Freshmen and Sophomores Lack Social Focus

Any one visiting Princeton as the guest of an upperclassman is bound to be favorably impressed with the social set-up. The eating clubs that line Prospect Street are an impressive tribute to good fellowship. Inside, groups of a hundred or less men take their meals and their leisure in the gracious atmosphere of leather easy chairs and tasteful decorations. Here they entertain dates, shoot pool and bull, hold weekend dances and special parties. In short, excepting the fact that they do not live there, clubs are the social centers for juniors and seniors at Princeton.

But this attractive view of Princeton social life applies only to the last two years of undergraduate life. Freshmen are forbidden even to walk down the Club row; sophomores are but grudgingly permitted to participate in a few club functions, and full membership does not come until the junior year. The first year is especially grim. For most new men, added to the discomfort of adjusting to a new way of life are many social restrictions. Meals in the Commons are hectic and crowded, there is no place for fairly large groups of lower classmen to get together informally, and there are few opportunities to meet women.

Even when a freshman does have a date in Princeton, it is hedged with more restrictions. The woman must leave his room by seven. After that hour, no place to entertain a woman in Princeton is open to non-club lower classmen. For the past two years there has been a severe crack-down on drinking by minors, so the local night spots are closed to him.

Bicker and Bids

After a solid year of being excluded from any real social life comes one of the most important times in a Princeton man's college life: the Bicker weeks. During the first three weeks of his sophomore year, each student who has shown interest in belonging to a club by registering with the dean's office, is visited by roving committees from the clubs. These groups that with each man, evaluating his potentialities as a mess-mate, conversationalist and fellow club man. Then the clubs make their bids. The more talented and popular students have a problem in deciding which of the many bids that they receive to accept. Their less socially desirable classmen also have a problem. Under the 100 per cent agreement, started in 1950, every man receives at least one bid, but it may be from a club that does not interest him at all. After the clubs have bid the choice candidates, they parcel out the remainder without much regard to the individual's preference.

Club Hierarchy

The 100 per cent system, while solving many problems that arise from excluding a small percentage of the class, creates several all its own. For instance, the less select clubs are getting tired of having the responsibility for accepting the less desirable candidates while the big prestige clubs refuse to admit any one who does not measure up to their standards. While officials deny that there is any hierarchy of club prestige, lists compiled by clubmen, when asked to name the most prominent clubs are amazingly similar. The result is that some men, each year, withdraw their candidacy for club membership when all they receive is a single bid from a third rate organization that means nothing to them. So, the 100 per cent is illusory. Actually, including those who feel they cannot afford even the special board rates that are available to scholarship men when added to party assessments and club dues, there are from 25-30 men each year who are not members of a club. These men, socially, never emerge from the unpleasantness of the freshman year.

There are two schools of thought about a continuation of the 100 per cent agreement, even in its present, imperfect, form. One group, called by some the Natural Selection claque argues for free enterprise. They say that it is the responsibility of each student to make himself appealing enough to the club committees to receive at least one bid that he wants. If the student cannot even take that much trouble, this view point reasons, he is no fit grist for the social mill, and deserves to be excluded. The other school of thought, the 100 per centers, say that natural selection is fine--up to a point. But they insist that all Princeton men are entitled to membership in the only real social force at the college, and that everyone must receive a bid to some club. Actually, men whom the clubs have taken as "charity" cases have often worked-in very well, and in many instances are the club's most active members.

While the clubs are ironing out their membership difficulties, college officials have been trying to relieve the situation for freshmen and sophomores. It does not seem probable that Princeton men will be allowed to entertain women in dormitory rooms past seven o'clock in the near future, and the college has shown no inclination to stump for liberalized New Jersey Liquor laws. But a former administration building is now undergoing redecoration as a "Campus Center," complete with commons rooms, recreation facilities and snack bars.

The Orange Key, too, has come to life in the past year, and is arranging series of dances on big Princeton weekends and occasional mixers at girls colleges within chartered bus range. This should mean that Freshmen will get to know one another better, and have a happier time during their period of adjustment to college life.