It's absolutely something that kids and parents looking at Pton should think about-- do I want to be in a club, and if not, do I want to be in a minority of my classmates?

+100 This.

I came from a lower middle class family and imagined Princeton as this beautiful ivory tower where everyone is very intellectual and friendly. Instead, when I got there culturally it felt simultaneously fratty, cliquey, and posh - like some kind of TV prep school. I think this stems mostly from the eating clubs.

This isn't something that Princeton likes to play up on brochures but I think it should be a really important factor for kids and parents when looking at the school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That description of eating clubs wasn’t accurate even decades ago. Only a few of them are selective.

Selective “bicker clubs”:Tiger Inn, Ivy, Cap, Tower, Cannon, Cottage. That’s six.

There are eleven eating clubs total. The majority are selective.

f you have an issue with the eating clubs at Princeton, I assume you also have an issue with the secret societies, final clubs, and fraternities and sororities at other Ivies and universities.

Absolutely do. But the difference is these other schools don’t have a 70% participation rate in their flavor of frat/sorority. Princeton is dominated by it.

So, does that mean if 100% of Princeton wanted to join an Eating Club, then they could at least be part of the other five that are not selective?

I am not aware of another school that even has remotely the capacity for 70% of the school to join a Sorority/Fraternity. I am also not aware of any school that has open fraternity/sororities with their own house that throw parties, offer meals, etc.

At most schools...maybe 30-40% has any opportunity to join a fraternity / sorority. The fact that Princeton has capacity for 70% is actually fairly astounding.

No, most of the clubs are at capacity, and with the increase in class size in 2022, the percentage of Princeton upperclassmen who can join a club will go down. Some juniors and seniors willingly stay in residential colleges, or join co-ops, and a very few move off campus. It's a messy situation, as the university relies on the clubs to feed the majority of the upperclassmen. It's absolutely something that kids and parents looking at Pton should think about-- do I want to be in a club, and if not, do I want to be in a minority of my classmates?

There are currently several clubs with capacity. You are not answering the PP’s questions honestly.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That description of eating clubs wasn’t accurate even decades ago. Only a few of them are selective.

Selective “bicker clubs”:Tiger Inn, Ivy, Cap, Tower, Cannon, Cottage. That’s six.

There are eleven eating clubs total. The majority are selective.

f you have an issue with the eating clubs at Princeton, I assume you also have an issue with the secret societies, final clubs, and fraternities and sororities at other Ivies and universities.

Absolutely do. But the difference is these other schools don’t have a 70% participation rate in their flavor of frat/sorority. Princeton is dominated by it.

So, does that mean if 100% of Princeton wanted to join an Eating Club, then they could at least be part of the other five that are not selective?

I am not aware of another school that even has remotely the capacity for 70% of the school to join a Sorority/Fraternity. I am also not aware of any school that has open fraternity/sororities with their own house that throw parties, offer meals, etc.

At most schools...maybe 30-40% has any opportunity to join a fraternity / sorority. The fact that Princeton has capacity for 70% is actually fairly astounding.

No, most of the clubs are at capacity, and with the increase in class size in 2022, the percentage of Princeton upperclassmen who can join a club will go down. Some juniors and seniors willingly stay in residential colleges, or join co-ops, and a very few move off campus. It's a messy situation, as the university relies on the clubs to feed the majority of the upperclassmen. It's absolutely something that kids and parents looking at Pton should think about-- do I want to be in a club, and if not, do I want to be in a minority of my classmates?

There is room for everyone who wants to join a club. One of the clubs was about to fold this year and enough students signed in to stage a "takeover." I'm not saying the eating club system is perfect, but it is different from fraternities and sororities in a lot of ways, including that they are largely non-residential (only about 10 people live in each club each year) and you can belong to one without going through a rush-like process.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That description of eating clubs wasn’t accurate even decades ago. Only a few of them are selective.

Selective “bicker clubs”:Tiger Inn, Ivy, Cap, Tower, Cannon, Cottage. That’s six.

There are eleven eating clubs total. The majority are selective.

f you have an issue with the eating clubs at Princeton, I assume you also have an issue with the secret societies, final clubs, and fraternities and sororities at other Ivies and universities.

Absolutely do. But the difference is these other schools don’t have a 70% participation rate in their flavor of frat/sorority. Princeton is dominated by it.

So, does that mean if 100% of Princeton wanted to join an Eating Club, then they could at least be part of the other five that are not selective?

I am not aware of another school that even has remotely the capacity for 70% of the school to join a Sorority/Fraternity. I am also not aware of any school that has open fraternity/sororities with their own house that throw parties, offer meals, etc.

At most schools...maybe 30-40% has any opportunity to join a fraternity / sorority. The fact that Princeton has capacity for 70% is actually fairly astounding.

Yes. The only constraint is that a contract with an eating club costs more than a university dining plan, but the clubs will subsidize membership for students who otherwise might have difficulty paying the fee.

