A reader question:
Dear Muffy,
I came across this list of the 40 preppiest colleges in the U.S. and thought of your site <https://www.instagram.com/reel/DKvQsujt6SG/>. Their top ten are:
1) Amherst College
2) Bowdoin College
3) Colby College
4) Colgate University
5) Dartmouth College
6) Duke University
7) Georgetown University
8) Middlebury College
9) Princeton University
10) Trinity College
How close do your readers think they got?
Thank you
I think Hampden-Sydney belongs on the list and possibly Washington & Lee.
ReplyDeleteBud's Eye - I second your nominations and propose adding Sewanee. Sadly, none are what they once were.
DeleteMuffatola! Do you put these postings up just to rankle my ire! First of all, there is no such thing, in 2025, as a "Preppy College". The last campus to even remotely qualify for such appellation may have been Bowdoin, circa 2008. To suggest that places like Amherst, Princeton and Georgetown are, in 2025, "Preppy" is to display the very apex of ignorance. That said, with a nod to George Orwell, "Ignorance is bravery." Accordingly I waste more of precious time to instruct those brave acolytes of Muffy on the "Preppiest Colleges of 1975", in the following order of Prep Majesty:
ReplyDelete1. Trinity
2. Williams
3. Dartmouth
4. Bowdoin
5. Middlebury
6. Hamilton
7. Colgate
8. Lafayette
9. Princeton
10. Smith
Nope
DeleteHamilton for sure
DeleteAgreed, I got into Amherst two years ago, took a tour, and it most definitely is not what I would describe as preppy. Much more of an academic vibe there. Though Cornell doesn't really come to mind as much of a preppy school, the fraternities and sororities are very much so still preppy, it's just diluted by the strong CS and engineering presences there. The public policy, business, and hotel schools are still very much so preppy strongholds.
DeleteA few comments about Amherst and its primarily academic versus preppy vibe however that may be determined. My son is a graduate and Director of Student Care. During the past fifteen years he's seen more than sixty percent of the student body 'identify as minority or international'. More than fifty percent of students are female. Fraternities are no longer part of the social scene. Need-blind financial aid is ranked among the very highest in the nation. I understand the list at the top is alphabetical but I'm not sure Amherst would make the list now. The list seems quite dated.
DeleteA few choice words about Cornell. It has long been established fact that Cornell is the "non-Ivy." Here are just a few of the reasons why: it began (continues to be) a land grant university and is thus not a fully private institution; it was founded well over a century, if not a century-and-a-half, after the other Ivies; it was coed from the start, so it was completely out of the Ivy/Seven Sisters mixer culture that defined the collegiate "preppy" universe, circa 1920-1975; it is in an obscure location, far from the New York/New Haven/Boston circuit. To top it all off, there are, and always have been, all sorts of non-liberal arts things going on there. The very existence of a "hotel school" disqualifies the institution from inclusion of any list of "preppy colleges." A "hotel school??" Really?? Do I really have to explain why a "hotel school" cannot possibly, in any universe, be considered a "preppy stronghold??"
DeleteThese sort of lists appear to be put together by someone who has never set foot on any of the campuses listed.
ReplyDeleteThere are no longer any large schools with a predominantly preppy culture. If it has more than 5,000 undergrads, it's not preppy.
There are no preppy schools in California.
There's more prep culture at some southern and midwestern liberal arts colleges than many New Englanders would readily admit.
But 75% of the schools listed are not preppy.
The account that made this list has 277,000 followers. No wonder the kids often totally misunderstand how the world works.
ReplyDeleteFirst and foremost, take lists like this as 'I can find prep if I look for it.' Most universities and colleges are quite diverse in almost any way one could imagine. Ivy League campuses and students do not, on the whole, feel very preppy today.
ReplyDeleteIn that light, It's a decent list. Places one is more likely to find the prep mindset, to me are NESCAC schools, Ivy League schools, and small private VA schools like Washington & Lee, Hampden-Sydney, Hollins, Sweet Briar, Randolph-Macon. Georgetown, Colgate, Duke? Sure.
Colleges that actually feel preppy today might also include Vanderbilt, Miami University in Ohio, Elon University, St. Lawrence, College of Charleston.
I find your list baffling. Can’t stop shaking my head.
DeleteThe places I listed are popular alternatives to Ivies and small New England or upper New York colleges that are out of reach for many students - even smart children of friends graduating St. Albans, Sidwell, Madeira and Holton Arms often get shut out due to exceedingly competitive admissions. As I said, few if any college campuses feel prep today.
DeleteAgreed on the VA Private Colleges. Very small, very preppy enclaves. The positive trad aspects of these schools have remined unchanged when compared to peer colleges elsewhere in the country.
