Of course, the bicker clubs are still exclusive in the sense that it is hard to become a member of one. The overall acceptance rate of this year’s bickerees dropped roughly five percent compared to last year. Still, as I pointed out in my last column, statistics can be deceiving. What these numbers actually show is that bicker clubs have become less exclusive in the sense that more people feel like the clubs have a place for them, too. This is similar to Princeton’s situation: Even though our acceptance rate has dropped, our applicant pool continues to grow, signaling that a broader range of high school seniors believe that they would feel at home on campus.
The major factor driving the acceptance rate down on the Street is the number of people who tried to become members of bicker clubs. This year, roughly 700 students bickered, 56.4 percent of the size of the Class of 2011. This represents an increase over last year, when only 635 students bickered, 51.7 percent of the size of the Class of 2010. Since there are some juniors and seniors included in these numbers, they are, admittedly, a less-than-perfect indicator of class-to-class variation in bicker attitudes. But assuming that the number of bickering juniors and seniors stays roughly constant year-to-year, the percentages give a good indication of the steeply rising level of interest in bickering.
No club demonstrates this phenomenon better than Tiger Inn (TI). This year, TI’s pool of bickerees increased roughly 75 percent from that of last year. This is particularly surprising, considering that TI’s bicker process is, to put it kindly, notoriously hard to stomach.
“TI has taken great pride over the last year in exposing more groups on campus to TI and widening the diversity of individuals on every dimension that are able to enjoy the club and membership,” former TI president Phil Rosenberg ’09 said in explaining the increase. “We really wanted to combat the frequent discourse of exclusivity that continues to plague the Street as a whole.”
It’s hard to give sole credit to Rosenberg for partially shedding TI’s cloak of exclusivity. But clearly, something changed. That magical ingredient is student perception of the social scene.
As someone who joined a sign-in club, it seems to me that it would take a lot of courage to bicker a club. The stakes are high: The process, while occasionally fun, will definitely be embarrassing. “Hosed,” the Interclub Council’s word of choice for rejected bickerees, is particularly harsh. Harshest of all is the reality that a student’s entire social circle will know if they did or did not get in.
So before bickering, sophomores must think that the club would welcome them. How does one assess such a thing? Gossip. A person can usually tell whether they have a chance at getting in based on the gossip that they gather from their peers. We hear it every day. “This frat is connected at that club,” or “The drama kids usually go here.” The pass system makes it even easier to figure out your chances of getting into a club: If you can’t get passes to a club on a Saturday night, don’t bother bickering there next year.
In this light, the conventional wisdom on the Bicker statistics looks all mixed up. It is not that bicker clubs have become more exclusive. In fact, they are perceived by students as less exclusive. The proof is there: More sophomores felt comfortable taking the risk of bickering because they thought a club would welcome them.
This upside-down (or, from my perspective, right-side up) way of thinking helps explain why Tower is perceived as less exclusive than Ivy, even though Tower’s acceptance rate is traditionally much lower. It is not the statistics that matter so much as the word on the Street. And Tower’s drop in bickerees this year may be explained by the same phenomenon. After last year’s low acceptance rate, there were abundant rejected juniors who warned their friends that it would be a stretch to gain membership.
Of course, all of this does not do away with the harsh and unfortunate reality that the Bicker process is still hurtful to a number of students. Yes, I would prefer a Street that allows everyone to become a member. But, in the meantime, I’m glad to see that the perception of exclusivity is fading away. So feel safe in continuing to gossip about bicker clubs. But do so in a welcoming way, otherwise God may reconsider next year, and you all will end up very itchy.
Adam Bradlow is a sophomore from Potomac, Md., and a member of Wilson College. He can be reached at abradlow@princeton.edu.
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