A couple of days ago, a drunk Harvard Law grad Brian Schroeder burned down a chapel containing the remains of and memorials to unidentified 9/11 victims. Schroeder turned himself into police soon thereafter and posted the $3,000 bail Sunday night.

The remains managed to make it out unscathed thanks to some badass, apparently fireproof chambers made to protect the DNA that might one day identify the victims. The wooden benches, cards, photos, flowers, and other painfully sweet memorials, however, did not have badass, fireproof containers. They were destroyed.

Of course, Schroeder's friends and family think he's a real stand-up guy and that the incident was somewhat out of character. According to his mother:

[Brian] doesn't really have any explanation or memory of what took place. Now, he's just trying to minimize the damage to his career and make amends. You know, take responsibility and move on.

Do go on, Mrs. Schroeder...

I'm appalled and my heart goes out to [the families who had built memorials to loved ones lost in the 9/11 attacks at the E. 30 St. chapel]. Because I know it's basically like a cemetery and a memorial that's so very important. I just cannot imagine, nor can he, why he would have done that.

Bingo. Why would you do that? Seriously, dude, burning down a cemetery/memorial is not a funny prank. This is a somewhat funny, Ivy League prank. But let's go on the record and just say stop trying, Ivy League-rs. Or you will lose your job and your six-figure salary. Like Brian did.

Oh, and it might help if you stopped wearing those Ed Hardy t-shirts. That shit is made of the devil's old underwear or something.

UPDATE: The prank was actually pulled by the Pundits. More below.

Over the next few hours before Yale's tap night, a few sorry Scroll and Key hopefuls will be finishing up their applications to join the secret society.  We're sorry all you wannabe Keysmen. It's a hoax. And if our well-informed hunch proves to be correct, it's yet another Rumpus hoax.

Several anonymous tips came in to us over the past day or so calling Wolf on an obviously fake email. In short, the message said that Society of Scroll and Key would be opening up the 2010 Delegation to applications.  (!?!)

After the jump, a little bit of banter about Rumpus and the full text of the hoax email.

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There's about 5 hours left for excusable shenanigans this year, and we double dare you to impress us. Because so far, this year's April Fools' Day has in no way involved subway trains springing from the ground, the Taco Liberty Bell, Smellovision, or anything else that actually fooled or entertained. The most interesting pitiful prank in our narrow yet elite frame comes from Unigo, that site that sounds like a Japanese clothing chain but isn't.

On the tails of all those racist emails and Ivy League denials, Unigo created a listing for Cornmouth because evidently Dartmouth and Cornell have merged due to their "flaccid endowments." Yes, Unigo. That quote got you the prize. This little slice of truth for the rejects out there is also not bad:

Cornmouth is a member of the Ivy League, which means that it is prohibitively expensive and filled with people who are smarter than we are. The guy who smokes pot 10-15 times a day, often out of a piece of fruit, is smarter than we are... The fellow who wears an eye patch for nonmedical reasons and literally changed his name (first and last) to "Why" is smarter than we are. These awful people are just some of the reasons you will not get into Cornmouth.

As for the real Cornell, the Daily Sun did an awesome job ripping off the Guardian's Twitter fakeout. Then there's the Harvard alum who painstakingly Harvardized the style of the Drudge Report into a wine guide. And we're still wondering who thought Photoshopping a CGI catapult into a picture of Brown's campus and then talking about the SDS would be funny. Probably the same dude that's smoking pot out of fruit.

(Editor's note: Gone are days when Facebook pokes were real, and Brunonians took the resultant sex jokes to their proper climax. Maybe Easter will be funny?)

Googling Princeton's still spanking new, eBay-funded Whitman College now yields a misleading (but telling?) opportunity to buy the heart attack inducing weight-loss drug Phentermine. Common side effects include: change in sexual desire, psychosis, and hostility with urge to attack. The drug is also one half of Fen-Phen, reaper of the late-90s, pre-WebMD death spree.  Sound like any Whitman students?

While searching for "Whitman College Princeton" brings up the offer to buy the drug for impressively low and prescription free prices, the link clicks through to Princeton's site. Whether it's a pointed prank or a likely hack on some careless IvyGate editor's laptop remains to be seen. But we can only hope Princeton's not headed for some controlled substance induced attack from some skinny, sex-starved, palpitating nutter. Those poor Tigers had enough trauma with that awful run in with deadly laptop stealers from MS-13 a couple years back.