The clubs are for juniors and seniors so at any one time less than 70% of all students belong to an eating club. At various times a majority or half the clubs were open-admission; at present 5/11 are. At the same time, Princeton has built and opened more residential colleges, so there are more options for those students not interested in an eating club, whether it’s a selective or open-admissions club.

Any student considering Princeton should ask themselves whether they want to attend a university where a significant number of students are comfortable self-segregating as juniors and seniors by belonging to clubs that turn away many students who would like to join those clubs. For me, it was the biggest hurdle I considered before deciding to go there rather than Williams, which I really loved, or Duke, which a family member had attended. Ultimately, I concluded that the opportunities at Princeton were too great to pass up.

Anonymous wrote:Look at his other videos.

It's pretty clear this kid has tied his whole self worth to elite college admissions. Every single d@mn video. It's no surprise that this is where that led.

His other videos:
(1) "Life Advice & Regrets from an Ivy League Admit" (2 yrs ago)
(2) "Reading my college essay that got me into Princeton, Penn, Duke & Brown"
(3) "Accepted into 7 schools on Ivy Day?!"
(4) "31 Schools and 1 Safety"

Every video he publishes is about elite school admissions.

While I feel for the kid, trying to pin his mental health issues on Princeton really seems to miss the forest for the trees.

Didn’t watch the video, but wonder about SES for this kid, geography (where from) and family.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That description of eating clubs wasn’t accurate even decades ago. Only a few of them are selective.

Selective “bicker clubs”:Tiger Inn, Ivy, Cap, Tower, Cannon, Cottage. That’s six.

There are eleven eating clubs total. The majority are selective.

f you have an issue with the eating clubs at Princeton, I assume you also have an issue with the secret societies, final clubs, and fraternities and sororities at other Ivies and universities.

Absolutely do. But the difference is these other schools don’t have a 70% participation rate in their flavor of frat/sorority. Princeton is dominated by it.

So, does that mean if 100% of Princeton wanted to join an Eating Club, then they could at least be part of the other five that are not selective?

I am not aware of another school that even has remotely the capacity for 70% of the school to join a Sorority/Fraternity. I am also not aware of any school that has open fraternity/sororities with their own house that throw parties, offer meals, etc.

At most schools...maybe 30-40% has any opportunity to join a fraternity / sorority. The fact that Princeton has capacity for 70% is actually fairly astounding.

No, most of the clubs are at capacity, and with the increase in class size in 2022, the percentage of Princeton upperclassmen who can join a club will go down. Some juniors and seniors willingly stay in residential colleges, or join co-ops, and a very few move off campus. It's a messy situation, as the university relies on the clubs to feed the majority of the upperclassmen. It's absolutely something that kids and parents looking at Pton should think about-- do I want to be in a club, and if not, do I want to be in a minority of my classmates?

Anonymous wrote:PP here who didn’t have the best time at Princeton. I realized with the benefit of time that much of my resentment was due to the fact that I had never encountered truly wealthy people before and the class issues that result from that. And that would have been any issue at any elite school. I learned the ways of the wealthy and how to deal with them, and now decades later my kids are attending such schools with the social and academic skills to be successful amid this cohort. Which is exactly the point of why these schools are trying to admit more low-income kids in the first place. It can be a tough time, but it can also really help take you places.

It’s absolutely true that Princeton and other Ivies see themselves as engines of social and professional mobility for many students from other than UC/wealthy backgrounds. I’ve personally seen classmates who weren’t always happy while at Princeton go on to thrive professionally (and in several cases then end up on the Board of Trustees or send their own kids there). I’m sure it was disorienting at times, but it is part and parcel of the Ivies no longer being country clubs for just wealthy white boys matriculating from Andover, Exeter, Chaote, Lawrencevile, etc.

Anonymous wrote:

That description of eating clubs wasn’t accurate even decades ago. Only a few of them are selective.

Selective “bicker clubs”:Tiger Inn, Ivy, Cap, Tower, Cannon, Cottage. That’s six.

There are eleven eating clubs total. The majority are selective.

f you have an issue with the eating clubs at Princeton, I assume you also have an issue with the secret societies, final clubs, and fraternities and sororities at other Ivies and universities.

Absolutely do. But the difference is these other schools don’t have a 70% participation rate in their flavor of frat/sorority. Princeton is dominated by it.

So, does that mean if 100% of Princeton wanted to join an Eating Club, then they could at least be part of the other five that are not selective?

I am not aware of another school that even has remotely the capacity for 70% of the school to join a Sorority/Fraternity. I am also not aware of any school that has open fraternity/sororities with their own house that throw parties, offer meals, etc.

At most schools...maybe 30-40% has any opportunity to join a fraternity / sorority. The fact that Princeton has capacity for 70% is actually fairly astounding.

