$45 for the SAT, $86 for each AP test, $29 for each subject test; by the time you're out of high school, you've probably spent over $200 on testing. You could have bought an iphone with that money! Instead, the good people at the College Board are the ones rolling in dough, and iphones. According to a recent article in The Big Money, the College Board, though nominally nonprofit, is actually very profitable. Reporter Chadwick Matlin writes:

In 2006—the most recent year for which the College Board's tax returns are available—the College Board brought in a total of $582.9 million of revenue. Meanwhile, it spent only $527.8 million. That leaves it with a $55.1 million surplus.

Though this looks shady, the article claims making money does not actually disqualify an organization from being a nonprofit. What does disqualify an organization from nonprofit status (and the tasty tax exemptions that go with it)? Not making good on its "charitable mission." After the jump, Matlin outlines why the College Board's mission cannot properly be called charitable. Read the rest of this entry »

I've heard this strange usage of the word "tool" bandied about and I've been waiting for an Ivy daily to publish a column explaining what it means. Finally, Cindy Hong, in "Taking a Peek in the Tool Shed," has cleared things up for me. According to Cindy, a tool is a person who engages in:

being fake, networking, pursuing finance, trying too hard, trying too hard not to look like you’re trying too hard

Cindy is quick to assure us she is not a tool, despite her various and acknowledged toolish affiliations: The Daily Princetonian, Wilson School, USG (Editor's Note: Cindy says these affiliations are toolish, not me. Though, I believe her.) Cindy writes:

“But I’m so cool and interesting,” I protested to my non-USG, non-Wilson School friends. “I listen to Neutral Milk Hotel and read David Foster Wallace.” These statements only confirmed their suspicions.

Yes, Neutral Milk Hotel is incredibly toolish (I'm not being sarcastic). After the jump, Cindy tells us why being a tool is actually a good thing. Read the rest of this entry »

• Brown: Fareed Zakaria (you know, the guy whose picture is on every other page in Newsweek) to be graduation speaker.
• Columbia: Op-ed in defense of copy editors.
• Cornell: Student Assembly gives funding back to Christian group that forced group's own gay leader to resign.
• Penn: Accused killer and former student out of prison after manslaughter sentence.
• Princeton: University will not take part in tuition assistance program for vets.
• Harvard: Sophomore dies suddenly early Sunday morning.
• Dartmouth: No swine flu, after all.

Welcome to the second installment of our guide to Ivy pizza (we've already done this with sandwiches and drinks). In our first installment, we reviewed the pizza at Harvard. I know, I'm also skeptical Boston has good food. But let's table that for a moment and focus on today's post: The Slice at Columbia. Reviewing Columbia's pizza is complicated by the university's location. In New York, good pizza, great pizza, abounds. But it's not to be found in Morningside Heights (try Nino's in Bay Ridge, or Grimaldis in DUMBO, or anywhere in Bensonhurst). Regardless, there is a pizza hierarchy at the school Law and Order keeps calling Hudson University.

1. Koronets: You may know Koronets as the place with the gigantic slices of pizza. For around $3.00, you get a slice the size of two normal slices. It's freaking huge. It's also gooey, greasy, and wonderfully moist. Koronets is great when you're drunk but it's a decadent delight when you're sober. The next time you're walking on Broadway and wanna grab lunch? Fuck Chipotle. Go to the place with the large pizza slices.

2. Famiglia's: Decent but overpriced (average one-topping slice will run you $3.25), Famiglia's offers a wide variety of slices and toppings. If you want a slice of Hawaiian, this is where you go. Famiglia's is also the option most like a real pizzeria: the decor is closely modeled after that of an authentic pizzeria and the kitchen dishes up hearty favorites like lasagna and baked ziti. In short, Famiglia's is a good but pricey fake.