A memo sent from Dartmouth Assistant Director of Admissions to student tour guides:

Date: 04 Apr 2008
From: Sarah M. Damerville
Subject: Tour Streaking - Please Read

Hi Everyone,

It has come to our attention that a few of you have had your tours "streaked" in the past few weeks. Yesterday, one of our admissions officers watched as a group of young men streaked through our 11:15 am tour at very close proximity. If this has happened to you, or if you know the students who are streaking our tours, please let me know so we can contact them.

While I am sure the streakers don't intend to offend or harm anyone, they need to remember that we have a wide range of visitors to our campus, and prospective families (which often include both parents and significantly younger siblings) may be intimidated or offended by this behavior.

After the jump: The rest of the email, and Dartmouth embed Daniel Belkin ('08) takes an in-depth look Damerville's dilemma and at his school's storied traditions of public nudity and prank-ery.

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The Daily Pennsylvanian - yet again proving true the axiom that Ivy League Dailies have no senses of humor - wants to make sure that you do not enjoy April Fool's Day. After campus pranksters began placing tickets to a "secret" Obama event scheduled for April 1 in Easter eggs scattered around campus, the newspaper's "journalists" decided that most students probably wouldn't be able tell the whole thing was a joke and that they therefore had to "break" the "story."

For some, April Fools' Day has come early -- despite the "Obama" eggs scattered around campus and the flyers posted on Locust Walk saying otherwise, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama will not be speaking at Irvine Auditorium tomorrow night."

I guess the DP was worried that some incredibly gullible hopemongers in the student body would fall for the prank, which obviously would have been tragic.  God forbid kids who believe everything they ever see or read should have to suffer the non-existent consequences of their non-actions.

Still, the DP was too lazy to do any follow-up: who was behind the hoax?  What did students think of the hoax? Etcetera.

As our tipster wrote, "I don't know whether to laugh or cry."

Happy April Fool's, folks.

Every exam period we at IvyGate thank our lucky stars we do not go to Harvard, where repressed smart kids like to let loose and run nude and have sex in the streets, or something, as part of the strange ritual known as Primal Scream. But just because we don't want to see it doesn't mean we don't hear about it. IvyGate operative Alterrell Mills watched his peers frolic in their skivvies and wrote in.

Primal Scream. Smart people running wildly. Idiots frolicking in the cold. Call it what you will, but one thing that was different about this year's merriment to mark the end of reading period and the start of exams was that it came too soon. Starting about seven minutes or so early, breaking with the traditional kick-off occurring at midnight, the first of the naked future Bill Gateses ran their glorious lap around Harvard Yard. Notable appearances for the cold-shrinking time included athletes, hairy guys, fat guys …and a surprising amount of girls! I'd put the count of females at about 30% depending on President Faust's inclusion, a rarity for the usual pre-exam sausage fest.

Per usual, some Harvard students decide to do things "differently." Three girls, probably freshman, ran hand in hand, their intimates purple. Does purple come out with laundry detergent in those kinds of places? The highlight was when one of the girls fell and looked as if she was going to vomit, before her two naked friends lifted her back up from the ground. None of the guys running past her thought to help her, but happily ran past as the audience (yeah it was a show, the admission to get in was the shame in seeing your resident tutors observing alongside you) just laughed. The only thing to top this girl's performance was that of a wheelchair-bound student who rolled his way around the Yard.

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Okay, so by Monday we meant today. Regardless! An anonymous prankster lulled us out of our stupor yesterday with a delightful stunt: emailing the entire student body with the names of the (alleged) recent inductees of the secret societies Skull & Bones, Scroll & Key, and Wolf's Head. (Skulls above; full image after the jump.)

Yes, Rumpus prints this list each year -- but that's usually done at the end of the term, with the names of graduating seniors. While we've written before that outing secret societies usually just serves to validate the egos of those involved, this prank carries some undeniable juice: Tap Day was April 19, so these poor elites had just 10 days to savor the secrecy.

Also noteworthy: whoever was responsible appears to have hijacked the Yale College Council / Yale Student Activities Committee email system -- again. Are all college stunts/pranks going digital? You can't email a cow onto a rooftop, people.

Read the rest of this entry »

From: Yale College Council
Date: March 27, 2007 12:33:36 AM EDT
To: undisclosed-recipients: ;
Subject: Your Spring Fling 2007 Performers: Coming Tuesday, May 1st!

Two hours and 11 minutes, actually.

The above image (click to embiggen) landed in every Yale undergrad's inbox shortly after midnight, announcing this year's Spring Fling performers as Smashmouth and Ricky Martin. Last year's headliners were Ludacris and Ben Folds, so that would have been quite a letdown. As college pranks go, this was somewhere way below Drinkin' Time and way above the reinstatement of Larry Summers. But, all things considered, we give the parties responsible -- we're told it's three gents folks by the name of Amun Storres Arun Storrs, Zijun Chen and Jayson Tischler* -- a B for finely calibrated plausibility and Photoshop skillz.

