This morning's shooting death of L'Salle Harvey, a military veteran taking college prep courses at Penn, puts crime and safety front and center in everyone's mind -- especially parents nervous about dropping off freshmen this week in Philadelphia, Manhattan and New Haven.

But are urban Penn, Columbia and Yale really the most dangerous Ivies? We compiled crime statistics from across the Ivy League to find out. (Click to enlarge.)
These are total stats (on campus plus off) for 2004, the last year for which data are available. There's some fascinating stuff in there:

• Sixty-three forcible sex offenses? And those are only the ones that get reported.
  
• Can Brown (19 crimes, not including burglary) really be such an Eden of tranquility? Or are campus police fudging the numbers?
  
• Somebody please tell us Dartmouth caught the fucking arsonist(s).
• Seventeen stolen cars at Penn, one at Columbia: New York has better subways, no parking. We bet there's zero DUIs there, too.
• No murders and no manslaughters -- that we can believe. Zero nonforcible sex offenses? Puhlease.
  

Crime reporting in the Ivy League has improved dramatically (thank a 1999 law), but it's still too unreliable. Look at Harvard's burglary rate -- holy shit! Is Thomas Crown Jr. an undergrad or something? Actually, the Crimson explains that Cambridge police just feel like including larcenies in that figure, when no other schools do.

To use a sadder example, L'Salle Harvey's death may never get counted. As a "visiting student," his status is pretty vague. "He is not a student here," a Penn spokesman emphasized to us over the phone.

When the university reports its figures on Oct. 31, 2007, it can decide whether to include L'Salle or not. We know what we bet will happen.

August 31, 2006 11:37 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (2) | Read more: Brown , Columbia , Cornell , Dartmouth , Harvard , Penn , Princeton , Yale , crime

A military veteran taking classes at UPenn was shot to death early this morning, the DP is reporting and a university spokesman told IvyGate. L'Salle Harvey was affiliated with Veterans Upward Bound, a program that provides free college prep courses; the shooting occurred far from campus, and the university knows only what it's reading in the DP, spokesman Ron Ozio said. Calls to program officers' homes were not answered.

August 31, 2006 6:55 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comment | Read more: UPenn , crime

Yep, we saw this one coming. It was only a matter of time before Emily Lamont, Harvard '09, fulfilled her filial obligation to embarrass her father Ned's senatorial candidacy. This adorable shot shows Emily moments away from a can of Coors Light and a beer funnel. Now, it's not 100 percent clear if that Coors is meant for her or that sweet dude in baby blue Lacoste. But we're pretty sure the laws of physics say the person closer to the floor takes the rip.

See, Ned? This is what happens when you get the netroots involved! Lieberman, you owe us bigtime. Team Lamont, send angy e-mail here.

UPDATE 10:04 a.m.: The gentleman appears to be Michael Libert, Harvard '09. 

August 31, 2006 9:29 AM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (12) | Read more: Drinking , Harvard , Ned Lamont , Senate , embarrassing photos

Cornell Cornell President David J. Skorton has, if nothing else, huge balls. First he sleeps among the unwashed fresh-masses, now he ventures off into the drug-doing, brow-piercing, Morcheeba-listening, God-hating, cross-dressed (but otherwise naked) den of iniquity that is Risley Hall.

Our undercover Cornellespondents tell us that Skorton and his wife, Robin L. Davisson, dined chez Risley last night. When they entered the dining hall, one student reportedly sprung up from his table and gushed over Ms. Davisson: "You're beautiful! You make Jackie Onassis look like a crack whore!" (Kind words, but you be the judge.)

They then proceeded to eat dinner as ironically as possible.

August 31, 2006 2:37 AM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (2) | Read more: Cornell , David Skorton , hipsters

We grew perplexed reading this about Dartmouth's outdoor orientation programs for freshmen:

"Our Trips are just plain sweet. We offer everything from canoeing to climbing and everything in between. Check out all of our different types of Trips and what your outdoor-lovin' five days will look like. And if your New York City behind is not in tip-top shape, no need to fear! We've got all sorts of difficulties to suit your outdoor style."

