Members of the Princeton community,
In recent years, a particular question on Princeton’s online application form has stirred up
considerable controversy. I’m sure most of you know which one. It is a simple checkbox marked,
“please check here if you have never attended a White Stripes concert, festival appearance, or
live TV performance.” When this question was first added to the application form, it made
perfect sense. It was 2001. White Blood Cells had just dropped, and The White Stripes were
huge. Didn’t the University have a right to know which of its applicants were appreciating the
biggest alt-rock act since Nirvana? Of course, no official policy was ever put in place penalizing
applicants who’d never been to a White Stripes show. But make no mistake about it: if you
hadn’t seen the Stripes, your application was unlikely to get past the first round.
This was the conventional wisdom for most of the last decade. But lately, things haven’t seemed
so simple. An ongoing campaign, which began in 2007, shortly after the release of Icky Thump,
has organized several protests and panel discussions questioning the fairness of evaluating
students based on their interest in The White Stripes. Today, I announce that, after much
heated discussion, the checkbox will be removed from Princeton’s application form once and for
all.
I understand this news comes as a shock to many. But to those of you who find unthinkable the
idea of a Princeton student who has never witnessed Jack and Meg’s undeniable chemistry in
person, I say this: just look at all the ways the Princeton student body has changed in the past
decade. We have students who are first generation immigrants. We have students who identify
as transgender. And, yes, we have students who believe that The White Stripes, while certainly
not a bad band, were more than anything an awkward transitional phase between the grunge of
the ‘90s and the indie sound of the late aughts. Do I personally agree with these students? Not
in the slightest. But if we want to maintain our status as a diverse and welcoming institution, we
must uphold their right to contribute to our campus dialogue. We also have some students who
think that The White Stripes are pretty good but never got a chance to see them live, a position
that seems less and less ridiculous with each passing year.
My fellow Princetonians, the time has come to open ourselves up to students who don’t have a
taste for post-punk revival. Given the shifting political climate on campus (and the
underwhelming nature of Jack White’s recent solo output) we have no choice but to recognize
that the practice of deliberately cultivating a student body capable of appreciating the guitar riffs
on “Ball and Biscuit”, gnarly though they may be, is outdated. It’s as simple as that.
Best wishes for the upcoming year,
Janet Rapeleye
Dean of Admissions
-MF ’19