Alas! New Haven yawned, not a soul convinced, more concerned with reacclimating after spring break and furiously de-tagging incriminating photos on Facebook. And at 2:47 a.m., the not-fazed-whatsoever Yale College Council responded in kind. If video killed the radio star, Internet killed the campus prankstar.

From: "Yale College Council" <ycc@yalestation.org>
Date: March 27, 2007 2:47:55 AM EDT
To: [Redacted]
Subject: Your Spring Fling 2007 Performers: Coming Tuesday, May 1st!

(No, it's not Smashmouth and Ricky Martin either.

Find out through the YDN in a couple of weeks.)

*UPDATE March 28: Given that we a) misspelled the first person's name, b) had the wrong gender on the second, and c) are now told by the third ("Error!!!") that he had nothing to do with the original email, we think it's pretty fair to say our tipster was misinformed about who was involved. Disregard!

Pranks! Do they ever get old?

Yes, yes they do. The latest comes to you c/o the Harvard Lampoon, the group of castle-ridden humorists who seem to hit comedy gold whenever they're not publishing their regular magazine. Like the time they sent out a fake e-mail from University Health Services asking Harvard freshmen to bring in stool samples. Or their parody issue of the short-lived literary erotica journal H-Bomb (tremendous detail: a photo of a dildo with "Borges" scrawled on it in Sharpie).

This time Harvard students were treated to the following e-mail:

From: Presidential Search Committee <psearch@harvard.edu>
Date: Feb 3, 2007 6:20 PM
Subject: Announcement from the Presidential Search Committee
To: undisclosed-recipients

February 2007

Dear Members of the Harvard Community,

On behalf of Harvard's governing boards, we write to inform you that a
decision has been reached regarding Harvard's next president. The search
for Harvard's next president has been a long and arduous process.
Students, faculty, and alumni alike have dedicated countless hours
throughout these past seven months. Special thanks are in order to the
undergraduate student advisory committee: Whitney S. F. Baxter '07,
Katherine A. Beck '08, and Vivek G. Ramaswamy '07.

We are pleased to announce the reinstatement of Lawrence H. Summers as
Harvard's once and future president. We understand that the decision may
come as a surprise to those that have been following the selection
process. After reviewing the candidates, however, we have come to the
conclusion that Dr. Summers is best suited to lead Harvard, particularly
in our plans for Allston and beyond.

To address concerns regarding Dr. Summers' previous tenure, we will be
hosting an open forum discussion with Dr. Summers to be held in Sanders
Theater on February 5, at 5:00 P.M. Three hundred seats will be
available for undergraduate students, to be distributed by an open
lottery. To enter the lottery, please call the Presidential Search
Committee at (617) [re]-[dacted], and leave your name and e-mail address. The
deadline to enter is tonight, February 3, at midnight.

Again, thank you for your patience and support throughout this process.

Sincerely,

The Presidential Search Committee

The phone number provided was, in some of the e-mails, that of the Harvard Crimson's newsroom. In others, it was the cell number of former Crimson President Will Marra. (The poor guy was also the butt of a similar Lampoon joke last year, when they informed all freshmen they'd been given a raw deal in the housing lottery and told them to call Marra to apply for reassignment.) Apparently the Crimson's phones were ringing off the hooks on Saturday. Which raises the question: Are people really that dumb? If part one of the prank was weak, part two was just a letdown. A second e-mail followed:

From: Office of the Dean of Harvard College <gross@fas.harvard.edu>
Date: Feb 3, 2007 7:10 PM
Subject: Please Read
To: undisclosed-recipients

Dear Students, 

Please disregard the earlier e-mail labeled "Announcement from the Presidential Search Committee."  The e-mail was a hoax.  We are currently looking into the source of this misinformation.

Given the substantial confusion caused by the incident, we feel compelled to make the actual announcement one day early.  Former Dean of Harvard Law School, Elena Kagan, has been selected as the 28 ^th President of Harvard University.  An official press release will be issued in the upcoming hours, as well as a more formal introduction.

Getting 50 people to call the Crimson and Will Marra is funny, in a "we thought this up in 20 minutes, aren't we incorrigible" way. But a second e-mail, planned in advance, kind of signals Big Lampoon Prank, and if there's a soul who didn't see through it, well, maybe you can blame it on thesis stress. Please, Lampoon: tell us there's a part three waiting to be unfurled. You can do better than this ... right?