These trips are pretty common; they might even be universal across the Ivy League. But these kids are about to spend four years at Dartmouth. Aren't they going to spend enough time isolated from society, a la Alive, as it is? Maybe the tiniest Ivy should offer its students a truly unique opportunity, like a trip to the mall or a nearby urban center, like White River Junction or Concord.

Also, what do they mean by "New York City behind"? Is that like a "New York City sense of humor"? Like a JEWISH behind, perhaps? Anti-semites. Seriously, have they BEEN to Columbia lately, seen how skinny they all are? All part of a balanced diet of cigarettes and nose candy.

August 30, 2006 9:53 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (2) | Read more: Columbia , Dartmouth , cannibalism , freshmen , orientation

One of the unexpected pleasures of graduating is that you get to read crap again. Our first bestseller binge included The Rule of Four; for those of you -- wow, a hundred percent, really? -- who avoid novels with even the merest taint of pop lit, Four is The Da Vinci Code in a mortarboard. Set at Princeton in 1999, Ian Caldwell (Princeton '98) and Dustin Thomason's (Harvard '98) novel follows two seniors' obsession with the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili and the message coded geekily therein.

Honestly, it's a pretty good summer read. But there's one unwittingly hilarious scene we feel compelled to hate on. Listen in as one Parker Hassett (a character introduced as "Ivy's village idiot, a half-wit from a wealthy family") enters the eating club's end-of-year party. He's met at the door with "hisses" from the crowd -- do they still make those? Later, ...

... a huge thud comes from below, followed by an explosion of glass.

Gil hurries for the stairs; we rush down behind him to find a wide puddle of debris. Blood-colored liquid is seeping in all directions, bringing snags of glass with it. Standing at the center of it all, in a perimeter of space everyone else has evacuated, is Parker Hassett, flushed and fuming. He has just thrown the entire wet bar to the ground, shelves, bottles, and all.

"What the hell's going on?" Gil demands of a sophomore watching nearby.

"He just went off. Someone called him a dipso and he went crazy."

Veronica Terry [Parker's date] is holding up the ruffled skirts of her white dress, now fringed in pink and spattered with wine. "They've been teasing him all night," she cries.

"For God's sake," Gil demands, "how'd you let him get that drunk?"

She looks at him blankly, expecting pity, getting fury. Partygoers nearby whisper to each other, holding back satisfied smiles. ... [Parker is] amidst the hecklers. From the crowd come coos of Lush! and Drunk! and worse. Laughter at the edges of insult.

Did the mean bullies tease you a long time ago? Make you mad, with their touchdowns and chest hair and girlfriends? We know it hurts, guys. But if you're going to get revenge by portraying one as a jerk in a novel, don't make his crime ... pregaming.

August 30, 2006 1:37 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Read more: Drinking , Princeton , eating clubs

This just in -- to us, anyway: New Haven alderman Nick Shalek (Yale '05) was arrested 2 a.m. Sunday and charged with breach of the peace and other crimes after a donnybrook outside the Salty Dog Cafe, the YDN reports.

Shalek, a former captain of the hockey team and president of the Yale Entrepreneurial Society, had landed a sweet post-graduation job working for the Yale Investment Office (the endowment), before running for alderman in the city's first ward, which covers Old Campus and most of the residential colleges. We hear he's a nice guy, and look at that handsome mug; he's pretty much all you could ask for in a Yalie.

So it's not that a public official was brawling in the streets that bothers us. It's the fact that he was arrested at the Salty Dog Cafe, clearly a cheesy-ass towny hangout. Et tu, Shalek? You're one of them now?

[Image by YDN]

UPDATE 10:42 a.m.: It's the Salty Dog Saloon, not Cafe. Even more cheesy. Even more towny.

UPDATE x2: All charges have been dropped, says a reliable source.

