Prefrosh Posers

Party Crashers — Prefrosh Edition

The Party Crashers are back again. Did you miss us? This time, we put on our orange lanyards, buttoned our polos all the way up to the top and looked as lost and mystified as possible. In other words, for a few days, we became prefrosh. And now we’re here to take you through the Class of 2015 and answer all your questions about the incoming freshmen: Are they cool? Are they cute? Should they be at Harvard instead?

For our ratings criteria this time around, we’ll be pitting prefrosh against puppies. Who’s more fun to play with? Find out below.

1. T-Shirt Tie-Dying at Murray Dodge

If you were looking for pre-Terrace prefrosh, you should have come to this event. I saw many a prefrosh rocking V-neck T-shirts and sporting those amazingly hipsterish thick-framed glasses. With the smell of free cookies wafting from the oven, it seemed like this was going to be an event steeped in true hippie spirit. What ensued was a mad tie-dying feeding frenzy. The limited number of white T-shirts were quickly taken by the masses, and there was an equally intense fight for paints and shirt-hanging space. It seemed like Princeton had shit on the ghost of John Lennon. Yet the hypnotic swirls of the shirts hanging from every possible pipe in Murray Dodge soon mesmerized even the most color-blind prefrosh, and the event evolved into a beautiful cookie-eating love fest. I’m going to attribute the feeling of stress at the event to the current students present and the overwhelming love that eventually filled the room on the psychedelic creations of prospective students.

Edge: Prefrosh

2. Ballroom Dancing Open House

First thing on the agenda Friday night was the Ballroom Dancing Open House. I was intrigued by the idea of attempting to learn how to waltz, so I figured I’d cruise by with my research assistant Katherine Mount ’14. And thus began my physically strenuous day as a prefrosh. Ballroom dancing is no joke. How hard can a box step be? Pretty hard, it turns out. Cha-Cha-ing is even worse. I tripped over myself like I was Bambi, fresh out of my mother’s womb, except minus the pitiful charm. Two-three-four, one-two-three-four, C’mon-Trap-Give-Up. By the time I was through, I was well on my way to mental and physical exhaustion. But it was fun, and I made my first prefrosh friend that wasn’t one of my own prefrosh. (Shout out to Sharon ... look, you’re in the 'Prince'! Come to Princeton!)

Edge: Prefrosh

3. Math Club Board Game Night

Next, it was onwards and upwards to the Math Club Board Game Night. I’d never been inside Fine Hall before, but I couldn't have known how fortunate that made me until I entered that grungy prison tower. Surrounded by so much math, I felt like Bruce Lee battling my way through "Game of Death." We entered the tiny wooden dumbwaiter that passes for Fine’s elevator with four other prefrosh. I made some snide comments about how ugly and confining I thought the elevator was, remarking that, “They would never have elevators like this at Harvard,” in a voice much too loud for such an enclosed space. The prefrosh looked nervous, and I noticed I was pointedly not invited to play board games with them. I took this as a good sign. The incoming Class of 2015 gets uncomfortable with too much Ivy League arrogance and knew better than to associate with such blatantly pro-Harvard sentiments. Good work prefrosh, you’re ready to embarrassedly mumble that you go to Princeton. We hit the gaming room, banged out a quick game of chess and helped ourselves to the free food. Finally, it was time to keep moving.

Edge: Puppies, because all of the copies of Settlers of Catan were already taken and I didn’t get to play.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

4. T-Shirt Painting

Back in Frist, there was an arcade night and T-shirt painting event. The arcade was blowing up, and I wasn’t about to wait in line to be reminded of the fact that I can’t shoot a basketball. The T-shirt painting was a bit of a sloppy mess as far as I was concerned, and my shirt ended up looking like blobs of color randomly scattered on a white tee, which it was. I deemed it avant-garde and wore it to the Party Without Borders. I looked around at my fellow prefrosh’s shirts. A girl behind me was delicately painting a penguin on her shirt, and it looked so real I thought it was about to break into a dance. Another had created a whirling masterpiece of color that I didn’t understand, but it looked really artistic. I then realized that the Class of 2015 was artistic, and I remembered why only my mother ever appreciated my paintings.

Edge: Prefrosh

5. Party Without Borders

Looking swagged-out in my fresh homemade T-shirt, I went to the Party Without Borders in Campus Club with all five of my prefrosh and their accomplices. I warned them that it might be a “Campus Club event,” and it was. The strobe light made Kanye’s “All of the Lights” video look lethargic. It blasted my mind out of the back of my head. I forgot where I was, who I was with and who I was, and I became fully absorbed in the flashing lights. When I came to, I realized that the dance floor was more awkward than middle school dances, and I went to Catholic school where Brothers of the Sacred Heart patrolled the dance floor. Needless to say, we left to look for alternative dance party options.

Edge: Puppies, or the $1 milkshakes Campus Club sold earlier that night.

6. Blackbox Dance Party

It was hard to tell if Blackbox was better, maybe because I had had a hard time seeing at Campus Club. But the dance crews blew up Blackbox, so even if I wasn’t dancing, someone was. And they were doing it well. The DJ was shouting at random times, totally cutting off the general flow of the music at awkward moments, but otherwise the beats were banging and the dancing was plentiful. My prefrosh seemed to enjoy it more, so I’m going to say that this event was more fun than Party Without Borders, but ultimately, less fun than puppies.

Edge: Puppies

7. Sympoh Breakdancing Workshop

Even though we were still a bit tired from the 35 minutes of ballroom dancing we did earlier that day, we nonetheless went out to Sympoh’s breakdancing workshop — and everything fell to pieces. I had previously been vaguely impressed by the various bits of footwork that are involved in breakdancing. Then I tried it. To say I failed would be an understatement. I looked like the world’s hugest Spongebob fan as I fell on the deck and flopped like a fish. My baby freeze attempts ended with my almost breaking my face, my arm, my leg and my inner ear. It was ridiculous. To make it even worse, this farce occurred right next to prefrosh who had cruised in like me, but unlike me, had mastered the moves in the 15 minutes provided. They were dancing all over the room, and I could only look on in amazement. The Class of 2015 has some moves.

In conclusion: They can dance. They can paint. They love deeply and passionately. They’re expectantly awkward. They are all of these things and more. We got swept up in our immersion into the world of a prefrosh, and came down with a slight case of "pre-dophilia." But that’s not a crime. Next weekend a new batch of them will arrive, and there's a real possibility that they will also be cooler than us. So we’re done writing about them.

Things We Learned:

1. Being a prefrosh is exhausting and requires great stamina.

2. Orange really does bring out the color in your eyes, and your eyes, and your eyes….

3. The members of the Class of 2015 "Cat Daddy when they dougie." (Look it up.)

4. No, a bunch of prefrosh didn’t rape the Teletubbies, they just tie-dyed shirts without gloves!

5. Fine Hall needs to be knocked down.

6. The only people more down on Friday than Rebecca Black are the members of the future Class of 2015. (They they they so excited!)

7. Watching prefrosh is like looking through a window at yourself, only your more optimistic, more youthful, more attractive self. They still have the potential you squandered on "Robot Unicorn Attack" in your time at Princeton.