Signs Your College is Not Very Prestigious, by Mike Sacks

The Top 12 girls performed last night on Idol and I watched it all.

My longtime internet friend Mike Sacks has just published a book of humor pieces called Your Wildest Dreams, Within Reason that has been blurbed by a bunch of nobodies you never heard of like David Sedaris and Jack Handey. You should buy the book. Here is a piece in it that had me laughing out lout on the El:

#1. Your mascot is a tiger in a wheelchair

#2. Most famous alma-mater: the inventor of the "cheese inside the crust" pizza

#3. Your fight song is Foreigner's "I Want to Know What Love Is"

#4. Diplomas written with crayon on the back of used Hamburger Hamlet placemats

#5. Tenured professors identifiable by teardrop tattoo

#6. Statue of university founder is in a fetal postion

#7. School advertises on urinal cakes

#8. Orientation includes chemical delousing

#9. Sign out front says WALK-INS WELCOME!

#10. Scholarships awarded via hottest buns contest

#11. President's office has a condom machine in it

#12. All textbooks are from the Everyone Poops series

#13. Offers minor in "Winning Radio Contests"

#14. It's the reason U.S. News introduced "Total Shithole" ranking

#15. Quad located in the median-strip of the New Jersey Turnpike

#16. Your senior thesis came back covered in gold stars and scratch-n-sniff stickers

#17. Marching band uses only hand-claps

#18. Community-service requirement is handing out half-off fliers in front of competing colleges

#19. Professors begin class with, "Let's get our learn on!"

#20. Professors end class with, "Smell ya later, fags!"

#21. Banner over main gate reads OVER ONE MILLION TEACHED

#22. Dorms double as conjugal-visit trailers

#23. Merit-based scholarship based only on the ability to blow oneself

#24. One-free-hour of AOL with every two semesters completed

#25. Accepts only cash ("no bills larger than $20, thank you")

#26. Still no official website, but one hell of a kick-ass MySpace page

#27. The dean has a reputation for being a bit of a "gash hound"

#28. Care packages confiscated and redistributed to senior faculty

#29. Endowment is whatever happens to be in the treasurer's coin purse

#30. The college motto, translated from the Latin: "To Dry Retch"

#31. All awards in the trophy case are for chicken sexing

#32. Founder's plaque reads ESTABLISHED THIS MANY FINGERS AGO

#33. Courses offered in-class, online, and drive-thru

#34. Faculty re-staffed daily by illegal immigrants brought in by pick-up truck

#35. Corey Feldman given honorary degree three years running

#36. Financial aid package consists of $10 and a pack of smokes

#37. Has a swim-up dining hall

#38. One robe passed from person to person in diploma line

#39. Campus has its own Green Zone

#40. You attend Harbard, Yole, or Pranceton

#41. Commencement ceremony is a live feed from a better school's commencement ceremony

#42. Your favorite professor holds office hours in his taco truck

#43. Big man on campus is a 700-pound shut-in

#44. Freshmen choose between "swinger" and "square" dorms

#45. Founded in 1979 as a Fotomat

#46. Half of all student groups devoted to tanning

#47. Dorm doubles as poultry farm

#48. Health center run by the same dude who once sold you bad acid

#49. Faculty are permitted/encouraged to carry tasers

#50. Counseling Services is a candy dish of Adderall

#51. School dubiously characterizes itself as "accredited in all the right places."

#52. At least once a month, your Humanities professor exclaims, "Enough of this boring shit. Who's up for some freeze tag?"

#53. Offers a philosophy class based on Arsenio's "Things That Make You Go Hmm . . ."

#54. Literary journal is mostly car-wash coupons

#55. Students draw straws to see who gets dissected in anatomy

#56. All students completing campus tour required to sign gag order

#57. Valedictorians are determined by a mixed-martial-arts cage match

#58. If your roommate commits suicide, you get a free iPod Shuffle

#59. Ivy is mostly poison sumac

#60. Tenure means being chained to a radiator

#61. All dining halls have posters with instructions for properly using a bib

#62. Offers only two study-abroad options: Bush Gardens or Epcot Center

#63. Homeless person sleeping in the periodicals room is what's known as a "visiting professor"

#64. Only college with "& Grille" after its name

#65. Scientology recruiters keep their distance

#66. Four student protesters shot dead in 1970, but no one has yet noticed

#67. Endowment consists mostly of unredeemed Delta SkyMiles

#68. Has NCAA's only cock-fighting program

#69. President accused of sexism for positing that women might be innately bad at pregnancy

#70. The only required reading: Don Diva magazine

#71. Astronomy professor frequently forgets which direction outer space is

#72. Acceptance letters are labeled with student's name and "Or Current Resident"

#73. Late fee assessed for diplomas held more than three days

#74. Film students required to shoot with cell phones

#75. You had to take your M.C. Escher print off the wall because other students kept trying to step inside it

#76. Desks in classrooms are equipped with seatbelts

#77. Your meal plan is "24-Hour-All-You-Can-Eat Hot Wings"

#78. More than one academic building is dedicated to Carson Daly

#79. Chemistry labs use whatever can be shoplifted from Home Depot

#80. Known as one of the "Seven Stepsisters"

#81. Ranks number one in the country for amount of rival mascots murdered

#82. Shakespeare professors teach only from the Shakespeare in Love script

#83. When you graduated "Cum Laude" the word "cum" was written on your diploma in a sperm font

#84. Every time you answer a question in class, the professor says, "I guess you think you're better than me."

#85. Figure drawing classes have a strictly enforced "no touching" policy

#86. It offers an M.A. in Wood Shop

#87. Images of campus life in brochure are stills from Sorority House Massacre 2: Naughty Nightmare


#88. Provost walks around campus with a Burmese python around his neck

#89. You attend the only college that prides itself on its "No Shirt, No Shoes, No Diploma" policy

#90. You discovered you were eligible to graduate via a scratch-off ticket

#91. Your academic adviser spent most of your last session doing chin-ups

#92. The student bookstore has a curtained-off adult section

#93. Has an Assistant Dean of High-Fiving

#94. Your ethics professor wears a house arrest anklet

#95. The first time you brought a laptop to class, the other students thought you were a time-traveler from the future

#96. You found it through a "College Seeking Student" Craigslist ad

#97. When you tell a prospective employer your alma mater, he simply leans across his desk and smacks your face

#98. Boasts nation's only Ph.D. program in street magic

#99. The English Department's budget was slashed to help fund the university's make-your-own-sundae bar

#100. Every three-hour lecture is required to have a 15-minute nap time

#101. Mid-terms include a free-throw contest

#102. Lecture halls have a two-drink minimum

#103. Campus built on top of an ancient Native American community college

#104. When you walked across the stage at graduation, the college chancellor fist-bumped you

#105. Doesn't have a campus radio station but does have its own CB radio handle

#106. The "grading couch"


(Originally appeared in Radar, September 2008). Written with Scott Jacobson, Todd Levin, Jason Roeder, and Ted Travelstead