August 30, 2006 10:15 AM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (15) | Read more: Yale , crime

Robbie Corey-Boulet
Editor-in-Chief
The Brown Daily Herald, Inc.
P.O. Box 2538
Providence, RI 02906 

Dear Mr. Corey-Boulet:

Please. We're begging you. Update browndailyherald.com. We don't live in Providence. Brown Orientation starts today, and we don't have a stoner's clue what's happening up there. This, while funny and admirably ahead of schedule, was not enough. Brown's new web site scares us. All we have to go on is these deans' boring letter to new students, and while we haven't actually read the whole thing (something about "developing Advising Partnerships" and "how to live and learn as individuals while respecting others") we're pretty sure it doesn't include the word "shitfaced" at any point, so it can't be too relevant.

All those thousands of Brown-nosers pouring into Providence ... us, sitting here in the dark ... Have a heart, Mr. Corey-Boulet. Update your goddamn newspaper from July 17th.

Beseechingly,
IvyGate

August 30, 2006 9:46 AM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (5) | Read more: Brown , Brown Daily Herald , orientation

We know a true Ivy overachiever would play it cool. Used to success -- or pretending to be -- she'd act like it was no big deal.

But as our server smokes a postcoital cigarette after being gang-banged by Gawker, WSJ, HuffPo, American Prospect, Jossip and a few others in the last 36 hours, we gotta break character and say thanks for the nods, guys. One month in, this blog has already become something we didn't expect: fun. And to our 26,000 new readers: bookmark the shit out of us, 'cause the fall semester is about to get wild around here real fast.

August 30, 2006 9:41 AM by Nick Summers | Link | Read more: IvyGate

Dial Penn Emeritus Professor of Marketing Scott Ward's office at (215) 898-8249, and you'll get this message:

"This is Scott Ward. I'm not in the office and will not be for some time. Please email me ... "

Not for some time, eh? No, we should think not. And, uh, Scott -- they probably don't have email where you're going, either.

Prof charged with sex acts will not teach, Gutmann says [Daily Pennsylvanian]

UPDATE 11:44 p.m.: Wait, wait, we totally have a better punchline! Q: How many UPenn Emeritus Professors of Marketing does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: One, to be charged with corruption of a minor, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, solicitation to commit prostitution, assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of emotional stress, negligence, fraud, statutory rape, indecent assault and indecent exposure over a 12-year period. Um, in a lightbulb.

August 29, 2006 8:50 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Read more: Penn , crime , professors

The price of attending an Ivy League school is not the tuition -- it's the subsequent lifetime you spend encountering your classmates' bylines.

A brother can't even glance at a periodical without suffering flashbacks. Open the New York Times and boom, it's 30 years ago and Nick "One F" Kristof is hitting on your girl at a Crimson party. Grab The New Republic -- God, that dweeb Beinart would wake you up every morning at 7 a.m. braying show tunes down the hall in Pierson. Flip through the New Yorker and wow, there was that time you and Phil Gourevitch stayed up after that party in Risley, had a lot of wine, really just talked, and one thing led to another and it's not like it makes you gay, it was just college, you know? We digress. Ivy bylines -- they're everywhere! And they will haunt every minute of your media-soaked life.

Meet our newest recurring feature: the IvyGate Index®, a highly scientific measure of Ivy influence in various industries. In each installment, our crack statisticians (poached in a clandestine midnight raid on the U.S. News & World Report compound) will pore over reams of data, using patented hegemony formulae to give you the numbers you crave with cutting-edge graphical representation. That's right, bitches: pie charts.

This week, we point the mighty IvyGate Index® telescope at the top rungs of the media ladder. Verdict: Shockingly little dominance!
 

In conclusion, the media industry's IGIQ (IvyGate Index Quotient) is 44 percent. After the jump, we've included a note on methodology for all you budding freakonomists. Next week: robber barons of the extraction industries.