Anonymous wrote:

That description of eating clubs wasn’t accurate even decades ago. Only a few of them are selective.

Selective “bicker clubs”:Tiger Inn, Ivy, Cap, Tower, Cannon, Cottage. That’s six.

There are eleven eating clubs total. The majority are selective.

f you have an issue with the eating clubs at Princeton, I assume you also have an issue with the secret societies, final clubs, and fraternities and sororities at other Ivies and universities.

Absolutely do. But the difference is these other schools don’t have a 70% participation rate in their flavor of frat/sorority. Princeton is dominated by it.

It’s just one aspect of university life. You seem a bit obsessed with it, and I say that as someone who thought Bicker was a silly anachronism but still had a great overall college experience.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do know you can transfer - right? I do not feel bad for anyone who just whines and doesn't try to do anything about it.

If you watch this kid’s YouTube video on where he got in, you will see he is the child of immigrants with a very low income. I don’t think transferring is easy for kids that are on large amounts of financial aid. He was a questbridge finalist or something, so under $65,000 HHI

Wonder if part of his problem is meeting kids there who have immense family wealth and he’s being eaten up with jealousy. It’s one thing to know that billionaires exist, it’s another to meet one and think “why him and not me?”

This is probably the most unlikely theory.

I went to a private high school that had uber-rich kids as well as trailer park kids on scholarships. (Many others, like me, had parents with good incomes e.g. doctors and lawyers but not uber-rich.) You have no idea how much smoldering resentment the poor kids had for the rich kids. You drive a beat up old junker and the other kids have brand new BMWs. The sad part was that the poor kids thought all the rich kids were snobs who looked down on them, when in fact the rich kids didn't think about them at all.

As bad as differences in income can be, differences in preparedness can be worse.

My kid went to a top ten university & got tons of financial aid. Kid definitely felt a bit intimidated by wealthy friends. But at least kid could compete in the classroom.

Kid was a tutor at the school, & said a lot of the football players & URMs were overwhelmed academically and felt alienated from the students who got in on their academic merits.

I know people think they are being helpful by urging unprepared kids to apply to these pressure-cooker colleges, but in many cases they will be better off at good schools a notch or 2 down academically.

I was LMC at Wellesley in the 1980s and many of my classmates joked my freshman year about the fact that every class they took was actually a repeat of the classes they took senior year at their expensive boarding schools etc. So they had a lot more time to socialize and hang out while us poor people were trying to keep our heads above water academically. I also didn’t understand most of the cultural references, like “she’s from Grosse Point.” It sucked because back then there was no internet or Google to figure out the references later.

PP here who didn’t have the best time at Princeton. I realized with the benefit of time that much of my resentment was due to the fact that I had never encountered truly wealthy people before and the class issues that result from that. And that would have been any issue at any elite school. I learned the ways of the wealthy and how to deal with them, and now decades later my kids are attending such schools with the social and academic skills to be successful amid this cohort. Which is exactly the point of why these schools are trying to admit more low-income kids in the first place. It can be a tough time, but it can also really help take you places.

That description of eating clubs wasn’t accurate even decades ago. Only a few of them are selective.

Selective “bicker clubs”:Tiger Inn, Ivy, Cap, Tower, Cannon, Cottage. That’s six.

There are eleven eating clubs total. The majority are selective.

f you have an issue with the eating clubs at Princeton, I assume you also have an issue with the secret societies, final clubs, and fraternities and sororities at other Ivies and universities.

Absolutely do. But the difference is these other schools don’t have a 70% participation rate in their flavor of frat/sorority. Princeton is dominated by it.

Anonymous wrote:Re eating clubs: they’re large mansions run by undergrads that host massive underage drinking parties and allow people to enter only based on membership or being added to a list. “Joining” one of the mansions requires networking with upperclassmen and going through a hazing process.

Not the slightest bit like a frat. Altogether different thing entirely.

While all the eating clubs are co-ed, about half a process similar to a fraternity or sorority rush called “bicker.” The other clubs have an open admission policy. Students who don’t want to join a club can continue to eat in their residential colleges from freshmen and sophomore years, or live in a co-op or dorm with kitchens.

If you have an issue with the eating clubs at Princeton, I assume you also have an issue with the secret societies, final clubs, and fraternities and sororities at other Ivies and universities.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone seen this video from current Princeton student Quon? The comments from current students at Ivies and other top schools are unsettling and worth reading. As parents, we need to hear this and let it resonate as many of our students approach decision day.

What a wuss.

This type of dismissive attitude is why many students suffer in silence or commit suicide. I think he is brave for speaking out and telling the truth about the culture at Princeton. Some of the replies to his videos are from students sharing their own experiences with toxic campus culture and various school's dismissive attitude towards mental health issues.

Also, this will prevent many high school students from making the same mistakes during the college admission process.

That description of eating clubs wasn’t accurate even decades ago. Only a few of them are selective.