A preppy is a student in a college prep school, where young people are taught subject matter that is intended to prepare them for the best colleges. The term could technically apply to any student in such a school, but the classic preppy stereotype is usually implied.
A classic preppy has an attitude of superiority and a focus on group status. A typical preppy wants to stand out by fitting in with the in crowd. Therefore, they most often shop where other preppies do, for things that add to their social status. Typical preppies, such as jocks, cheerleaders, class presidents and prom queens, they will be in all the most popular cliques. They are supposed to be preparing for college, but they act like they are really just preparing to be socialites. Classic preppy types are usually stuck up.
Preppies are most often rather conservative in style compared to the rest of us, but they love the hottest trendy stuff within their conservative niche. Not everyone who goes to a prep school is a preppy. Preppies usually come from well-to-do families with respectable backgrounds and are accustomed to a life of privilege. Students who are not in the preppy crowd usually come from lower income families, often attending on a scholarship. Anyone who does not quite fit in with the preppy image or lifestyle will find it difficult to befriend one of them.
(This word is NOT to be confused with the word, prepper, which means something else.)
Although I attended a traditional prep school in New England, I was never a preppy. I lived on the poor end of the same street where many of my preppy classmates lived, but they, of course, lived at the upper end, where the big, fancy houses were. My mom and dad were divorced and I was only there on a scholarship, but the preppy girls all had dads who were highly paid professionals with careers as doctors, lawyers, psychiatrists, and such.
I never wanted to be a preppy, because those girls acted so selfish, vain, pretentious and arrogant that they all just seemed too shallow and unoriginal to be of any interest to me as people. I guess and hope that the attitude of most preppies has improved since I attended that venerable institution of learning in the 60s and 70s.
By Razz Van Winkle aka. The Razz