Continue reading "The IvyGate Index: Calibrating Hegemony Since 2006" »

August 28, 2006 11:43 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (26) | Read more: Columbia , Cornell , Harvard , IvyGate Index , Non-Ivy , Penn , Princeton , Yale , alumni , media

The blogger's playbook, we admit, is pretty much one sentence long: Rip on shit. But every so often we come across something so glorious as to be, like dorm-issue toilet paper so cheap it doesn't even have perforations, unrippable.

We give you ... "BK2Night."

One-eighth of you may have already heard the seminal rap anthem about Yale's Berkeley dining hall. For the rest, here's a catch-up: When Alice Waters's daughter Fanny came to New Haven, the famous chef spearheaded the Yale Sustainable Food Project -- introducing locally grown ingredients and training the college's kitchen staff to create the kind of dishes ordinarily found in three-star restaurants. Forget shell steak and dry chicken; we're talking primo organic shit here, man. The Wall Street Journal quickly called Berkeley the best dining hall in the country.

But of course: apres Waters, le deluge. The dining hall was so popular the ID-swiper guys citizens were forced to crack down and allow only true members of the college in. Seething, stomach-rumbling frustration ensued. And then the magic happened. Via MCs Furyus (Peter Furia '05), Fitzgeezus (Matthew Fitzgerald '04), and NuSonRize (Leveille McClain '06), here is "BK2Night":

powered by ODEO

August 28, 2006 7:17 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (5) | Read more: Yale , dining halls

Happier times...

The real victims in the 'Stend-Razing of Aught-Six, of course, are the kiddies in the Class of 2010. With the bar shuttered for orientation and Shiva knows how much longer, there's a distinct possibility the class never properly imprints an attachment with 2911 Broadway.

The West End was many things to many people. Mere pitcher-and-wings spot to some, mighty historical landmark ("Kerouac wuz here") to most, Rohypnol HQ to pretty much everyone ... we always made a point of stopping by whenever visiting the Unhappiest Ivy. Not to make too much of its Cubanification -- when the dropcloths come off, we admit, the new owners may actually have just cleaned up the place -- but the place really was that special. To wit:

One time I went up to the bouncer with the fakest ID in North America. It was a student ID for Fordham, and the only remotely official looking element was its lamination. The bouncer said, "Where is Fordham" and I replied, "I have no idea." He said, "Next time you should know. It's in the Bronx." And he let me in. He later threw me out when I puked in a booth.

--Stuart Dearnley, Columbia '01

Goddamn if that isn't college in a chestnut! More nuggets, taken from the Spectator's excellent collection, after the jump.

Continue reading "The Children, My God, Think of the Thirsty Children" »

August 28, 2006 12:44 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (1) | Read more: Columbia , Drinking , West End , freshmen

What's the only factor more important to Ivy League teams than winning? Filthy nice facilities. IvyGate's secret sports correspondent reports:

With football season just around the corner, Harvard is doing what it does best: making everyone else feel poor. Their stadium will get a $5 million upgrade, including a futuristic synthetic playing surface and lights on the stadium's exterior. They're also installing a seasonal "bubble" to protect willowy Harvardians from the mean ol' wind. (Though it won't keep out these guys.)

Up in Dartmouth Country, they're laying new turf on Memorial Field. Congrats, guys! Only a few weight room renovations and a new field house to go until respectability.

Columbia is trying to keep up, but as usual they're being ... frugal. Apparently unable to hire a handyman, the school declared "Pride Day" and -- Lord, that we were making this up -- had the soccer teams reseed the field themselves.

Now, before any of the commenters get clucking about how much money is spent on athletics, I feel obligated to note a little something down in Texas called The Godzillatron. When Penn installs the largest high-definition video screen on planet Earth ("nearly as wide as the field itself") at Franklin Field, then you're allowed to complain.

