The IvyGate Guide to Punch Season: Warning: The Following is Rated H for Harvard
You'd think that at a progressive-minded institution like Harvard, the symbols of pre-WWII masculist inheritocracy would be long abolished, or at least neatly swept under the rug.
Nope. Harvard's social Rosh Hashana arrives in October with "punch season," a frenzy of schmoozing, flattery and backstabbing that, for a lucky few, results in election to one of Harvard's selective "final clubs."
Quick translation for non-Harvard kids: Final clubs aren't quite like Princeton's eating clubs, though members may eat there. They're not quite like Yale's secret societies, though they are secretive. They're not quite like Dartmouth's frats, though they're essential to the party scene. Their privately owned clubhouses range from sweet to jaw-dropping. Thirty years after Harvard went co-ed, they remain single-sex. And most importantly, while you can "comp," or pledge, publications like the Lampoon or the Advocate, final clubs come to you.
Why do we care about punch? Think of it this way: the entire process, from the scandal to the secrecy to the backlash, encapsulates everything we love and hate about the Ivies. We plan to follow the process closely this year, starting with this here textbook-length primer: the IvyGate Guide to Punch Season.
Click below for more (links go live in 30 minutes). Alternatively, tell yourself you're above this sort of elitist crap, and then click.
Part II: Meet the Players
Part III: Why You'll Hate Yourself in the Morning
No Comments | 
| 
Print This Post
Read more: final clubs, Harvard, punch
Email – 
Search
About
Follow us on Twitter
Report a bug
Archives
RSS Feed