DeleteSweet Briar isn't even a real college anymore (if you want your jaw to drop. check out what they pass off as a "curriculum" at this point). And whatever it is, it sure ain't "preppy." That ship sailed for SB at some point in the second half of the 80's. Randolph-Macon Women's College, the less-shiny-but-very-nearly-as-good-if not-in-some-ways-slightly-better sister to SB (i.e., RMWC was sort the Mount Holyoke to SB's Smith), is now "Randolph College," is now coed and is not even close to preppy.
DeleteMaybe your friends' children are aiming too high. Two tiers down and things could really open up. Your average St. Alban's alum should be able to get into Trinity, Conn College, Skidmore, Bard, maybe even Vassar or Wesleyan without undue difficulty. And NCS or Madeira alumnae would do well to consider applying to Smith and/or Mount Holyoke, in addition to those listed above. Not Ivies, not Amherst or Williams, maybe not even Bowdoin or Middlebury, but still very good schools.
DeleteColumbia University (Ivy) would hardly qualify as "preppy" these days. Just take a walk around campus, or read the news, and this is clear.
ReplyDeleteColumbia was never really "preppy." Barnard? Maybe, sort of, semi, pre-1970. But not Columbia.
DeleteThe College of William and Mary decades ago. Today, not so much.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. W&M is more crunchy-haired sandals enthusiasts now. I can think of a half dozen Virginia schools that should be before them on a prep ranking... although Andrew above already spelled those out with the ODAC schools.
Deletemy son goes to Duke- definitely not prep. Most Chinese college- maybe
ReplyDeleteUniversity of Chicago is preppy. LMFAO.
ReplyDeleteCollege of the Holy Cross, ConnCollege, all NESCAC for that matter, to name a few notable preppy colleges. Also, since when are tech school’s preppy?
ReplyDeleteIt's very hard for me to consider any Catholic college as truly "preppy" (with the one and only exception of Georgetown, of course).
DeletePS Apologies for the anti-Catholic bias that might be inferred from my post above. I am not anti-Catholic at all, on the contrary. But I do think, with the past and current exception of Georgetown (and possibly, to some extent, pre-Vatican II Manhattanville), the universe of Catholic colleges just didn't/doesn't overlap with the universe of "preppy" colleges. In the brave new post-prep world we now inhabit, BC is, I suppose, more or less as "preppy" as, say, Middlebury, but I'm old school and still think of the two as belonging to two distinct spheres.
DeleteFreshman year, the roomate took one look and said in the kindest tone, "You can't wear that here." So the Chess King mall clothes went into the bin, and emergency trips were made to Decelle's and Talbot's for khaki's, light blue oxfords and boat shoes. And on top of that, in order to sing in the choir, one had to own a tuxedo - so at 18 years old it was off to Keezer's in Cambridge to find an affordable one, second-hand. When not in class, the more tattered your clothing and headwear, the better - a Brahmin influence somehow. What an introduction to student life at Boston College.
DeleteHave to agree with Bud: Washington and Lee as well as Hampden-Sydnery ... collars up !!!
ReplyDeleteThey may be as you say”collars up” but they are most definitely not “the thing before prep”.Nothing in the south is. Comparing apples to oranges does not make either apples or oranges better or worse. Just not the same.
DeleteLook at it this way... if the students attend class in their pajamas, or the like, it ain't prep. Until schools enforce dress codes and students adhere to them, there are no "prep" schools any more. It's pretty sad, actually.
ReplyDeleteobviously not a member of the club iykyk
DeleteUniversity of the South Sewanee, TN and College of Charleston in SC may come close. More Southern preppy.
ReplyDeleteTo say something is southern preppy is talking about something completely unrelated to the thing before prep. Repeat unrelated. Different universe.
DeleteEagerly dressing like something you are trying to be and mimicking its mannerisms, does not make you what you are trying to be. In fact, it may reveal that you are not that thing. That would apply to southern "preps". They are like Russian or Mafia new-money people trying to act WASP-y.
DeleteThe NESCAC schools, half the Patriot League, and a few of the Virginia private schools. Done
ReplyDeleteGood or great schools do not equate preppy. Nothing in the south is preppy. Nothing
DeleteWhat once was!
ReplyDeleteOxymoron: Preppy Colleges
ReplyDeleteIndeed!
ReplyDeleteI pledged Saint A’s 45 years ago. It was a great 4 years but even back then it really wasn’t prep. Only a very small percentage of the brothers at our school and fewer still at other schools were prep.