August 27, 2006 11:44 PM by | Link | Read more: Columbia , Dartmouth , Harvard , Penn , Sports , football

Columbia drinkers (is that redundant?) were shocked last spring to learn that legendary bar The West End was to be imminently sold and converted into a Cuban restaurant. This might not seem like that big a deal to seven-eighths of you readers. But think of Cheers becoming a sushi bar, or Moe's turning into a French-Asian fusion brasserie -- that's the level of upheaval we're talking about.

Falling as it did on April Fools Day, news of the Stend's demise was greeted throughout Morningside Heights mostly with horrified disbelief, then the apocalyptic rending of garments.

"We don't want to change the essential character of the West End," new owner Jeremy Merrin reassured the faithful at the time. "The big center bar, the benches on the side, the cheap beer, they'll still be there. For anyone who walks in, it'll be immediately recognizable as The West End."

Yeah, see the photo? Not much change there, no sir! There's the, um, coatrack Ginsberg probably used at some point, and ... uh ... the bathroom! Barack Obama must have used that at some point. Just oozing history, that place is. Way to homewreck, merry Merrin.

Other, embiggened photos after the jump.

[Photo by Sara Vogel]

Continue reading "The West End: History Won't Absolve Them" »

August 27, 2006 1:19 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (2) | Read more: Columbia , Drinking , West End

Is Charles Nesson the William Shatner of academia? No one's really sure why he's still around, but we dare not question it. Nesson's greatest hits are too many to detail here: Just know that the man they called "Billion Dollar Charlie" in A Civil Action, who boasted to students that he always smoked reefer before teaching, who once built a class around the O.J. Simpson case so successful Judge Ito asked his students for legal briefs ... this man may have finally topped himself.

Nesson's latest idea is so batshit insane, it just might work. He's teaching a class through Second Life, the online 3-D social universe in which desperate people interact with other desperate people. (Which means, by definition, most law students already have accounts.) It's like The Sims, but with moot court and office hours.

Here's the genius promo video for the class. Note (as if they're possible to miss) Nesson's CHiPs-style motorcycle entrance, the absolutely stunning Christopher Walken speech patterns, and the fact that he's lopped a minimum 40 years of aging off his digital persona. Daughter Rebecca Nesson makes an appearance as a butterfly -- Jesus, just watch:

August 25, 2006 8:45 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (8) | Read more: Harvard , batshit crazy , law school

Why hello, you Cornellicans. Just joining us via the $5 flyer we bought on Facebook today? We have a slight correction to make: Contrary to the ad copy, you may not, in fact, "kiss our Big, Red ass."

Our ass is not monochromatic. You may quote us on that. It's Big Green, too -- and Crimson and Tiger-striped and all the other colors of the happy li'l Ivy rainbow. No matter what school the news comes from, we'll happily mock the shit out of it.

News, gossip, sex, sports, etc., you get the drift. This is our 50th post, and we hardly expect you to wade through that much pap. Catch up with these Cliffs Notes instead.

• I Got 95 Theses and a Bitch Ain't One: Our first post. The bloody sheet is still hanging on our balcony.
  
• The Ivy Taxonomy: Meet The Players: Every single stereotype about the Ivy League is true.
• Lost Prangstgrup Video Discovered!: Schliemann discovered Troy, Carter unearthed King Tut, we dug up this.
• Year of the College Blog Begins ... Now: A bold prediction! That Cornell ruined!
• i'm Applyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyying!: Original journalism.
• U.S. NEWS BOMBSHELLS: The Aftermath: Just thinking about it sends our resting pulse rate to 90.
  

August 25, 2006 8:44 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (2) | Read more: Cornell , IvyGate

The Cornell Daily Sun greeted students back to campus yesterday with an overhaul of cornelldailysun.com. Now the reviews are in, and they are ... less than raves. This calls for bullet points, lots of bullet points:

• "awful"
• "It doesn't feel like a newspaper"
• "all [the other Ivy dailies] were more professional looking"
• "simply terrible"
• "completely user unfriendly"
• "major step backwards"
• "Not looking too good"
• "Please head over to the COMM department and let them markup what is wrong with the site" [Ed.: Ouch! Our favorite.]
  
