Matthew Tso is running for New Mexico State Senate and he went to Dartmouth, dammit. Or at least he says. After months of speculation and poking around, it’s been verified that Tso entered Dartmouth as a student in 1996, but that’s pretty much all that’s true about what this guy is saying.

According to local papers, Tso has put his student records on lockdown, refusing to allow anyone to verify his graduation. Last week, Dartmouth spokesperson said that Tso initiated a “confidentiality hold” on his records, which sounds much more intense than it probably is, effectively prohibiting the college from releasing any information. Sounds like someone is trying to hide something, eh Tso?

Probably more damning to Tso’s Ivy credentials though is this little tidbit: “Last September, a Dartmouth spokesman told The Farmington Daily Times that Tso attended Dartmouth but did not graduate.” I think we can safely say that what Tso is hiding is his bold-faced lie about his Dartmouth degree. C’mon man, even the college is saying you don’t have one. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the weekend we received this charming tip from someone at Brown:

If you’re having a slow news day, you might want to have fun with this
A chick named [REDACTED] (class of ’13) has posted a number of pics of herself
engaged in all sorts of Brown-related silliness.
My personal favorite is her and a friend sneaking around the Whispering Arch
(attached)
Her OKCupid account, by the way, is [REDACTED]
Links: [REDACTED]

Attached were pictures clearly lifted from Brown Bares, a pun-tastic, semi-famous Reddit forum on which Brown students “Bear” all—ha! oh god!—for the clicks and comments of their enlightened, sex-positive peers. Or, in English, it’s basically naked Brown students.

When we received the tip, the first thing we thought was: we probably shouldn’t be checking IvyGate’s email account while waiting in line at CVS. But the second thing we thought was: do we really want to ruin Brown Bares for our own—what? Pageviews? Unique visitors?  Unlike, say, oh, one or two IvyGate celebrities, these Brown kids eagerly posting their flesh online aren’t in it for attention or power or whatever it is that Brunonians consider the meta-currency of their hipster fortress. (Reblogs?) Read the rest of this entry »

10,000 miles away from Cambridge, the Harvard Class of 2016 has become a heated political talking point. Yes, that’s right, Harvard’s recently released admission numbers are adding to already turbulent political turmoil in Malaysia, currently undergoing an education emergency. What could possibly be so contentious to spark outrage from leading members of the Malaysian government?

For the second year in a row, Harvard did not accept anyone from Malaysia. Worse, none of Malaysia’s applicants this year were even worth interviewing. Ouch, guys. Read the rest of this entry »

As the 2012 election nears, politicians across the board has been offering their esteemed opinions. But there has been one voice notably missing: former New York State gubernatorial candidate, and current presidential candidate, Jimmy “The Rent is Too Damn High” McMillan.

That changes tonight, when McMillan teams up with Yale senior Michael Knowles to premiere their new online political talk show “Too Damn Live.” In an interview with IvyGate, Knowles called the live show “a mixture between Firing Line and Ringling Bros circus” and said it would host a featured guest every week.

Read the rest of this entry »

“Despite the 14 Advanced Placement tests (11 top scores) and two consecutive placings in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair under his belt, he found no welcome at any of the eight Ivy League schools, and neither did his co-founded company aid him in clinching even a position on the wait-lists of several of their peers.”

Because: “He’s an Asian applying for financial aid.”

No, it’s not a late April Fools joke. Dartmouth’s medical school is now The Geisel School of Medicine—i.e., Theodore Geisel, a.k.a Dr. Seuss. A tipster forwarded us the following email, which was sent out an hour ago. There’s a joke in here somewhere.

Dartmouth Names Medical School in Honor of Audrey and Theodor Geisel

Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth is fourth-oldest medical school in the
U.S.

Dartmouth College announced today the naming of its medical school, founded in
1797, in honor of Audrey and Theodor Geisel. Their generosity to Dartmouth
during their lifetimes and through their estate plan renders the Geisel family
the most significant philanthropist to Dartmouth in its history. Theodor
“Ted” Geisel, known worldwide as the author and illustrator, “Dr.
Seuss,” was a Dartmouth graduate of the Class of 1925. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, it doesn’t get much worse than this. MIT researcher Yaron Segal, who received his Ph.D. at Yale last year, was arrested last Wednesday in Colorado after flying there to have sex with a mother and her two daughters, aged 12 and 16. Yes, that’s right, 12 and 16. The good news is the whole thing was a set-up by the Department of Homeland Security, who had been tracking Segal for months. The bad news is … well, he was trying to have sex with a 12 year old. That’s just awful.

