Take a tour of Princeton, circa 1962

There's something about college tours that has always made me feel a little weird. Maybe it's because I know that those college legends aren't true (like that one about the bulldog on the chapel--if you don't know it, you should probably take an Orange Key Tour). Or maybe because I've always wished that tour guides would just come out and say it: To your left is a terrible dorm, a dorm that no one wants to live in, where the nearest bathroom is three stories away and, seriously, there are mice. But it's probably how easily they walk backwards. How do they do it?Training. At serious meetings in Nassau Hall. Meetings with a dress code. Meetings that are preceded by the haunting, ringing music that plays in movies when the protagonist is having some kind of uncomfortable flashback to a past trauma. What? Oh, here's an instructional video for Orange Key tour guides, circa 1962.Oh, 1962! We were so exceedingly earnest. So young. So white and male. Not anymore, as Admissions dean Janet Rapelye told the Princeton Alumni Weekly last year. Speaking about tours, she said:

“Our survey showed that high school students see us as white, male, and wealthy, and that isn’t Princeton now. We need to respect our history and traditions, but to focus only on that would be a mistake. High school students now value living in a multicultural community and being part of a diverse student body. Include some of the history, but if you spend the whole time talking about gargoyles or singing — there’s a certain group, you’re not going to reach them.”

What group is that? Clearly not the Disney-watching cohort I grew up with. Haters.