finals clubs at Harvard based on my S's experience and my own 30+ years of acquaintance with Harvard. The Finals Clubs are important to only a small proportion of the Harvard population. My S has not once mentioned them.</p>
<p>Final clubs are undoubtedly a small part of life compared to Princeton's eating clubs... but that alone doesn't mean they're not a problem.</p>
<p>I've heard from several sources that the clubs do poison the social atmosphere for at least some people. Read Douthat's Privilege for one account that is particularly poorly written. Girls line up to hang out with the cool, moneyed men at this exclusive club while other (particularly male) students who would like to join are left out in the cold.</p>
<p>It's not a world-scale problem, but Harvard isn't perfect. No school is. It definitely is a negative for some people.</p>
<p>For chrissakes don't try to tell anybody - from your perch in Pasadena - that a dork like Douthat is typical of Harvard students in general. </p>
<p>He makes no attempt to disguise his conflicted state of mind - a bigshot insider wannabee maquarading as an ironic outsider observer of the passing scene, who is at once resentful of Harvard and passionately in love with it.</p>
<p>See, for example: <a href="http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=122094%5B/url%5D">http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=122094</a></p>
<p>Be that as it may. The fact that Byerly doesn't think the people who are hurt by the final clubs are cool enough doesn't mean the negative effects are any less real.</p>
<p>(At Princeton, too, those excluded by the eating clubs are always labeled by the blessed ones as "losers", "dweebs", or in an earlier time, "Jews".)</p>
<p>marite that is selective use of a sentence.</p>
<p>Where did I ever comment on the "coolness" or lack of "coolness" of Princetonians - either inside or outside "eating clubs"?</p>
<p>I merely maintain that the relative impact of "eating clubs" on the social scene at Princeton is far greater than the impact of either the "final clubs" at Harvard or the "Secret Societies" at Yale.</p>
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[quote]
don't try to tell anybody - from your perch in Pasadena - that a dork like Douthat is typical of Harvard students in general.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This was presumably intended to point out how unrepresentative Douthat is. His tales of woe about the final clubs are highly atypical and dorky, you say.</p>
<p>I say, okay, he's a dork. A social scene that is poisonous to dorks is still poisonous.</p>
<p>(I said eating clubs above but I meant final clubs. Typo. Sorry.)</p>
<p>broken links do not authenticate fabricatiton.</p>
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<p>A social scene that is poisonous to dorks is still poisonous.</p>
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<p>It's not poisonous to dorks. I am something of a dork: subspecies Choir Geek. The final club scene is poisonous to <em>social-climbing</em> dorks. If, like me, you're very happy to be a geek among other happy geeks, it isn't poisonous.</p>
<p>The very notion of a social scene stratified by cool kids and dorks is SUCH a HYP phenomenon. (And if you're a dork, best know your place! says Hanna.)</p>
<p>Which is at least part of the reason I turned down both H and P for my squalid little perch in Pasadena. (And hence don't have a dog in the fight between those two fine schools.)</p>
<p>You wouldn't understand these things, since your school totally lacks diversity: 100% geeks ... very democratic!</p>
<p>Yes, indeed. And oh, how I pine for the missed joys of socially exclusive clubs based on wealth and "coolness".</p>
<p>Oh wait... I went to high school. You know the place, dear Byerly! You are permanently stuck there!</p>
<p>I agree that both finals clubs and eating clubs are exclusionary. I do not agree that finals clubs play as large a role in the life of Harvard as the eating clubs do at Princeton. And I agree with Hanna: for people who could not care less about belonging to a finals clubs, they are totally irrelevant to their own social life. </p>
<p>The people who used to be most exercised about the finals clubs were not Harvard students but Cambridge neighbors who were annoyed by the club members hijinks. This led to the severing of ties between the university and the clubs and the passing of ordinances by the City of Cambridge. Not much has been heard about them since.</p>
<p>As requested! An unbroken link to the Daily Princetonian editorial of March 27, 2006:</p>
<p>"If there is one thing that is "quintessentially Princeton," it is the beautiful cluster of mansions that line Prospect Avenue. But beyond the beer and the breathtaking backyards lies the indisputable fact that the eating clubs divide the student body along socioeconomic lines. Many students do not really get to choose which club they want to bicker or sign-into or even if they can join a club at all simply because they cannot afford club dues. Students who are forced into this position often feel isolated from their friends and the larger social scene at Princeton. As a result, many of the clubs suffer from a lack of economic diversity, while the clubs and University both get labeled as elitist.</p>
<pre><code>The University has chosen to deal with this problem by introducing social alternatives to the clubs, including the three four-year residential colleges.
But given the fact that about 75 percent of upperclassmen identify with one of the Prospect mansions, it is unlikely that the eating clubs are going anywhere soon. Plans for four-year colleges are likely to intensify the division of students between "haves" and "have nots." The "haves" will continue to join eating clubs, while the "have nots" will join the residential colleges. This kind of two-tiered social life should be avoided at all costs."
</code></pre>
<p>This discussion has been good in at least one respect... I'm happy I didn't pick Princeton, since I think I would have come to hate (inherited) wealth. 75% is a lot. A democratic social atmosphere is good for the soul.</p>
<p>Golub, Princeton's student body is no wealthier than HYS, and probably a lot poorer than that of Skidmore.</p>
<p>But the wealth is more prominently expressed through conspicuous exclusivity.</p>