Segal, currently a post-doc in MIT’s mechanical engineering department, had been in contact with what he must thought was a lovely mother and her lovely illegal daughters since early February. He first got in touch with undercover Homeland Security agent Vanessa Hipps through online chatrooms such as “childslavesex” and “ChildRapeTortureBrutality.”  Read the rest of this entry »

In the latest issue of The Baffler, a wonderful person (and former blogger for Washington City Paper) named Moe Tkacik lambasts The Atlantic’s “soothing IV drip of of frictionless, borderless, culturally agnostic thought-output” with a history of the magazine’s owner, David Bradley. Who, apparently, is obsessed with the Ivy League—to the point that he appointed an intern to catalog its most annoying ambitious students:

[David Bradley] also scouts for career changers: one sad intern spent a summer in the mid-aughts compiling a spreadsheet indicating the location and employment status for every president and vice president of every extracurricular club to have graduated from any of the eight Ivy League schools in the previous decade.

This explains so much. Bradley went to Swarthmore, a small, unpronounceable college in suburban Pennsylvania known primarily for rejecting the kid in your high school who got into Harvard and Yale (and Obama? Supposedly?), so perhaps this was inevitable. Tkacik’s whole essay is a gem (though not online, to our infinite sadness) so go read it, somewhere! (And tell former IG editor Adam Clark Estes we’re very sorry.)

Update: link added.

Journalist Barbara Walters was announced today as Yale’s 2012 Class Day Speaker, and students could not be unhappier. Walters is an Emmy-winning television journalist who in her 40 years of professional experience has interviewed more world leaders than we can name, including every U.S. President from Gerald Ford to Barack Obama. But that’s just not good enough for Yale.

Based on the comments of Yale’s Cross Campus blog, Yalies are all up in a tizzy over Walters. At least two commenters express hope that this is an April Fool’s Day prank, and there is a small movement to bitch so much that she just doesn’t show.

Here’s the epitome of the backlash, from commentator Branfoil: “I’m actually patiently waiting for an email revealing this is an april fool’s joke. I can’t believe the SCC dropped the ball so badly on this one. At least I’ll have videos of Tom Hanks and bill Clinton giving class day speeches. I’ll just pretend I graduated those years instead. Maybe we can convince Barbara Walters that we don’t want her to speak and then she’ll decline.”

Classy.  Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, Deadspin reported that Cornell’s Sigma Chi fraternity required a pledge to dress up as Jets QB Mark Sanchez and give fake autographs around Ithaca as a part of the frat’s Hell Week. (The accompanying photo is sort of funny—two other pledges functioned as fake-Sanchez’s security detail—but otherwise we guess you had to be there.) Anyway, Sig Chi hurriedly notified Deadspin that fake-Sanchez and his crew were not their pledges. Which is kind of weird, because the stunt seemed somewhat creative, if pretending to play football is creative.

More importantly, they were Sig Chi pledges, according to tipsters at Cornell. See, Cornell president David J. Skorton wrote a Times op-ed about fraternities and sororities (and whose title was a pun on “pledge”) back in August, several months after the hazing-related death of Cornell sophomore George Desdunes ’13 last February:

This tragedy convinced me that it was time — long past time — to remedy practices of the fraternity system that continue to foster hazing, which has persisted at Cornell, as on college campuses across the country, in violation of state law and university policy.

Hazing, of course, has an imprecise definition; but in his op-ed, Skorton denounced pledging, too. He argued that, since “pledging” almost always shades into “hazing,” the Greek system needed to find a better way to acclimate new members. So, sure, those pledges aren’t Sigma Chi pledges—but only insofar as “pledges” aren’t supposed to exist, at least at Skorton’s Cornell. But they’re from Sig Chi nonetheless. (Know more? Get in touch.)