After the jump, Pinnacle, Papa Johns, V&Ts. Read the rest of this entry »

All across America, Vermont's and Iowa's decisions to allow same-sex marriage were greeted with applause or indifference or mild grumbling. Vociferous protest there was not. Well, except for this hilarious video from the National Organization for Marriage, a group fronted Princeton professor of jurisprudence (Princeton has a law school?) Robert George:

This $1.5 million video (what production value!) has been mocked across the spectrum since its recent debut. Stephen Colbert got his shots in; Frank Rich referenced it in his last column; there have been YouTube videos since ordered down because the National Organization for Marriage claimed copyright infringement.

• Columbia: Now you can major in being liberal and politically aware.
• Cornell: University in pocket of Big Cream Cheese, according to vegetarian professor.
• Penn: David Horowitz still hates you.
• Princeton: Profs discover eliminating SAT scores increases diversity.
• Harvard: Sebelius to speak to Kennedy graduates.
• Dartmouth: Student urges you to support overpriced bookstore, start email affair with Tom Hanks.
• Yale: Help this kid find his thesis!

The last time IvyGate posted about a Harvard boy and his dong, you gagged and begged us to never do it again. But try as we might, we can't stay away from Harvard or dongs.  Below is a video unofficially titled "Harvard Bros," starring two mustachioed Havard "bros" rapping about their penises. We'll just call it "The Dong Song." According to Abel Acuña, the video's director, "Harvard Bros" won best music video at the Harvard Undergraduate Film Festival.

According to resident IvyGate film critic (me) the video offers some decent production value but lacks that Cambridge intellectual punch we've seen from favorites On Harvard Time. Acuña mentioned to us that he's all about entertainment, and those VES film studies fools can kiss his Harvardwood ass.

Full disclosure: the latter part of that sentence is largely fabricated. But that doesn't mean it's not true. After the jump, more videos from Acuña's production company Senior Spring. Read the rest of this entry »

Academic Earth is making Ivy lectures available to anyone with an internet connection. A Hulu for nerds, AE aggregates lecture videos posted by schools like Yale, MIT, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon, and even Harvard Med school. This is devaluing your exclusive education, you say? Let's be honest, you sleep through a lot of your classes anyway. And hey, information should be free, blah, blah, blah, democracy.

Here's Yale Philosophy's Shelly Kagan teaching "Life and Death"--actually it's mostly just Death:

This is great news for everyone rejected by the Ivies this year. You can get that quality education after all! And according to Forbes, you'd be happier at NYU anyway (Editors note: this is quite possibly true). After the jump, more lectures!

Read the rest of this entry »

In a sign the global financial crisis may have finally jumped the shark, Mary Flanagan, a Dartmouth "digital humanities" professor, created Layoff, a videogame that challenges you to fire as many workers as possible. The game isn't as mean as it sounds: Flanagan intended Layoff to be "part dark humor, part grim portent." In other words, it's a joke. There's a ticker flashing accounts of unscrupulous corporate decisions and you can hover over workers and get their bios (before you fire them). My favorite part: "The fired workers are replaced by new ones, including suit-wearing bankers and financiers, who cannot be laid off." How do you play the game? According to The Chronicle of Higher Ed:

The gamer is presented with an 11-by-8-inch grid populated by tiny workers—some wearing hard hats, some wearing glasses, some reading books, and some holding spare tires. The objective is to shuffle these characters into groups of three of a kind, at which point they can be banished to mill aimlessly about the unemployment line (a pen that resembles a prison yard below the grid).

After the jump, more screenshots! Read the rest of this entry »

Tommy Brothers, Dartmouth '11, came forward as the author of the incendiary email about President Jim Yong Kim in an email (kid loves to email) sent to the student body Friday afternoon. Brothers states:

I hope you can all understand that my intent was never one of malice against the Asian community, but an extremely crass attempt at hyperbolic satire. I was initially trying to criticize what I perceived to be surprise among many at the naming of an Asian-American President-Elect, Dr. Kim.

Brothers goes on to discuss all the ways people will make a big deal out of this for weeks to come:

I have started, along with the rest of the GGMM staff, to try to find ways that the whole community can learn from this experience. We are meeting with OPAL and the Pan-Asian Council to try to find a constructive strategy moving forward.

After the jump, Brothers promises to meet with you and help you heal, but only after finals. Read the rest of this entry »