Presenting Reasons for Selectivity…
There’s a long-standing charicature of the ivy league know-nothing who rode through a selective school on his parents’ coattails. But it says something when the most prominent of the Yale Doofuses (Doofii?) happens to be not a villain in an 80’s romantic comedy, but a real person.
And that’s what Lakehead – a small university in Ontario – is banking on. BBC reports that one of the university’s new recruiting campaigns uses George W. Bush’s picture above the legend, ‘Graduating from an Ivy League university doesn’t necessarily mean you’re smart.’ That’s the driving message behind their new recruiting website, YaleShmale.com
Once there, users are invited to click on a link if they agree with the caption, and are taken through to a page promoting Lakehead, which is based in Thunder Bay and has 7,600 students.
“There are universities and then there are universities. So let’s not beat around the bush,” it says.
“Lakehead is different. We believe the person you become after you graduate is even more important than the person you were when you enrolled.”
The campaign is drawing down a lot of fire from people who feel it’s inappropriate. But perhaps these people should also be asking questions about the fact that Yale admitted Bush in the first place. This is a man, after all, who only applied to Yale after he was rejected by the University of Texas. When Yale prides itself on being one of the most exclusive colleges in America, why does it go around admitting public school dropouts? And then allowing them to barely scrape through? And then letting those graduates proudly proclaim themselves to be Yale graduates?
If anything, Lakehead’s tongue-in-cheek campaign should send a message to the ivy leagues – be careful who you admit. If you want to be considered more than a fraternity for sons of privilege, then you should start paying attention to more than just your applicants’ families.
By the way – while we’re on the subject, being associated with Lakehead doesn’t necessarily indicate your intelligence, either:
The university has defended its campaign, which also includes prizes of a car lease and handheld computer games consoles, saying it has had a positive effect.
“It was literally a tongue-in-cheek way of getting attention,” university president and vice-chancellor Frederick Gilbert told Reuters news agency.
Of course, the quote probably sounded more like ‘Id wahr lidrully uh thun in teek why…’ if it was literally tongue-in-cheek.
September 15th, 2006 at 12:24 am
“Of course, the quote probably sounded more like ‘Id wahr lidrully uh thun in teek why…’
This sounds a lot like an interview conducted over a cellphone.