Anecdote from my Princeton days

[theboss]

I can't tell how much I'm enjoy seeing my alma mater's reputation being taken back to the 1950s this week.

Anyhoo, my roommate freshman year was one of the well-scrubbed sons of the Eastern Elite. His older cousin was President of Ivy Club, the very prestigious eating club that did not admit women until the late 80s.

Anyway, the cousin was at Reunions and was chatting up an older alum (from the 40s or 50s), as you do. This was the early 90s. Princeton went co-ed in 1969.

The alum asks the cousin, "How are things going with the women being there with you?"
The cousin/president says, "Actually, pretty well. Most of the members of Ivy accepted them right away."
The alum looks confused and says, "No, not in the club. I meant being in class."

[Marnieworld]

1. It reminds me

It reminds me of when I see footage of an Arab country. Whenever they show scenes from the street, certainly some protest or something, you never ever see any women. I'm not saying they are in Burkas, but they are not there at all, like they don't even exist. It seems so odd to me to want a world so incomplete. It's odd that the alum asked how the cousin is adjusting to a 20 year-old change? What did they think it would happen? What were they afraid of? I just don't understand why they were so exclusive.

I also remember reading an interview with a woman who had interviewed * once. She was a Yale graduate and thought that having that in common with * would help create rapport with him. He said, without hesitation or awareness of how inappropriate it was, that Yale's decision to allow women was the worst they made and that it ruined the school forever. She was shocked speechless.

What an asshole Alito is for belonging to the group and now for trying to diminish what it was about.

[FreedomAngel82]

3. Bush said that?

Amazing. I remember one other time where he showed his true colors to the press. It was on a special Tom Brokaw did when he was retiring in 2004 on all he's seen in his years of journalism and there was one point where he was interviewing Bush and Brokaw told him how Clinton had an approval raiting of 60% and he asked Bush what he thought of that and coming into the presidency and Bush shrugged his shoulders and said "so? I'm president now." But he was so cold in his response.

[Marnieworld]

8. I don't remember the details unfortunately

There are so many outrages you can't keep track.

I remember that the interview where he said this was at a baseball game and perhaps in Texas when he was Governor or running for governor.

I'll google and try to find it.

Found it!
http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/01_02/bush.html

Choice quote:
Among the less hazardous issues then being debated on campus was coeducation. The Yale administration in 1966 had begun to study the idea of bringing Vassar College to New Haven to "affiliate" with Yale. The initiative was abandoned in the fall of 1967, but the discussion of the issues led directly to the arrival of the first women undergraduates in 1969. (It was a decision about which George W. Bush, among others, apparently felt less than enthusiastic. According to a recent account in Salon, he told an interviewer in 1994 that Yale "went downhill since they admitted women.")

[StellaBlue]

5. that is SO what crosses my mind whenever I see 'the Arab street'

I share your reaction exactly.

[omega minimo]

10. Not "trying to diminish" --- He "does not RECALL"

:sarcasm:

"What an asshole Alito is for belonging to the group and now for trying to diminish what it was about. "




kick

[unblock]

2. ah, yes. we called them "crusty old alums"

some of them crustier than others.

amazing how you could still tell who resented the school going co-ed and who wished it had been co-ed when they were students. alito seemed to belong to that even rarer breed, those who were there after it went co-ed and yet wanted to kick the women out.

as if having women on campus prevented you from visiting the women at rutgers!

unblock '85.

[theboss]

4. By the 90s, I don't think anyone could imagine it not being co-ed

You were apparently there when Ivy and TI were still all-male. By the mid-90s, that was even hard to imagine.

We did have a joke that "Ivy used to be a club exclusively for rich white, male Elites. Now it happily accepts rich elites of all races and genders."

[Karenina]

6. A close relative

was rejected from Princeton, because at the time they were recruiting AA students and putting them on a "program." She was ineligible for that due to her near perfect board scores and GPA. They offered the condolence that with her stellar marks she could attend ANY school in the world she chose. EXCEPT her first choice, Princeton. It was quite a trauma for her watching classmates W-A-Y BELOW her in class ranking receiving their acceptances for the "program."

[theboss]

7. I find it hard to believe that Princeton explained the rejection

Who told her, "You would have gotten in but we gave your spot to a less-qualified black student?"

From your post, I can't tell if she was black or white, but I find it hard to believe that the university would try to increase its number of black students by rejecting black students with perfect SAT scores.

Princeton's admission are strange. They get about 13,000 applicants. Accept about 2500 and plan on 1200-1300 of them matriculating. They used to do early admission. Now they do early acceptance. If you apply early and get accepted, you MUST attend.

[unblock]

9. that sounds a bit apocryphal, but it's not completely implausible

princeton (along with virtually all private schools) will do things to cater to their donating alums. i suppose it's possible that a well meaning (if not entirely clear-minded) alum donated a large endowment with the direction that it be used to pay the way for underprivileged blacks, fitting a certain profile, perhaps.

officially, princeton would never let that sort of thing influence whether or not they ACCEPT someone, only how they help FINANCE that education. but then, there's official policy and then there's what really happens.

what makes me skeptical about this story is that i would be very surprised if princeton actually revealed that sort of thing to anyone, let alone a rejected applicant. perhaps this person simply misread something into a polite hose letter?

[Karenina]

11. This was over 30 years ago

during a time where colleges were making efforts to recruit minority students. It was indeed a program with parameters for which my relative was "overqualified."

The condolence was offered in a private conversation with a sympathetic Mensch in the Admissions office.