Our Cornell frat hazing story has gotten the Internet all in a tizzy; it’s currently lighting up the front page at Huffington Post and enflaming the feisty Gawker-crowd (also, these nerds). Just to add to the fun/fuel the fire, look what we just stumbled on, right on the front-page of the Cornell ADPhi chapter website:

OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Zero Tolerance for Hazing at Alpha Delta Phi

Several Cornell websites help visitors to learn about allegations of hazing at Cornell, report alleged hazing incidents, explore non-hazing group-building activities, and find out what they can do to prevent hazing. Take a look at: Hazing at Cornell and services for victims of hazing.

The best part? The links lead nowhere.

Yes; frats haze, no big deal. We think only an idiot would subject oneself to it, but to each his own.

But lying and hypocrisy? Didn’t know that was a brotherhood kind of thing… Ritual abuse, however “voluntary,” seems a little bit like Monica Lewinsky; you only get in trouble when you start fibbing about it.

There was something about Rumpus’ recently released 50 Most Beautiful list that seemed a little off. No, not the typos, falsifications, or numbers accidentally written in Arabic (seriously). We couldn’t quite put our finger on it. Something about the gradient: white after white after white. Maybe their printers ran out of black ink? If only…

Apparently, in the gossip rag’s esteemed opinion, a disproportionate number of Yale’s pretty people are, well, of the Caucasian variety. We’ll let the ‘50 most’ numbers speak for themselves.

For comparison’s sake, here are the racial demographics of Yale as a whole, courtesy of Questbridge:

(FYI, 20 out of the 29 Rumpus-ites who worked on the issue are white… yup, about 68%)

So, using the power of math, our crack quants at IvyGate HQ have calculated that Rumpus’ 50 Most Beautiful List is 21.6% whiter than Yale in general. Ouch.

So much for the post-racial America, Barry.

Yale’s cruelest and least copy-edited “publication,” Rumpus, just dropped its trademark issue: the much-heralded and uber-nepotistic Yale’s 50 Most Beautiful. And inexplicably, there are 52 people on it. (Oh, and the cover mistakenly advertises 49, see below.) The rarely published and never fact-checked gossip rag also alludes to the exploits of a certain promiscuous “Cock Goblin,” public masturbation in Zeta, and more “truths they couldn’t prove.” Hot off the presses!

But don’t kid yourselves, you tasteless pamphleteers; we’re here for 50 Most. Best ways to get in? Know/hookup with Rumpus staff, make a public fool of oneself, (check, check) be a twin… or be beautiful, too, we guess. IvyGate’s got the list, and the balls to fact-check (stay-tuned).

Stats: The hottest Residential College is Davenport (mine, baby), with nine beautiful people, and the worst represented, Ezra Stiles, with a measly two. There are 11 freshmen, 12 sophomores, 18 juniors, and 11 seniors.

The actual hotness of these snarkily profiled folks is soon TBD. For now, feast your eyes on Movement for Beauty and Justice founder and professional airhead Justine Kolata, who made the issue alongside an exploited and confused horse above. After the jump: the full 50 Most list.

(Photo courtesy of Miranda Lewis, list graciously compiled by Joe Satran)

Read the rest of this entry »

As at least one commenter and several tipsters noted over the weekend, we have thus far held back on the tragic massacre at the University of Alabama, and the subsequent detention of the Harvard-educated prime suspect, Dr. Amy Bishop.

We hadn’t fallen asleep at the wheel — we were, of course, aware that this had happened. But for this editor, at least, there was no good way to write about the subject in light of Gawker’s coverage, such as it was, of Dr. Bishop.

Read the rest of this entry »

$150 million in the red, we could deal with the campy, produced-on-the-cheap admissions video.

Layoffs, salary-cuts and a grad-student exodus? Fine, as long as we get to keep our grade inflation.

We could even maturely handle the upcoming cancellation of our New York Times subscription (well, some of us).

But turning down the thermostats and subsequent Gawker-mockery? Let’s just declare Chapter 11, snag some taxpayer bailout money, and get it over with.

In the wake of endowment horror, Yale President Levin plans to “turn all the thermostats down to 68 degrees.” How uncivilized. Gawker predicts that we will “freeze over,” and (genuinely concerned, obviously) asks

Will the roaring fires built by the manservants in the many imposing hearths of the various student groups’ towering stone mansions provide sufficient warmth for our future leaders?

No, our fellow sassy bloggers. No it won’t. But at least we won’t be as chilly as Emily “I put my head on his shoulder in a completely friendly, professional way” Gould’s cold, cold heart.

Gawker points us to a 2001 Crimson profile of America’s next top conservative pundit, and erstwhile Harvard student, Ross Douthat. In the dwindling of Kristol’s limelight and Glenn Beck moving to some off-the-grid commune with his followers (a boy can dream!), Douthat is one of the more influential conservative pundits, if only for the rare penumbra of sanity — if, you know, prickishness — that comes from his columns. “Move Over Limbaugh,” says the Crimson, but Douthat’s really more like the kid in your Econ lecture who won’t shut up about Ayn Rand. Still annoying, but more human. Sort of. Also, he’s just striking a pose of conservatism so he can be different, which is also like current college students we know!

Douthat has always stood apart from the crowd. As the sole Republican in a “staunch, hardline-Democrat family”, [sic] he formed his conservative worldview from an early age as “a way of rebelling against my parents”. [...] “I am most proud of the fact that I have made—and kept—friends, in spite of the fact that my public persona is to disagree with everyone here.”

