Rolling Stone has a story from Dartmouth. 

I've often said that the behavior of our elected and appointed officials in DC and most of corporate leadership mirrors this dysfunctional, self-protecting fraternity mentality.

Good to see someone pointing out why.


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That boy's got somethin' wrong with his medulla oblongata.

Well, I can't say that I am terribly surprised.  Many of these fine upstanding students go on to become prominent politicians and leaders of America's corporate world. Makes sense.

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BTW, that story is subscriber access only, but there's a wormhole link at Arts & Letters Daily, a great place to find, um, intelligent stuff.

I've long had a running game of figuring out what colleges might have at least been interesting to apply to back when I was 17 and pretty stupid.  I don't think UC San Diego existed at the time, wouldn't have gotten in as an out-of-state student anyway.  Wouldn't have gotten into the University of Chicago, either, but it seems the perfect anti-Dartmouth.

I don't know when they were founded, but UCSD's CompSci department was pretty famous circa 1982 for the UCSD Pascal compiler on the Apple II.

With an establishment like the Salk Research Institute, I imagine they've been prominent in things biological for a while.

You can't be that old!!!

I've given thought to Georgia Tech for more grad school, especially with so many online degrees available now.

I certainly would have flunked out of Tech with my 18-year old study ethic.

Friends of mine who pledged fraternities as freshmen there are testaments to hard work.

Their Greek scene struck me as pretty insane at the time (early/mid 80's). One of their homecoming floats was a perfect replica of the DeathMobile from Animal House.

Re: Dartmouth -- remind me not to hire any of their grads.

FWIW, I pledged a fraternity my sophomore year, then went inactive a year later. If my kids want to join a social fraternity in college, I will withhold all parental funding. I think the system is messed up, beyond broken. To pretend Dartmouth is unique is naive. The only difference there is the money, connections, and sense of entitlement.



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That boy's got somethin' wrong with his medulla oblongata.

UCSD had started its undergraduate programs when I was looking for a college to go to.  Back then, it might conceivably have been possible to get in.  The university was set up basically to give Scripps Oceanographic a better neighborhood.  The other Scripps (a molecular-biology outfit with a branch somewhere around Port St. Lucie) has thrived, and of course there's Salk with its beautiful buildings.  

I ended up at a large blue-collar state university in a remote inland location.  Parents of students worked at steel mills, coal mines, shirt factories, grocery stores, whatever.  There was apparently a huge social stigma against kids from well-off families going there.  I guess one of the curiosities of the place was that they no doubt had some of the exact same frats as Dartmouth.

One of my fellow grad students was from Dartmouth.  He was normal enough and definitely smart.