The. Ivy. League. Don’t the mere words just conjure images of well-worn leather-bound volumes, decorous discourses on the finer points of Hume, and impeccably mannered, tweed-wearing WASPs? Well, it may have been like that in the days of F. Scott Fitzgerald, but no more. Just like the real world, the greens on which Ivy Leaguers now frolic are strewn with incriminating evidence of humanity.
And the best place to find said evidence? IvyGate, the Ivy League blog, whose sole mission is to faithfully detail whatever new scandal or absurdity has arisen to shake up an Ivy campus like a good martini. Take the case of Harvard girl (and Ivygate patron saint) Ms. Kaavya Viswanathan, for example: Her debut novel, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life, was hailed as a work of chick lit brilliancy until—whoops!—it was revealed to be a work of plagiaristic fluency.
The latest Ivy-caliber idiot to fall victim to IvyGate’s acid tongue is a Yalie by the name of Aleksey Vayner. Poor, young Aleksey apparently has a sense of self-importance bordering on the delusional. The over-the-top resume and self-promotional video that he originally sent to New York’s top investment banks somehow made it onto the Web and, for the past two weeks, has made Vayner the object of endless Internet ridicule.
Of course, I would feel bad for him if he didn’t so obviously deserve the lashing. Not only is his resume ridiculous, but it’s filled with lies. IvyGate points out that he claims to have his own investment firm, his own nonprofit, and to have written a book about the Holocaust. Um, yeah—not a word of that is true.
When I last checked, there was also a loverly rundown of Dartmouth’s frats and sororities. For example, “Chi Gam (Athletic affiliation: Baseball, tennis, date rapists). Historically, the sleaziest house on campus. Has tried to clean up its roofies-laden reputation of late, but that hasn’t stopped the brotherhood from throwing parties specifically tailored to freshman girls. A disproportionate percentage of the house hails from Long Island and New Jersey, essentially rendering Chi Gam the Meatpacking District of frat row.” Being intimately acquainted with said locale, I can only giggle at just how accurate that is.
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