Larger incoming classes, dropping acceptance rates mark Street Week 2023 as campus expands

Conservative values can exist within a liberal framework

By Abigail Rabieh | Head Opinion Editor

By Ryan Konarska & Lia Opperman Assistant Data Editor & Associate

Editor

At the end of Street Week 2023, 633 students were offered spots in bicker clubs, the largest bicker class this millennium. At least three of six bicker clubs had their lowest acceptance rates since at least 2001. Ivy and Tower Clubs welcomed their largest incoming classes in twenty years of analyzed data, with 87 and 141 new members, respectively.

Based on numbers provided by emails sent to incoming members and conversations with club members, the ‘Prince’ analyzed Street Week 2023 statistics, finding the number of students placed at each club and the split between incoming sophomores and juniors. The ‘Prince’ collected data on bicker and sign-in admissions since 2000 to analyze trends in membership and selectivity over time.

Decreasing acceptance rates for eating clubs and rising class sizes are of specific concern given the University’s commitment to increase the Princeton class size by 150 every year until Hobson College opens. Clubs are also being asked to participate in the university’s upperclass dining pilot, which may further strain the capacity of some clubs.

Based on the data available, a total of 1,149 Princeton students were placed into eating clubs during Street Week 2023. Using an estimate based on eight clubs, about 93 percent of the students placed in a club were sophomores, suggesting around 1,068, in line with the 1,070 sophomores that participated last year, according to the Interclub Council (ICC).

The ‘Prince’ reached out to officer teams at every Eating Club, along with the ICC. With the exception of the officers at Cannon Dial Elm Club, no officer teams responded by publication time. 2022 and 2023 both saw historically large classes of students seeking to join the eating clubs. The rise in students seeking to join an eating club between 2020 and 2023 was almost entirely absorbed by bicker clubs. In 2020, 565 students were accepted to a bicker club, which is the last year for which bicker data for all clubs was available and bicker was in person. Of the 633 students accepted to a bicker club this year, about 600 were sophomores. About 516 students were offered spots in the five