Last week, Georgetown sophomore Charley Cooper made national news with a job listing for a personal assistant. He's 20-years old and apparently the whole college affair all too much for him to handle on his own.

According to Vox Populi, the Georgetown Voice's blog, the original as went something like this:

As my PA you will receive an email once a day by 9:00 am with a task list for that day and a time estimate for each task. Important tasks will be bolded on the list and must be done that day (even though everything on the list should theoretically be finished on a daily basis) …

PA example tasks -Organize closet -make bed -Drop off / pick up dry cleaning -Drop me off / pick me up from work -Do laundry -Fill up gas tank -bring car for servicing -schedule appointment for haircut -Pay parking tickets -manage electronic accounts -shopping and running errands -other random tasks.

Needless to say, Georgetown is not in the Ivy League. (And neither is Mr. Cooper.) But when a student does something so god-awful douchey that the Washington Post reports on it, something must be done.

Everyone's favorite Yale student, Aleksey "So Sexy" Veyner, might've done something like this. And Mike Kopko definitely started DormAid, a service that offered maid services to Harvard dorm rooms and pissed off pretty much the entire school. But Georgetown should know better, right?

After the jump, a couple of reasons why not.

Read the rest of this entry »

Dartmouth Seniors Tommy Shanahan and Matt Applegate celebrate the induction of new college President Dr. Jim Yong Kim the only way two white guys know how: with gangsta rap.

Yesterday, the Cornell Sun published a photo of a severed pig's head on the Arts Quad, displayed in all its rotten glory along with a sign proclaiming, "Maybe it's the beast, maybe it's just us."

According to Dear Uncle Ezra, a campus-related advice blog and Cornell's own stand-in Carrie Bradshaw, the slaughtered head may have been a fraternity's collegiate reference to Slope Day, Cornell's drunken end-of-the-year party. It might also be a literary reference to Lord of the Flies. (Too stupid to create their own reputation so they had to steal Dartmouth's and Brown's? We thought as much.) Uncle Ezra went on to elaborate on the accused frat members:

Perhaps, deep inside, they truly crave the common sense authority that members of a mainstream society have and yet they have been denied by this godless institution where apparently "adult" students behave within a supposed institution of higher-learning as if it was merely high school with no rules.... I would hope that, in the future ... other students at Cornell would see past some silly fraternity idiocy and be more disgusted by the deplorable self-poisoning and immorality occurring around the fraternity's fitting choice of symbolism...

Come on, Uncle Ezra, cut them some slack. How else are Cornellians going to allude to Hogsmeade in order to hang onto the one piece of good publicity in a decade?

Brown is the douchiest school in the country, according to GQ. Princeton is number three. Harvard is number four. Does this seem wrong? Keep reading, Deep Springs grads. It gets worse.

Just before the station wagon left the IvyGate garage, GQ published a "heavily researched, possibly stereotyped, but still accurate guide" to the nation's 25 Douchiest Colleges. In their own words, the GQ editors observe the inherent paradox of the douche:

The question isn't whether you're a douche bag when you go to college. We were all kind of douche bags when we went to college, if we're going to be honest about it. No, the question for America's youth is: What kind of douche bag do you aspire to be?

Gottseidank Yalies, Dartmutts, and Columbians, you're off the hook. Harvardians, Princetonians, and Brunonians are not so lucky. Cornell, Penn: honorable mentions don't always need mentioning.

After the jump, what's wrong with the list, and what you can do about it.

Read the rest of this entry »

Remember a time when all you had to do to get a job was be a white male Ivy League graduate and show up? Not since 2004 have such impressive qualifications given you a shot at even the presidency, let alone any other job. In today's tough climate for the white male it's up to the AMC show Mad Men to remind us of how good things used to be. And man, do caucasians love this show.

The third season of the award-winning show premiered last Sunday, and every week for the next three months we will be transported back to the 1960s. It was a time when everyone smoked, "diversity" meant hiring Italians, getting drunk at 10 a.m. was a good day, and cheating on your wife and mistress with a prostitute was the rule. In honor of the third season of this ode to status and excess, we've put together a list to help readers put a face to an alma mater. Hopefully, it'll reinforce some stereotypes as well. Go to red spoiler alert! Read the rest of this entry »

If you are a sports fan, then you have probably heard of ESPN online columnist Bill Simmons. Simmons is also known as "The Sports Guy" where "sports" refers to "the NBA, American League, New England Patriots, and nothing else." The Sports Guy has a massive fan following thanks to his rare mutant power of using Al Pacino movies as analogs for any and all real-world situations. His fans are very loyal and will often cite his opinions in sports discussions. But in Simmons' reader mailbag from Friday, one young fan--a Sam from New York--happily admitted to taking his devotion to another level.

I'm 18 and just graduated high school. When my college decisions came in in April, I narrowed down my choices to Dartmouth and Princeton and had no idea what to do. Whether it's teenage indecision or my relative laziness, the only thing I could think of was your pure hatred for Princeton. So I chose Dartmouth. You, Bill Simmons, made the biggest decision I have ever made. Most likely, you will be responsible for whatever shenanigans I go through in life. Just wanted to let you know and say thanks.

Congratulations Dartmouth! A kid who makes a major decision largely based on the opinion of an ESPN sports columnist he has never met is now yours. Don't be surprised if his fall class schedule is influenced by Jayson Stark's NL Wild Card prediction.

Now in Bill Simmons' response to Sam's e-mail, you might expect him to feel slightly apologetic for the way in which Sam apparently hangs on his every word. You'd expect Simmons to write, "Gee Sam, I'm flattered at how much my opinions matter to you, but you shouldn't let what I think influence your decisions--especially one as important as which college to attend. There are plenty of reasons for you to opt to attend Dartmouth over Princeton and plenty of reasons to opt for the reverse. However, my opinion that anyone who attends Princeton is an a-hole should not be a factor."

