Ithaca “Is” The Best “College Town” In “America”
Hey prospective college students! Are you struggling to decide which college is the right one for you? Well have no fear, because USA Today has come to your rescue with their brief write-up of some researcher’s rankings of the nation’s best college towns.
The college town is one of the most important factors for prospective students in making their college decision. After all, in a typical freshman’s week of studying, crying, and having sex (not necessarily in that order), he or she has a massive two hours of free time to spend in the town. And when that student is in said town, it must contain the resources necessary to allow the student to fulfill his or her important tasks of running to Wegmans and buying pot (not necessarily in that order). Determining suitable college towns is not something to be taken lightly. That is why dozens of researchers and statisticians spent months laboring to identify the towns with the most optimal sketchy bar-to-student ratios.
And in the end, Ithaca came out on top! This is truly a great day for Cornell (and to a lesser and more communications-based extent, Ithaca College). Take that Columbia and Harvard! Ithaca truly is gorges, just like your mom.
Oh, and about those quotation marks in the title. First, Ithaca technically was the best college town in America. This article was written back in the beginning of September–well before the great Pig Microbe Armageddon of 2009. We didn’t know about this article until now because, well, it was in USA Today and we haven’t stayed in any hotels in the past month.
Secondly, a “college town” is defined in this instance as a metropolitan area with a population of under 250,000 people. There were four categories in total, with the other four consisting of metropolitan areas with over 250,000 people, over 1 million people, and over 2.5 million people. In that last category, New York was number 1 and Boston was number 3. So Columbia and Harvard may not necessarily agree to “taking that”.
Finally, the towns Ithaca beat in its category include State College, Ames, and Iowa City. This competitive situation is known in economic game theory as the “guy with one leg versus the three guys with no legs in the Tour de France” condition.
Okay, so maybe its not so great a ranking for Ithaca. Cornell recognizes this, as they didn’t even mention the article on their website. Though that may be due to this ranking’s lack of wizarding movie tie-ins.
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September 22nd, 2009 at 12:04 pm
This list contains Bridgeport, CT so it’s obviously satirical. The murder capital of New England a great “college town?” For drug dealers perhaps…
September 22nd, 2009 at 2:29 pm
@dartmouth2010,
obviously I’m not too sure that the list is suppose to be a satire since it appeared in a newspaper obviously not known for its satire. Obviously there are a number of obviously legitimate cities on the list, such as madison, state college, new york, boston, etc. so obviously there must be some obvious sincerity to their list. obviously.
September 22nd, 2009 at 2:44 pm
@pton… obviously missing the irony of 2010’s remarks, obviously a moron.
September 22nd, 2009 at 4:05 pm
This was clearly spurred through the civr listserve. Can’t help but wonder if this was affected by the fact that Gannett owns USA Today, who was a Cornell alum…
September 22nd, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Anyone else notice that IvyGate posts fall into one of two categories? (a) overinflating the importance of Harvard, or (b) deflating the importance of all other schools.
September 22nd, 2009 at 7:30 pm
any list that has bridgeport in the top five for anything other than ‘best placed to be robbed and beaten to within an inch of your life’ should be treated with serious skepticism.
September 23rd, 2009 at 2:24 am
@pton: You’re an idiot. I hope you don’t go to Princeton, or you alone may result in a drop in rankings next year. Speaking of rankings, this USA Today list is shit. What a crummy newspaper.
September 23rd, 2009 at 11:29 am
@Karen: USA Today is a Cornell alum?
September 23rd, 2009 at 8:28 pm
You guys are still making fun of the swine flu issue at Cornell? Real classy.
September 23rd, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Also, influenza is a virus, so it’s not a microbe, smartass.
October 1st, 2009 at 1:53 pm
@ whoever ripped on pton,
are you guys obviously that stupid to think pton was obviously kidding by using obviously so many obvious fucking times. i am not too surprised you guys attend your obviously shit schools
October 20th, 2009 at 10:42 am
alterity wrote:
October 22nd, 2009 at 2:14 am
worth noting that al neuharth’s granddaughter is now a cornell undergrad?
November 15th, 2009 at 2:16 am
Are you people college students?