It’s Opposite Day! Cornell “Hottest” and “Worst”
If ranking season doesn’t slow down, Cornell is going to have an identity crisis. Named “Best Motto” by Motto Magazine and “Worst Motto” by IvyGate readers, Big Red is not only the “Hottest Ivy,” but the “Worst Ivy,” too.
Noting that “identifying America’s best colleges is about as exciting and useful as naming your favorite luxury sedan (Audi),” Radar breaks out their Back-to-School “Worst Colleges in America” list. Naturally, the only Ivy to meet Radar’s rigorous low standards is “America’s Best Safety School,” Cornell, where “low academic satisfaction, an oppressive Greek system, and a boring host town have inspired dozens of depressed students to hurl themselves over campus gorges.” Distinguished alumni Ann Coulter and Bill Maher earn negative points for their alma mater, as do “the ugliest girls in the Ivy League” (in Cornell’s defense, that is why Ithaca College exists). And then:
“I haven’t overheard a single intellectual conversation in three years, unless it was between Indian or Asian students,” writes an architecture major on Students Review.
Come on, Radar — you’re not supposed to ask architecture students about the social life; they only leave their Rand Hall cells to stock up with a visit to the local fraternity coke dealer! Try the cool-looking dude in the cowboy hat from the Orientation 2007 guide. He’s totally macking the hot goth chick in the front. And you know he and the Asian guy talk Sartre all the time.
More “worsts,” after the jump.
- Worst State University: Michigan State, where rate-of-incarceration rivals rate-of-graduation.
- Worst Trust-Fund-Baby College: Bennington College, where “the number of bird species on campus (121) is more than the number of black (10), Hispanic (18), international (19), Asian (14), and American Indian (1) students combined.”
- Worst Christian University: The “ironically named” Liberty University, where dancing, alcohol, and R-rated movies are verboten.
- Worst Party School: (tie) Chico State and San Diego State. This confused us, because 15% graduation rates suggest that Chico and SD are actually quite talented at partying.
- Worst Military Academy: Virginia Military Institute, for gruesome hazing and prison-like environment.
- Worst Women’s College: Texas Woman University, for failing to use the plural form.
- Worst College in America: Drug dealer safe haven / Moonie recruitment center University of Bridgeport.
–MAUREEN O’CONNOR