But that isn't a very funny response. So instead, Bill Simmons writes this: Read the rest of this entry »

Are you a recent college graduate living in Manhattan? Does the white-collar job you kept at the expense of thousands of others not excite you anymore? Has New York City turned dull after living and working there for nearly three months? Well you don't have to stay in your comfortable rut anymore!

Dartmouth grad and former Wall Streeter Maia Josebachvili started Urban Escapes NYC, a company that organizes outdoor expeditions--backpacking, rock climbing, fruit picking, and the like--for yuppies bored with New York. Excursions on offer for the gainfully employed range from one-day hikes for $55 to a week in the Yucatan Peninsula for $600. Of course if you opt for the latter, you may not be gainfully employed for much longer once those photos from that nightclub in Playa del Carmen are posted on Flickr.

The high costs of these trips are actually fair deals when you consider transportation, guides, and food. And when compared to other enterprises from Ivy Leaguers, Urban Escapes is a worthwhile venture. However, there is still this air of pretentiousness about Josebachvili's company. Urban professionals who have already lost interest in New York paying a significant amount of money (whitewater rafting costs about the same as a senior week wine tour) to leave the city and rough it for a day or two. The website also says that on these trips you'll "meet fantastic and interesting new people in a totally different setting." Because it's so hard to meet new people on your own when you're in a city of 8 million people. You can't really Facebook friend someone until you share a kayak with them. Read the rest of this entry »

Attention Elis: You may have already won the Swine Flu Clearinghouse! According to the Yale University Health Services, at least four patients are currently being treated for influenza A and awaiting test results from the Connecticut Department of Health, AKA Swine Flu Central.

While other schools seem to be sticking to the Cover Your Cough handbook, Yale looks like they might actually be taking this shit seriously. Because kids are dying. In Mexico. Accordingly, the Yale administration has put a stop on all funding to go to Mexico based on a campus-wide email that made it into our tip box. (Don't worry, students are going to go anyways. Chiapas is crazy this time of year.)

In an unexpectedly extreme move, Dartmouth is actually pulling kids out of Mexico. It looks like the 11 study abroaders at the Dartmouth Language School Abroad program in Cholula might not learn the subjunctive case after all. Hopefully they got in on the hot sauce manufactured there. You know, the one with the wooden top. IvyGate favorite, that is.

After the jump, a school-by-school report of the biggest health scare in the United States that doesn't really seem all that scary. But it's always fun seeing surgical masks in the street.

Read the rest of this entry »

Dartmouth student body presidential candidate John Nolan '10 got double busted for ass-kissing and bull-shitting on Friday. First Nolan criticized the current administration in last Wednesday's presidential debate, then wrote a long SSS (sorry so sloppy letter) right after -- only to have it printed in the D the very next day. Thank god for press-savvy 20-somethings and their impeccable knowledge of how and when to leak embarrassing information to the press. Especially after Nolan won't shut up about not getting any press coverage.

In some wording that's slightly above jungle gym talk, Nolan explained in an email to Bode and Assembly Vice President Nafeesa Remtilla ‘09:

“Yes, I could go about playing the likeable card, the approachable card, be a people pleaser, and smile and nod and maybe pull off some Sara [sic] Palin winks,” Nolan said in the e-mail. “But at the end of the day, if I do that, and I lose to [Vernon], I’m going to regret this experience.”

It gets better:

“When I tried to be politically correct, I didn’t get press coverage,” he wrote. “I need my name out there. I need the exposure. I need to make waves to win, and that’s all I’m doing.”

Everybody's new best friend, Nolan goes onto point out how he didn't really mean all those things he said, didn't want to do anything "dirty," and just wants to win win win. Way to break  rule number one of behind-closed-doors-dirty politics: Don't talk about dirty politics.

Given the fact that Dartmouth students have recently had some problems with sending regretable emails, we're starting to wonder if maybe Hanover shouldn't have electricity. At least Nolan (probably) didn't pull any race cards and will likely just lose and enjoy our awesome Google ranking for the rest of his political career.

Today, we belatedly return to the story of Mohammad Usman, the former Dartmouth student who pled guilty two weeks ago to defrauding the College of over $18,000. Usman’s fabrication of aid and grants carries a maximum of fifteen years in jail. (He’ll serve much less, if any).

We bring him up now for two reasons. First, what’s the deal?? Who is this budding con artist? Dish, y’all. Second, a tipster pointed out, well, who he is: no stranger to publicity, Usman spent his sophomore fall as the only boy at Wellesley. A Dartmouth administrator told him his plan to transfer to the all-female institution for a semester was “impossible,” but already Usman was no man to be held back by mere rules.

I believe the word is chutzpah. The Boston Globe wondered, why go snorkeling in estrogen? To live the liberal-arts ideal of “experiencing a wide variety of things.” Well, if you insist, he’ll cop to being “very attracted to intelligent women.” All that, and some MASSIVE foreshadowing: “It's important to me to get the most of my 50 Gs.”

(Note that when he spoke to the Globe, Usman entered Breastchester single. Interviewed later by Cornell’s Kitsch, his story flipped---a pre-existing “relationship ended while he was still at Wellesley.” Human; all too human.)

The Wellesley coup made Usman a “folk hero” among his friends, and that was before he tried to scam Dartmouth.  You have to be impressed by the pair on this kid, if nothing else. As Nietzsche said, “One is punished most for one’s virtues.” Tell us more about this Icarus of thinking outside all the wrong boxes (well...). You have to hope the bilking wasn’t motivated by the recession, which obviously isn’t real.