ReplyDeleteIt is unrecognizable now. As people are posting all of these random southern schools, they seem to be viewing it through rose colored glasses. Or at least I should say not a clue what real New England prep is.
Yes. Affluence does not equal preppy.
ReplyDeleteNeither does attending a prep school or the way you dress.
DeleteAnother vote for University of the South. I stopped by Amherst last fall, beautiful campus but the way people dressed was definitely not prep, not even close.SMU in Dallas would get a nod also.
ReplyDeleteWake Forest is one I can personally vouch for. For a school in Central NC, there is an abundance of private school kids from the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic that go here. Its graduate schools draw from the Ivies and many other abovementioned schools. Wake is a school that prides itself on not only its academic rigor, but also its history and traditions. I feel like it attracts a student body that values these in a school as well, even having its own Traditions Council.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the clothing aesthetic goes, like many a Southern school, Barbour, Peter Millar, and Patagonia are a common sight amongst the undergrads and graduate students alike. Most of this can be bought at Norman Stockton, a campus adjacent traditional men's clothier in operation since 1909 (similar to Eljo's in Charlottesville or Alvin-Dennis in Lexington, VA). However, there is also quite a bit of a Yankee influence. For example, on a colder day in December, I was comforted to see at least 3 others in my graduate program donning LL Bean Norwegian Sweaters in addition to myself. A similar situation happened a few weeks later with the Irish Fisherman Sweater. The Bootmobile has made frequent pop-up shop visits to campus, and Brooks, J. Press, Alden, and even Cordings make frequent appearances in class and at social events alike. Wake's undergrads are no strangers to t-shirts or sportswear in class, but this still doesn't hinder the overall aesthetic. The unofficial dress code is just generally to look good in what you wear, and sometimes this can still be accomplished in such a way.
In all, Wake feels to me how I imagine some of the other schools mentioned above might have felt back in the day. While its campus is relatively new since its relocation to Winston-Salem in the 1950s, its neo-Georgian architecture and magnolia trees make it a Southern gem for its heavily Northern student body. As a plus, it's one of the few schools left with an on-campus barbershop! So here's to Wake Forest! Go Deacs!
Wake Forest was founded as a Baptist school and continued to have a formal relationship with the Baptist State Convention, with respect to both funding and governance, until the mid-1980s. The Baptist church (including any and all variants and sub-denominations) is the least "preppy" of all the mainstream Protestant denominations. So no, Wake Forest is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a "preppy" institution, regardless of what its students do or do not wear to class. Great school, though!
DeleteSorry you can add religion and churches to the list of what really don’t matter for the thing before preppy.
DeleteYes, most people dressed in a certain way, and most people were protestant, but that does not make the thing before preppy. You either know or you don’t know
The idea that religious affiliation is irrelevant is ludicrous on its face. As anyone who has spent any time at all in the company of Episcopalians knows. You either know or you don’t know.
DeleteI am an Episcopalian ( raised as one) And I completely and totally disagree with your comment. Most 99% of Episcopalians are NOT the thing before prep. Maybe in the past a higher percentage were. Not now
DeleteI’m afraid you’ve misunderstood my comment. I am not saying that Episcopalians are all “the thing before prep.“ I am saying that Episcopalians, and especially generational Episcopalians, tend to set great store by religious affiliation (in other words, whether a person is an Episcopalian or not). I am a practicing Episcopalian, attended an episcopal school for all 12 grades, and both sides of my family, paternal and maternal, have been Episcopalian since the Resurrection. You either know or you don’t know.
DeleteOP here. Didn’t mean to start such a thread with my comment. Baptist history aside, I will say that I have yet to meet an actual Baptist at Wake. All of my friends are Episcopalian, Methodist, or Catholic. The Baptist history mostly shows up with the school in smaller ways these days, including the Demon Deacon mascot or Wait Chapel keeping its title. One of our most famous traditions is actually a Moravian Church Christmas Lovefeast service. Interested in reading everyone’s opinion on the matter though.
DeleteEven the top-tier prep schools (Choate, Deerfield, Andover, Exeter, et al.) aren't "preppy" anymore. As with colleges, you might find a little something a little closer to "preppy" as we once knew it by hunting among the second- or maybe even third-tier schools. But in 2025, there's no institution-- no secondary school, no college--that a time-traveler from 1960, 1970, 1980, or even 1990 would recognize as truly "preppy."
ReplyDeleteWell said.
