Princeton freshman Diane Metcalf-Leggette is suing the university for not allowing her extra time on exams. Citing a learning disability, Metcalf-Leggette claimed that without the special concessions she might not do well on her midterms.
It's called freshman year, Diane. Most people don't do well on their first midterms.
But really, there's a bigger issue at stake. The place for learning disabilities on campus is generally drowning in a vat of amphetamine-soaked distrust. Diagnoses are diagnoses, right? Metcalf-Leggette has a whole bunch of them. According to The Prince:
Metcalf-Leggette’s complaint asserted that she has four learning disabilities, which were diagnosed in 2003: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), mixed-receptive-expressive language disorder, disorder of written expression and developmental coordination disorder. The conditions, according to the complaint, hinder her ability to focus, process information and communicate in writing.
So should the University trust the doctors and give this girl some help? Oh wait, they already do.
The University currently accommodates Metcalf-Leggette’s disabilities by offering her a “reduced distraction testing environment,” a limit of one exam per day and a 10-minute break each hour, the law journal reported.
Get to know the Americans with Disabilities Act and fury of testing the Tiger after the jump.
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?
People who think the surreal but entertaining high school drama of bad teen movies end after "Pomp and Circumstance" stops playing obviously haven't been to Princeton. An anonymous source recently called out a group of freshman girls who have been referring to themselves as "The Tribe" around campus. Perhaps trying to fight the widespread notion that Princeton girls are the fugliest in comparison with the sexier Ivies by proclaiming themselves as the hottest girls at Princeton, Regina George and company appear to be taking full advantage of rush week and using their marketing prowess to gain entry into one of the exclusive sororities on campus (cross your fingers for Kappa!). Apparently, the girls not only seek exclusivity in social organizations, but also in choice of sexual partners, according to the source, who claims:
They have decided that they are so hot that they will only hook up with legacies and athletes.
Feign surprise at Princeton exclusivity after the jump.
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.
HYP: Time to celebrate. Everyone else: Get ready to be pissed off.
Justin Pope over at the Associated Press scooped the US News & World Report college rankings by 6 and a half hours. While we vivisected some of the rankings from the the Princeton Review's "Best 371 Colleges" and Forbes, no one cares about those lists.
Onward past the jump to the rankings that really matter, which we arrange into a handy, numbered list, because for some reason Pope didn't do that. 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 »
Yesterday, Gawker posted a YouTube clip of professional insane person Glenn Beck promoting one of his books. What makes the clip noteworthy is that Beck tries to encourage people outside his usual audience to purchase his book. The way in which he attempts to pitch to liberals is mesmerizing. He says that Harry Potter changed his daughter's life and that he feels like a fraud compared to other authors. And this is a man who thinks that Americans will be using toenail clippings as currency by 2014 at the latest. The most important of the liberal-enticing snippets Beck throws out comes near the end of the video (around 2:20).
I invite you to read the book. And mainly because my middle daughter, she wants to go to Columbia. Do you have any idea of the price of Columbia? Please buy the book. Buy two. Buy three.
If we had to guess which college Glenn Beck's daughter wanted to attend--knowing nothing about her other than the fact that she's Glenn Beck's daughter--we'd have guessed something like Oral Roberts or Liberty. Columbia would be about 316th on our list. Hell, if she likes Harry Potter so much, why doesn't she want to go to Yale?
What's interesting about this video clip is that while it was only put up on YouTube by Simon and Schuster this week, it was made two years ago. Hence why the video sees Beck hawking An Inconvenient Book, which was released in the Fall of 2007. Today, he would have a more difficult time using a video to promote a book of his to liberals, as saying that President Obama hates white people doesn't really endear one to the left. Or sanity. (And by the way, when Brian Kilmeade is the sane one in a conversation, you know that something epically ludicrous was uttered.)
A few months after the video clip was made, Glenn Beck's daughter still desired to attend Columbia. In fact, Beck took his daughter to visit the campus and go on a tour in April of 2008. Beck wrote a long blog post (of course Glenn Beck has a blog!) about the visit and his impression of the school. And yes, his opinion of Columbia is exactly what you imagine it to be: that he thinks it's full of Communists and the French. Some sic-filled highlights after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
Yale students are no doubt happy, but are they also gayer than their counterparts at other schools? That according to the latest issue of Yale Alumni Magazine, whose cover purports to explain "Why They Call Yale the Gay Ivy." What you find out quickly is the reason they call Yale the Gay Ivy is because they call it the Gay Ivy.
In addition to the 1987 declaration "Suddenly Yale is a gay school," the assiduous editors offer such hard-hitting journalism as citing Wikipedia (but who doesn't?) and availing themselves of that old saw, anecdotal evidence:
Yale probably does, however, have a higher proportion of gay students than other Ivies; there are no statistics, but many gay Yale students think it's true. And if you walk around campus for a while on your visit, you may see a gay couple holding hands.
Well, if Yale students think it's true, it must be. The fact gay Yalies are more comfortable holding hands than they might at, say, Princeton, where the gay community reportedly turns to Craig's List for discreet hook-ups, supports the claim a bit more, though.
After the jump: how Yale came out, angry alumni commenters, and Patrick Bateman explains how he knew Yale was the Gay Ivy all along.
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."
It's not surprising that 70 percent of Supreme Court Justices seated since 1950 attended some Ivy League institution—Harvard and Yale have the best law schools in the country. When George W. Bush had to make up for the embarrassment that was Harriet Miers, he went withSamuel Alito, a graduate of Princeton and a Yale Law alumnus. President Obama continued the trend by nominating Sonia Sotomayor last May, betting she would have an easy time getting confirmed withalma maters identical to Alito's. Except for the fact that Alito was a conservative student who hated the liberal Princeton administration and Sotomayor was a liberal student who hated the conservative Princeton administration.
The hearings start next Monday and with endorsements from the ABA, the Fraternal Order of Police, and former FBI director Louis Freeh,Sotomayor is likely to be confirmed as the first Hispanic Justice and the 1,000,000th Ivy League graduate on the Court. This is despite drawing fire for supposedly claiming a "wise Latina" would make better decisions than a white man. Analysis of the Senate Judiciary Committee's sympathy for Princeton grads after the jump.