At least he knows that writing is all about persona, and not at all about knowing the adjective “Democratic.” Why the Crimson ran a profile of one of their own columnists, we aren’t sure, but thankfully they were wise enough to plant the seeds of doubt in our mind as to whether or not Douthat’s position on “homosexuality” (which he apparently… opposes? Like, in general?) is informed by hard-won experience:

Indeed, his room is adorned with posters of Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe – stars from Hollywood’s glamour heyday – as well as a towering tribute to Gladiator. “I think that Russell Crowe’s evocation of manhood is something all men should aspire to”

Mm-hm. It’s not just glamorous screen divas our Ross loves, though — it’s also power!

“Coming to Harvard, I now have a new sense of the power and success that is at our fingertips – I know I will be one of the 25 richest writers of the future”, [sic] he says.

Well, it’s not the future yet — we’ll know when conservative columnists write their columns from green moon cheese, but Ross, you’re well on your way! Congratulations on leveraging a Harvard degree into, um, what it is you do now.

James Franco, of Spider-Man and Pineapple Express fame, is now a student at Columbia’s School of Arts, where he is pursuing a pricey MFA in writing. News of this has traveled fast, especially around Morningside Heights. It seems like many Columbians have been desperate to catch the star’s attention whenever he makes a public appearance. Gawker, via the Commentariat, reports that recently, while studying in a campus coffee shop, a crowd had formed around him like “cats in heat”:

About 20 minutes later, people start hoarding around the entrance of the cafe, and by 11:50PM, most Columbians, particularly the type of ridiculous, squealing, freshman girl are all harassing the poor guy. At first, he would try not to respond. This made things quite awkward since the gawkers were shameless enough to literally go right up to him in desperate attempts to get his attention. Ha! He thought his headphones had the power to transport him into another world where he could be a student in peace.”

Granted, on the one hand these stalkers should give the poor man some space, but on the other hand Franco should have given more thought to studying in a place as noisy and public as a coffee shop! Someone direct him to one of the quiet wings of Butler ASAP. There will still be students staring at him from across the room but at least in theory they’ll be quiet. If they aren’t he can at least sic the librarians on the worst offenders. On another note, one must wonder what Franco is trying to get out of Columbia to begin with. The Ivy League cachet? Starving artist cred? A sweet book deal with an advance that pays .000001% of the money he makes off a typical blockbuster? Who knows, but good luck!

Seriously, Harvard? Seriously? You have this guy as a professor for six years and not one of you has anything to say about it on ratemyprofessors.com? My disappointment is only rivaled by Associate Professor Summers’ disappointment in the “post-pubescent children of notables� (i.e. bitterness toward his self-chosen path of academic poverty—the non-tenure track).

In a ridiculously self-masturbatory opinion piece for the Times Higher Education, John H. Summers, Harvard history professor, whines about how his wealthy students “worked exceptionally long hours, [and] were aggressive in exercising their talents.� Wait, there’s more! Summers moans, “I had to grade the students, and I had to grade them well. Everyone expected a recommendation letter.�

Wow, really? Hardworking and talented Harvard students expect good grades and recommendation letters? Madness, I tell you. Don’t do it, Professor Summers! Don’t give in to the temptation.

Well, he didn’t. Summers goes on to criticize Harvard’s grade inflation as taking away the “one instrument of power [he] wielded,â€? calling the “tacitâ€? expectation that students earn no lower than a B “a sign of corruptionâ€? that “abridges the academic freedom of the teacher.â€? Read the rest of this entry »

Speaking of exorbitant “independent college admissions counseling,” Sarah Jessica Parker’s next venture is The Ivy Chronicles, based on a book by Karen Quinn. Parker will play Ivy, a woman who loses her job, gets divorced, moves from the Upper East Side to the Lower East Side (which is apparently still affordably bohemian in Movieland) and “starts a business to help upper-middle-class women get their children into elite kindergartens,” or “Baby Ivies.” To summarize another way: “Marking a huge departure from [Parker's] previous acting gig, Ivy is about a single gal in New York City who lives in a series of wildly unrealistic apartments.”

Read the rest of this entry »

So you’re a few hundred grand in debt and fresh-faced in the big city — or, if you’re a Columbia grad, just happy to get out of Morningside Heights — with a B.A. in Comp Lit and, I don’t know, hopes and dreams. Even if your semesters reading Baudrillard don’t have any practical application, you figure that your degree must at least carry some weight, right? Right?

Erroneous, my friends.

Doree Shafrir’s Observer article, “Ivy League Slaves of New York,” is pretty self-explanatory by its subtitle: “America’s best and brightest are unpacking their gilded diplomas and getting to work as assistants in New York’s media dens, pinching themselves at their good fortune. Suckers!”

It appears that many graduates are coming to New York with visions of a swift ascent in a shiny media universe, but are quickly shot down. In fact, a certain brand of diploma might actually work against you:

Ms. Marcus explained that her former place of employment had a policy about not hiring anyone who had gone to an Ivy League school, because ‘they didn’t want people whom they could perceive as a threat.’ (The evidence bears this out somewhat: Ivy League grads do seem partial to cashing in via book deals; Lauren Weisberger, the author of The Devil Wears Prada, graduated from Cornell, and [Bridie] Clark is a Harvard alumna…)”

Well, if your Ivy League credentials are holding you back, you know our favorite fallback option: nepotism! Kidding(ish). Read the rest of this entry »