Word-association: Princeton

Popped collars. Tanned, blond, long-limbed young women, and young men with III or IV after their names. Lacrosse. Binge-drinking good-ol'-boys. When I moved here in September, to accompany my husband who's doing a postdoc euphemistically near the university, I'd imagined there'd be a preppy presence on the campus. I even remember that the university's... reputation had something to do with why, at my Ivy-obsessed but not-very-white-bread high school, HYP as good as didn't include the "P." I don't think terribly many kids applied, and of those who went, at least two were legacies. 

Granted, the only bit of the campus I spend time at is the library, but if there's any demographic with a sizable presence, it's studious-nerdy-seeming young black women. After that, studious-nerdy-seeming young white women. After that, dandy-ish male grad students. So I'm wondering, is this just who spends time at the library? Are there all kinds of decadent WASPy happenings, hidden from view? Do the notorious eating clubs connect by tunnel to classroom buildings, dining halls, gyms, and emerging from the underground campus is discouraged? The what-you'd-expects are not at the library, or the coffee shop, or on Nassau Street, so either Princeton has changed (in, might I say, the right direction); its real essence is hidden from view; or I wear special Lacoste-obscuring goggles when I leave the house.