• "my high school paper's web site looks more professional" [Ed.: Spoke too soon!]
  
• "it's lacking!" 

To be fair, there was a lone dissent.

• "I like it. A lot. Sorry."
  

We're not quite sure where that leaves the Sun -- the current site is actually a redesign of a redesign. The temporary summer site's logo displeased one commenter, who wrote that the historic nameplate had been "pushed into a slanted murky background ... like some thought that can no longer be recognized as either a dream or a true recollection." Damn, where can we get some of this dude's moonshine?

[UPDATE: The picture's of a cat, people. Being catty. We're firing our photo editor.]

August 25, 2006 3:55 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Read more: Cornell , Cornell Daily Sun

Our apologies for missing your first day of classes, Cornell -- all-day hangovers are like that. Actually, it was your bizarrely early start date that threw us. August 24? Orientation was on the 18th? When are your finals, Halloween?

Look, we know you're new to the party, founded after the Civil War and all. We like you -- go Big Red hockey! -- and we're here to help! Take a cue from big bros Harvard (starts Sept. 18) and Dartmouth (Sept. 20th, fucking A). That's entitlement itself, rolling into the fall semester whenever they goddamn please. Good Lord, classes in Ithaca begin before the University of Richmond. Outrageous! Skorton, add it to the to-do list.

August 25, 2006 12:07 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (1) | Read more: Cornell , Dartmouth , Harvard

Finally, a president who knows how to get. Shit. Done. After only one day as commander-in-chief of Cornell University, David J. Skorton has already divested from Sudan, taken the swim test, and met with George Pataki. Twice! Students love the guy -- check out his 96 percent job approval rating, care of the Sun's highly scientific online poll.

So with all this goodwill to spare, why the hell are Skorton and his wife moving into a freshman dorm? "Don't worry," he reassured the Class of 2010. "We won't be keeping an eye on you." Mister, you're missing the point. They don't want to keep an eye on you. Do you think students want to pass the head of university administration coming out of the shower every morning? Listen to the amorous bedsqueaks of President and Mrs. Skorton? Those are things you can't unsee, sir, things you can't unhear. Don't put the children through it.

August 25, 2006 1:08 AM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (3) | Read more: Cornell , Skorton

Haven't you heard? Brown University was actually number six in the U.S. News liberal arts rankings! It also charges $16,000 for tuition, has a firm grounding in the Protestant faith, and is located in Arkansas!

Oh shit. Sorry, that's John Brown University. We almost thought our friends in Providence had shattered a stereotype -- how disappointing.

What's really disappointing, though, is that JBU's namesake isn't even crazy-eyes-abolitionist-martyr-who- hacked-his-victims-to-death-with-a-broadsword John Brown. It's named after John E. Brown, a kind evangelist who taught needy children after WWI. Couldn't they just fudge it, though? It's a Christian school, after all, and Brown the Crazier did think he was the Avenging Angel of Death.

But hey, at least it's diverse, right? No? Better fix that, or J-Bro might have to chop up a bitch.

August 23, 2006 3:29 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (2) | Read more: Brown , Non-Ivy

OMG Columbia we
totally have an idea
for how you can
pay for expansion!

August 23, 2006 8:23 AM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (1) | Read more: Columbia , football

Check out Brown's frightening, dystopian new homepage. It's like taking a college tour guided by Philip K. Dick. Even the friendly "Come on in" that appears when we mouse over the "Admissions" tab doesn't convince us we're not gonna get a robotic rectal probe right after our interview.

August 23, 2006 12:04 AM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (1) | Read more: Brown , robots

IvyGate's secret senior sports correspondent drops in for a visit:

The 2006 Ivy Football Media Poll was released the other week, and surprise! Harvard is the early favorite, with Penn right on its heels.

