The Douchiest Colleges in America...

... according to GQ:

http://www.gq.com/entertainment/humor/201108/douchiest-colleges-america-2011#slide=1

It's a slide show that's pretty damn funny. The results:

#10: Florida
#9: MIT
#8: Delaware
#7: Bennington
#6: BYU
#5: Pepperdine
#4: Stanford
#3: Yale (they wuz robbed!)
#2: Penn State
#1: Cornell

(one of the biggests douches I've ever met had a BA from Bennington and an MFA from Cornell. Coincidence? I think not?)

There's no way any college is douchier than Brown. (By the way, my son's acquaintances at Brown swear up and down than yes, per the rumors, Emma Watson was indeed chased out of Brown by douchebag students -- and professors -- who wouldn't stop with the Harry Potter jokes. Why am I not surprised?)

For a while there my son's future college made all three lists, the Douchiest, the Nerdiest, and the Most Hipster. But it fell off the Douche list.

Actually, I thought about Brown a few hours after I posted that. I know a guy who went to RISD and who was amazed that Brown students could be so... well, douchie.

I think Yale can give them a run, though.

And I think they nailed it on BYU and Pepperdine, though.

My son says Pepperdine and Santa Clara are tied for the "stupid party bros who think they're too cool for the Midwest" douche award.

Bennington of course was a worthy selection.

Good call. I wonder if Arizona State still gets the ones who come up 100-200 points short on the SAT for Pepperdine or Santa Clara -- they did in my day.

I wonder if Kurt Rambis would be listed as one of SC's notable douchie alums.

Hmm... UChicago?

Surprised at the lack of a certain school in Evanston. Anyone who's lived on the north side of Chicago knows that their alums can be plenty douchey (google 'trixie' and 'chad').

They nailed it on Cornell's inferiority complex, though. As the Ivy stereotypes go, Brown is for hippies, Dartmouth is for WASPs, Penn is for Jews, Columbia is for Asians, and Cornell is for those who couldn't get into the others.

Yeah those choices make more sense than Chicago, which is where he's going. I don't see Chicago as being particularly hipster, definitely douchy and nerdy though.

Yeah, I eventually rethought it and edited it, as my alma mater does indeed fit all three of those criteria. Hipsters are really just nerds in denial, after all, and Hyde Park has those in spades. Their natural habitats are the Cobb coffee shop and the University Theater lounge.

Where does the Ultimate Frisbee team fit on the taxonomy of hipsterdom?

Yup. Although when I went to Penn, it had Cornell's role -- which is why I was accepted! It was even more Jewish than it is today, too.

Mostly a non-factor except for when they have their parties, which, at least in my day, were the best on campus (granted, that's not saying much).

Speaking of not saying much, a couple of football/lax types were on the UChicago incoming freshman boards last week, being football/lax types. My boy said that everybody jumped on them -- "Shut up you losers, if you were any good at your sport, you wouldn't be coming here."

At his high school the bros were kings, so he's quite happy for the change.

Yeah, Chicago has very few bros. Its subspecies of douche is the pretentious, intellectually arrogant douche rather than the bro.

http://www.secondcity.com/media/mediaplayerfull/41/0/

I think this is the skit I'm thinking of: Football Comes to the University of Chicago, from a forerunner of Second City in the late 50s, early 60s. Can't run it because my work computer doesn't have windows media. Can't find it on youtube.

This is pretty true to life, although in Chicago's defense, it actually was a football powerhouse for quite a bit of the early 20th century. However, Robert Maynard Hutchins considered virtually everything non-academia related as an unnecessary distraction, and during his tenure as university president disbanded the football team in 1939 and abolished Division I athletics on Chicago's campus altogether in 1946. Needless to say, he's one of the more controversial figures in the place's history.

Fixed

No, I group hipsters more with other general posers. Some nerds are hipsters, but definitely not all.

I can accept that.

I actually know a bit about UC and the early history of college football. I didn't know who Hutchins was until I was nearly done with college. I knew Amos Alonzo Stagg when I was around 11, thanks to a library card and several histories of college football in the local public library.

I grew up reading about The Monsters of the Midway (the real ones, not the Bears) and Jay Berwanger. Was a huge football fan, and the library books on college football were OLD, written in the 1950s about the roaring 20s and 30s.

Cornell the safety school. I saw 30Rock kicking it around, "Tracy Morgan doesn't give speeches to safety schools," in turning down an invitation to give the commencement address at Cornell.

Hmmm. One of my son's classmates had a 36 ACT and top grades, Cornell turned him down. That's some safety school alright.

Hipster sighting at Lollapalooza.

Bowler hat. Snidely Whiplash mustache, twirled and curved up at the end. Plunging V neck top, nothing underneath except a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle tattoo on his very bony and skinny chest. Capri pants. Lavender belt. Bare feet.

Hmm, I wouldn't have expected that - I haven't encountered any Orthodox Jews on campus, and the climate there (no doubt due to Edward Said's legacy) is quite pro-Palestinian.

I certainly agree with Yale being on that board, and I also concur with the earlier posters that mentioned Brown.

Everytime I see campus golfers out whacking tennis balls across campus, I wonder if douchieness levels at CU are about to teeter over the brink. It seems to be an activity only played by the douchiest "bros" on campus.

I've heard that called "campus golf" where various points on campuses are used as "holes."

It would seem to be a distinguishing characteristic of douchy colleges, or those that want to be considered such.

The kid reports that even Chicago suffers from having too many bros. It's amazing how even third-rate athletes at D3 schools playing on a money-losing team dress and act as if they are Duke basketball.

I'll have to ask him if there is tennis golf on campus, Lord I hope not.

I wouldn't be surprised if tennis golf in Hyde Park predates Fermi's nuclear reaction under the bleachers at Stagg Field.