Victory! GW No Longer Most Expensive School in Country

We've all dreamed of the day that GW would no longer be the most expensive school in the nation. GW has finally been outpaced in the overpriced tuition race by Sarah Lawrence College. Based on total cost (tuition + room and board), GW is a downright bargain at $50,312 compared to Sarah Lawrence's $53,166.

Forty years later, it looks like the cost of adding men's bathrooms to the campus has finally caught up to Sarah Lawrence (yuk, yuk).

[via Consumerist]

A few weeks ago, some house proctors in dorm were on the first floor recruiting people and handing out pieces of yellow and blue paper and telling us that yellow was for the good and blue was for the bad. Good and bad what? Well, good and bad alcohol experiences of course. Guess where those pieces of paper went? They went directly onto the wall of my dorm's entrance.now being in a dorm where it is pretty much implied that everyone is underage and having my house proctors encourage me to write down things that I've done while intoxicated... weird, right?

I know that when you are in college you have a lot more freedom to do pretty much whatever you want, regardless of whether or not it's legal. As far as I'm concerned, people are allowed to do whatever it is that pleases them, but this type of recreation didn't seem like it was the type of thing that should be highlighted from all of the intelligent and cultured students here. Don't get me wrong though because it was hilarious to read all of the mini summaries of "awesome" and not so pleasant occurrences. It just seemed a little strange though, to have underage drinking experiences decorate the main hallway as a way to represent a large portion of GW students.

Maybe it was too much.
Or maybe it's just me and this is normal for GW.

It Happens at GW

You know, when I was in high school, whenever we’d get a visit from a former alumni and he or she would talk about how different college was from high school, I believed them. That is, to an extent. I mean, if you had told my summer self that sometime in October I would be contemplating mixing a batch of cement in my dorm room, I would’ve told you to go do something physically impossible to yourself.
In the end, I didn’t go through with the cement plan, as I found a much better substitute in “universal space age adhesive glue”. In one of the clubs I belong to, there was talk about strange things we’ve found in our dorm rooms left over by the occupants the year before, as well as the things we have left ourselves. I heard someone found a brick in their freshman dorm, that same person I believe, leaving a snowball in the fridge.
I’ve got a friend to had to deal with a bee hive right outside her window well into the quarter. I found a hole in the ceiling walking down one of the halls, with a candy bar wrapper comically protruding from it. During my first night at GW, I turned off the lights ready to go to sleep when I look up at the ceiling and notice something. All that came to mind was What the hell?! upon seeing the many glow-in-the-dark stars and planets spaced out (no pun intended) across the ceiling. This led me to wonder one very important question: no doubt they were put up there by a previous resident, but did that person really go through getting hold of a ladder to do so? Or did that person use the bed as a spring board? I could always ask her, but I’d rather not, as I already find it strange enough that I keep receiving her Forbes magazines in the mail. I ask myself, what shall I leave behind?
I’m looking to a shoe filled with cement.

The Chains of Identity Released, the Plastics of GW Attack

If you don't get the reference in the title, just read on.

Throughout my time at GW, I have learned to ignore the more foolish aspects of the school, like those people who fly home on the weekends even though home is only 2 hours away, or the girl who chastises her dad for writing her a paper that was too long. It's the stuff of Overheard at GW. It mostly comes from the people who sport Gucci bags, Uggs, and the typical bug-eye pair of sunglasses. And even if their éclat makes Anna Wintour look like just an amateur queen bee, it is mostly harmless.

But I could not ignore JuicyCampus, the subject of James' recent entry. I won't link to it to directly, because I do not intend to drive traffic there. Suffice it to say that JuicyCampus is where college students go to dish the dirt, however crude and defamatory, on their peers. As James noted, it is completely anonymous. The site features many schools across the country, but I think that it is (sadly) well suited for GW.

As one of my friends astutely observed, reading GW’s page is like reading the script of Mean Girls. Except that instead of North Shore High School, now it's Foggy Bottom. What JuicyCampus has effectively done for GW students is enable them to express their true selves - their true, exceptionally soulless selves.

You come to this school under the penumbra of an ingeniously crafted, lofty, almost decadent event – Colonial Inauguration - that appeals to your taste, and your pocketbook. If you enroll, you notice very quickly that you are immersed in this fantastic nirvana of a gorgeously spartan city. It's almost dreamlike - almost.

But in reality it is a Faustian bargain. What really happens is that you forfeit large sums of money to receive a decently good education alongside a student body composed of people who, for the most part, have no class. You make this painful discovery when you find they have dragged your name and the names of your dear friends through the mud.

The people that do this may occupy positions of power, or may be entrusted with your residential well-being. They are around you, even if they reveal their opinions only behind the trustworthy veil of anonymity that JuicyCampus' virtual-reality bitchfest provides.

I will be criticized for characterizing my peers like this. This is a given. What I'm saying is self-evident regardless. I was personally victimized on the message boards of this website and my friends were labeled ugly whores. I, as they, have a reason to be pissed off.