The Crimson top the list with 116 votes (nine first-place), but more people are talking about what's happening off the field in Cambridge, namely the suspension of captain Matt Thomas -- the third member of the team to receive a suspension in two months. Go Cantabs!

Penn clocks in second, despite finishing under .500 last season, while defending champ Brown places third now that Ivy Player of the Year Nick Hartigan has graduated. Cornell and its up-and-coming coach, Jim Knowles, are No. 4.

In the cellar: Dartmouth (No. 7) fans may not get many wins this year, but should at least look forward to a renovated stadium. Columbia (No. 8, like we needed to tell you that) should just start drinking now. The Lions were two votes away from a unanimous last-place selection, their case not helped by new head coach Norries Wilson’s plan to run a 3-5-3 defense. Hey Coach, Columbia couldn’t stop the run with five down linemen at times last year -- forget about four, or (shudder) three.

(Graphic by IvyLeagueSports.com)

August 23, 2006 12:03 AM by | Link | Comments (2) | Read more: Brown , Columbia , Dartmouth , Harvard , Penn , Sports , athletes , crime , football

Princeton University professor of mathematics Andrei Okounkov is getting laid to-night! The Fields Medals -- the Nobels of 'rithmetic, given every four years -- were awarded in Madrid today, and Doc Ok's work on the changing surfaces of melting crystals ("The boundary between melted and non-melted is created randomly, but the random process inevitably produces a border in the shape of a heart" -- thanks, New York Times!) got a nod.

Unfortunately, two other winners are hogging all the attention. One is Dr. Terence Tao of UCLA, the youngest Fields winner ever at 31; the other is Dr. Grigori Perelman, a Russian hermit-genius with an insane beard who only, um, solved the Poincaré Conjecture. Apparently it's something that baffled the globe for a century. But, uh ... melting crystals! They're cool too, right?

August 22, 2006 10:25 AM by Nick Summers | Link | Read more: Princeton , Sex , beards , math , prizes

Ian Shapira: Teach us!  Your piece in yesterday's Post on how true Ivy grads pay the U.S. News rankings no heed (not publicly, at least) is like the perfect martini, each ingredient mixed to the molecule.

August 22, 2006 12:36 AM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (2) | Read more: Brown , Columbia , Cornell , Dartmouth , Harvard , Penn , Princeton , Yale

Compute the eight corresponding Eigenvectors in n-space? No problem. Decontextualize Baudrillard's main thesis of radical semiurgy? Piece of cake. Create an actual piece of cake? You know, like chocolate? Ridiculously difficult.

"The only recipe I have the patience to follow is on the back of a Styrofoam cup of noodles: pour hot water, stir, enjoy. Pretty pathetic for a senior at Yale," says Adriane Quinlan, writing about a Washington, D.C. kitchen boot camp in yesterday's Post. Fellow culinary moron Ben Schneider, a junior at Penn, "is a chicken lover who has never actually stared its flesh in the face. He pokes it curiously, as if it could somehow be resuscitated, coddled back to life."

We've long said that the cure for thinking highly of the Ivy League is attending one of its schools. But this -- wait for it! -- takes the cake. [Ed.: Rimshot! We'll be here all week, folks. Tip your waitresses.]

August 21, 2006 8:01 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Read more: Dorm life , Intern , Penn , Yale , food

Betrayed! Today's Times has a story on just how hot Marisha Pessl is ... which they chose to illustrate with a photo that is NOT HOT AT ALL. It's the most egregious display of two-face we've ever witnessed. See for yourselves:

vs.

Deceiver! Janus of the ingenue-lit set! Now we will have to judge your novel on its merits!

Special Topics in Calamity Physics," by Marisha Pessl [Amazon]

[UPDATE 3:37 p.m.: Gawker, you have things backward!]

August 21, 2006 9:38 AM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (5) | Read more: Hotness , marisha pessl

The Washington Monthly thinks so.