DeleteIt’s also put very clearly by the person who writes and edits this blog. There is what people call preppy and then as she has stated the thing before preppy. That’s the real thing. It’s virtually nonexistent now. That’s why a lot of us are here because we miss it
ReplyDeleteExactly right. In terms of colleges, all one has to do is look at an institution that was once a stronghold of the thing before preppy, over time, and it becomes very clear that, as you say, that thing is "virtually nonexistent" at this point. Just look at Dartmouth or Middlebury or Amherst in 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, 2020. You will find that the thing is still very much alive in 1980, struggling a bit but hanging on more or less well in 1990, very significantly diminished in 2000, near-dead in 2010, and virtually nonexistent in 2020.
DeleteAnon @ 6:12, you are right. There is a prep school in our Connecticut town that might be classified as level 1a. That is, it’s close but it is not St Paul, Andover or Exeter. Driving by one sees the students walking about campus. Or they might be walking into town to buy our, alas, mediocre pizza. They are dressed no different from the students at the local high school where, to stay in touch with reality, I am an occasional substitute teacher in my retirement.
ReplyDeleteYour “level 1a” school is not in the New Haven area. (Are there any boarding schools near New Haven aside from Choate)? You can, believe it or not, find a “mediocre pizza” in New Haven. But you have to look hard. Outside New Haven most pizza is mediocre. Therefore your neighboring school could be anywhere in Connecticut; Taft, Hotchkiss, Loomis, Miss Poodles, Kent, etc…
DeleteCheshire Academy I suppose is the closest thing to a New Haven area boarding school. There are a number of excellent private day schools that would be close some of the better pizza parlors. Among them Hopkins (since the 1600’s), Hamden Hall, and Foote School. Of course there also is Sacred Heart Academy whose beautiful campus is perched on a cliff over looking what once was A.C. Gilbert’s private preserve, Paradise Valley.
DeleteIt's very clear from this conversation that any discussion of "preppy colleges" has to begin with a hashing-out of whether Southern anyone or anything can rightly be considered "preppy." There are clearly two factions with respect to this question: those who think that preppy (or, much more to the point, the thing before preppy) is by definition limited to New England (with exceptions made for Princeton and Lawrenceville, as well as Vassar and the top-tier Manhattan secondary schools) and those who think that the sheer weight of all the madras and bow ties and seersucker found below the Mason-Dixon line is enough to force entry into the club. If you are in the former group, no amount of blathering about how many navy blazers and boat shoes and Easter-egg-colored polo shirts there are walking around W&L or Hampden-Sydney is going to convince you. If you are in the latter group, you probably think that Amherst and Middlebury and even Exeter and Deerfield have become irrelevant to the conversation and that Sewanee and the College of Charleston are the future of prep. It just may be time for the two sides to put on the gloves and have it out once and for all. Because unless and until this question is resolved, any conversation about what's "preppy" and what's not is doomed to chase its tail.
ReplyDeleteBut you see you’re already talking about clothes. And it has very little to do with clothes. If that’s your ground line and that’s a different problem altogether.
DeleteJust to be clear: I am channeling those commenters who do focus, in many cases exclusively, on clothes. The Southern-is-Preppy folks always want to lecture you about how many pairs of penny loafers they saw when they were on campus at W & L last week. To them, that's what justifies the inclusion of a Southern school on the list. I am not one of those people and do not agree with the clothes-make-the-prep assumption on their part. As a matter of fact, I reject it. I was reporting the argument made by one the factions in the debate, not espousing that argument.
DeleteA while ago I read an article about a well-off Chicago suburb. It described the scene at a school play. All the Asians and other second-generation American parents were dressed in polos and khakis and boat shoes, and all the people whose families were probably here before the Civil War were wearing leisurewear. Make of that what you will.
DeleteAddendum to the post above: truth be told, there is a third faction, to which I belong. Those who think that true "prep" (or true "thing before prep") is indeed and by definition solely New England based. For us, Southern anything isn't the real deal, it is the "Southern version" of the real deal (in the same way Diet Coke is a version of Coke, lite beer is a version of beer, veggie burgers are a version of hamburgers, and Cheez Whiz is a version of cheese). So is any Southern person, place or thing actually "prep?" Well, sure... sort of... to a certain extent... in some ways... almost. But always with a really big asterisk. And lots of caveats.
ReplyDeleteWell sad. Perhaps a hint.
DeleteHow can anyone be prep who lives where it’s never cold enough for a raccoon coat? Or who doesn’t know the difference between a poma and a gondola?
DeleteUnless you are 85 years old or a child of someone who was the thing before prep this fight would go on endlessly. You either know or you don’t know.
ReplyDeleteYes, if I recall history correctly, there was once a civil war (1860-1865) over this very topic.
DeleteI find this entire thread very entertaining. Truly entertaining and interesting.
ReplyDeleteWas the thing before prep simply Wasp ? Hmmmm
ReplyDelete