I speak for all of us when I say that it's nothing short of reprehensible that students at a major university who pursue degrees of higher education do this. You are at liberty to think whatever you please, but publishing it is another matter, and in that area you most clearly do not have the liberty to do whatever you please. You have no right to publish patently libelous content because you have nothing better to do. You have no shame.

JuicyCampus doesn't only defame its victims. It also undermines the schools featured on the site. After seeing discussion threads on topics from "who is the biggest tool in the Student Association" to "who is uncircumcised", what is a prospective GW student to opine about us? Besides thinking that we are, in general, an obnoxious coterie of spiteful bitches who prognosticate from a sky-high pied-à-terre (an idea which is apparently true), they may truly believe the accusations that target specific people. This skews their perception of the school even further, and as a result our reputation as a university is slowly muddled away, all because of utter nonsense.

For that reason, and also because it provides a platform to publish untrue, offensive and slanderous statements about real people who have real lives, JuicyCampus should be unequivocally condemned. (Interesting aside: my home state of New Jersey - bless its oil refineries and old-man bars - is suing the creators of JuicyCampus in an attempt to show that the site violates state consumer fraud laws.)

When I went to Colonial Inauguration in July 2007, I was admittedly naïve. Now, 26 months later, I am acutely aware that there is but a scintilla of nicety in the entire 20052 zip code. Saboteurs are many. I have my suspicions as to exactly who mine are. I almost wish I could publish their names here, but I don't, because I have the decency that they so perspicuously lack.

It's amazing, when you think about how puerile it is. Or maybe sadistic is really the word. I guess the rule of thumb is this: give a GW student an anonymous platform, and he/she will abandon the façade of politesse and milk it for all its worth. Especially when the target is other GW students.

My confidence in the student body is low at this point. I don't desire revenge, and I try not to appear bitter, because frankly, I don't care what was said about me. But I do care for my friends, and the abuse they suffered. The bottom line is that no one should have to endure the kind of treatment one gets on JuicyCampus. I urge everyone to boycott it so we can put an end to this madness.

It's Official: It Was The Squirrels

Those conniving little bastards... they scurry across the streets, climb up the nearest tree when someone comes near, take a plunge in one of the coolers the vendors have set up in front of Gelman... damn them. After much investigation, my sources have linked a strange phenomena occurring at The George Washington University to the mammal widely known as Sciurus-niger: they took the clocks.

Have you noticed the conspicuous lack of them in all the classrooms across the school? They did it! Why do you think there's a variety of them on campus? The dark ones belong to the covert espionage unit that is responsible for the sabotage of any attempts done by the university to install clocks. The peppered kind keep a look out from the safe canopies of the trees outside, while the brown ones act as decoys, flashing their adorable little selves to the ignorant passerby.

Just the other day, I was walking down 22nd Street passing by Strong Hall when I spotted one of them digging for food on the front lawn. I was five feet away from it, yet it still did not move. I think they're on to me. This could have to do with the fact that I posted a similar version of this article on my Facebook page two weeks ago. If my hunch is proven correct, then it means the squirrels of GW have mastered the art of accessing and surfing the web.

As of this report, the squirrels have failed time and time again to destroy the clocks in Corcoran Hall. You know why? The lasers. Have you noticed the warning signs set up on the walls? I have. But rest assured, I will sleep comfortably tonight knowing the squirrels will have no chance of ridding the University of the giant clock tower up on The Vern.

But its only a matter of time before the squirrels hack into the government data base and send out orders to retrieve the Dorothy Williamson Clock Tower...

Public Hookah'ing

I've oft wondered: will the day ever come when hookahs become socially acceptable enough that they are smoked publicly in plain view, without fear of police mistaking it for something else?

I may have found my answer. See pic on the right.

What do you think: Is this the new norm? Are these guys on the cutting-edge, slightly ahead of their time? Or is this just an aberration - not even close to socially acceptable yet?

(Oh, and in case UPD is reading, hookahs are legal.)

Forget G-Scene/InsideGW, JuicyCampus Is Where Real Gossip Is At

While G-Scene and that kaleidoscope masquerading as a blog claim to have the juiciest gossip at GW, they aren't even close to the stuff that's posted on JuicyCampus, which recently opened its legs doors to GW.

Even though GW was only recently added to the site, you'll already find great dirt like which chicks have the loosest pussies, who at GW is nicknamed "the Urinator", and even which guy has the smallest dick on campus.

And yes, it NAMES NAMES, so you can Facebook these people and maybe have something to talk about if you ever run into them at a party. No more "which GW girl who wears leggings and carries around her Blackberry and has brown hair like totally hooked up with everyone's favorite guy whose dad made a lot of money and now he's looking to blow it on coke and overpriced bottles of Absolut at Lotus??!?!?!?!?"

G-Scene and Inside GW might as well close their doors - or just keep posting event promos for THURSDAYS AT K STREET, because that's all the original content they'll have left.