In response to the big, corporate McRankings establishment, the magazine's August issue offers its own list. Instead of ranking colleges by alumni giving or selectivity or "peer assessment" (this criterion reeks of smoky back dean's offices), they base their assessments on community service, research, and social mobility. Of course this knocks Harvard down to No. 28 and Princeton to No. 43 -- a cigarette butt in the eye of East Coast elitism.

Because every time a Big Ten school breaks into the Top 10, a Shiite milita disbands.

August 20, 2006 3:54 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (2) | Read more:

Boy, are statistics exciting! Don't know about you, but we spent all weekend curled up with a pint of Chubby Hubby and our bundle of joy -- the $9.95 U.S. News guide to America's Best Colleges.

Here's a quick guide to the guide, if you will:

p. 11 -- "One way [colleges] win you over is to play hard to get." It's true: college admissions is a complex seduction. So approach it as you would any romance. Start by pretending the school doesn't exist. Then, at an Ivy Summit, get it drunk and just start showing up for classes. It worked with Yale, that slut.

p. 16 -- "Qualified men ... can find themselves in a more advantageous position--so much so that college counserlors have begun advising some men to 'emphasize their maleness.' " Many applications now include, next to "height" and "weight", "girth."

 p. 24 -- "[O]ne student from a public high school in central Pennsylvania decided the Ivy League wasn't for him; he preferred a lower-pressure academic environment." Well-meaning slacker-to-be, meet Brown University.

p. 32 -- "A complicated wine-appreciation course ... is reputed to be [Cornell's] most failed course, with roughly 25 of the 600 undergrads enrolled each year receiving an F." Failing. At drinking. Sorry, Cornell, but what is it you do well again?

p. 73--"Research shows that more than half of freshmen go to their first party within the first week of school." Next week: U.S. News reveals what university is named after John Harvard.

August 20, 2006 1:33 AM by Chris Beam | Link | Read more:

GOLIATH SLAIN BY SLIGHTLY SMALLER GOLIATH: PRINCETON CLAWS TO NO. 1 SPOT AS SHATTERED HARVARD PICKS UP THE PIECES
PRES. TILGHMAN DRINKS SWEET VICTORY NECTAR FROM GOLDEN CHALICE; CRIMSON UNABLE TO COMPREHEND NEWS, WON'T UPDATE SITE

PENN PLUNGES THREE SPOTS TO NO. 7
ENTIRE ADMISSIONS STAFF RESIGNS, TAKES OWN LIFE IN HAIL OF SUICIDE-BY-COP GUNFIRE ON 34th ST

DUKE ASSAULT ON IVY LEAGUE FINALLY REPELLED
Blue Devils Blue at No. 8, Three Down; 'Harvard of the South' Now Just 'Of the South'

COLUMBIA CLINGS DESPERATELY TO NINTH PLACE FOR 65th CONSECUTIVE YEAR
'We Have Jeff Fucking Sachs!' Wail NY'ers as Bollinger Forced to Share Manhattan Mansion With Dartmouth Bumpkins

Cornell (No. 12), Brown (No. 15) Increasingly Irrelevant
Don't Deserve All-Caps Headline; Pres. Skorton, Simmons Receive Prank Rearview Mirrors in Mail

Yale Somehow Completely Forgotten Despite No. 3 World Rank

August 19, 2006 9:05 AM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (5) | Read more: Academics , Non-Ivy

Like any card-carrying Ivy Leaguer, you probably like to give your brain a rest from all those deep thoughts (Princeton: "Polo or Izod?" Dartmouth: "North Face or EMS?" Brown: "Sweat-free cotton or tree bark?"). Thank God for faux-ironic marathons of MTV reality shows! The other night we even watched the season premiere of Laguna Beach. Or, more accurately, we wanted to play a drinking game and Laguna Beach happened to be on. It's easy: Every time someone says "like," you take a swig. We recommend a full keg and a siphon if you plan to keep up. Whoever makes it to the first commercial break wins.

August 18, 2006 3:12 PM by Rachael King | Link | Comments (1) | Read more: