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(04/29/21 6:12pm)
The University of Pennsylvania class of 2025 had a record-low acceptance rate combined with the largest application pool in history. Many took this as it was, a clear sign to the world that Penn is now more than just a name to drop into gritty financial dramas on premium television networks. Penn is a name worth dropping into other TV shows, like the Gossip Girl reboot or the Pretty Little Liars reboot. That is to say, Penn is now truly elite, which is also the name of a TV show that could potentially namedrop Penn.
(04/23/21 5:55pm)
Although the SAT is now officially optional on all Penn applications, the College Admissions Office has promised its students that it will not be doing away with its legacy of cultural bias, a cornerstone of Penn’s illustrious reputation. They will simply be getting more creative with how they judge students.
(04/17/21 9:12pm)
To the One Kid Doing Worse Than Me in Class,
(04/10/21 8:59pm)
As we reach April, or maybe mid-March, I’m not totally sure, students begin to feel burnt out and start looking forward to their next major vacation. The problem is: Many of them can’t remember if they’ve already had Spring Break already. Surely, if we’ve already had Spring Break this year, we would remember it, right? This isn’t like last year, when you went down to Florida after COVID19 was announced because plane tickets were dirt cheap and then spent the next year judging people for not wearing their masks. There is actually no way of knowing for sure whether or not we have had Spring Break. It is simply unprovable. However, we have devised a handy quiz that will help students guess based on context clues if they’ve already had Spring Break.
(04/12/21 6:07pm)
A campus-wide alert went out early this morning informing students that, if their plan was to turn their grades around in the latter portion of the course, it is officially too late to achieve that goal. “Realistically, who has ever managed to turn their grades around in the second half of the course?” University administrations wrote in the widely-circulated email titled, "A Message to the Penn Community on Why You All Suck." Continues the email, “You’ve either got it or you don’t, and kid, if you failed the very first midterm, then you don’t got it.”
(04/05/21 4:10am)
Help! I’ve just been cancelled by one of my professors. I’m a good student and person, always getting my work in minutes before the due date and always abiding by any laws that I think I’d get in trouble for if I broke. I had (allegedly) one small moment of cultural insensitivity for the academic community, in which I claimed that “adjunct professors are not real professors” and “I’m not going to call you doctor unless you can cut me open” and “you’re basically a T.A. for a class with less guidance than a [REDACTED].” In my defense, I had just failed my second midterm in a row, and even more in my defense, they can’t prove I said anything of the kind, so come at me, “Professor” Swanson. I have a full P.R. team on retainer, and they’ve brought people back from a lot worse than making their “teachers” cry.
(04/05/21 4:07am)
This was a busy week on campus. The engagement day allowed students to enjoy life to the fullest, and boy, did I enjoy life. This week, I watched two whole seasons of shows that I regret ever getting invested in, stared out the window at the rain as I blasted Hilary Duff and felt deep ennui, and even saw a dog.
(04/01/21 9:45pm)
For many incoming first years, losing their virginity seems like a rite of passage before the college experience can really begin. Some make pacts with their buddies to lose it during their senior year of high school and, if the plot of my raunchy YA rom-com is to be believed, instead end up falling in love with their buddy after losing their virginity to the coolest kid in school. Some make agreements with their roommate to lose it during New Student Orientation and, again, if the plot of the darker, more mature sequel to my raunchy YA rom-com is to be believed, instead end up falling in love with their roommate after a positive but ultimately directionless, slightly suspicious experience with their residential advisor.
(03/29/21 2:56pm)
If there’s anything we learn above all else in our years at an Ivy League University that is consistently on the brink of existential crisis because its name sounds more similar to the name of a state school than to HYP, it’s that winning isn’t everything. Think about it: For some to win, others need to lose. We cannot succeed without others failing. We cannot live in a world where everyone wins all the time, and fortunately, I don’t want that. At all. I have a lot of enemies, and I want them all to fail.
(03/30/21 6:38pm)
Ezra Bachar (C’24) has been caught up in the biggest plagiarism scandal of the week. They have been in a dispute with their European History professor since early Monday morning, who granted them an automatic fail when noticing that their essay could be found word-for-word on Wikipedia. Bachar claims that, although there are significant similarities between their essay and the Wikipedia page, it does not count as plagiarism because they authored the entire Battle of Agincourt article themselves. This twelve-page article contains almost 200 citations and is so high-brow that it doesn’t even mention that the Battle of Agincourt was the inspiration for the Battle of the Bastards in Game of Thrones. The only cultural references included are to Shakespeare adaptations, a sign that most classmates agree suggests that this was not the work of Bachar.
(03/24/21 1:03am)
Intro to Marketing Professor Theodore Waddell recently sent out an email to all of his students entitled “Five Reasons Why We Are Switching to Clickbait Format (And Five Reasons Why We Should Absolutely Do No Such Thing).” Students were confused by the contradictory nature of the email. Is this, as the email claimed, what it looked like when a college class embraced the unique challenges of reaching a large viewer demographic in an Internet culture that is becoming increasingly niche? And if the email contained fifteen things you’d never thought you’d hear a professor say, why did at least ten of them sound identical while the other five were just ads?
(03/01/21 2:23pm)
In a stunning win for student physical and mental wellbeing, the University of Pennsylvania administration has announced that students have actually already been getting days off school! Students everywhere rejoiced as they realized that in addition to not having any classes that meet on Fridays, they have also been given most Fridays off.
(02/27/21 5:03pm)
Hey, kid. Yeah, I’m talking to you, right there, with the slack-jawed doe eyes and type-A nasal passages. Pop a squat because I’m about to learn you a thing or two about life and, in doing so, justify my own decisions to take only pass/fail courses this semester.
(02/20/21 4:42pm)
We’ve been doing remote learning for some time now. In some ways, it feels like the only life we’ve ever truly known. A year ago, when taking all your assessments on Canvas was shiny and new, we were all cheating our asses off. I just want to make sure that we’re all still on the same page that we’re cheating on every exam, right?
(02/20/21 4:44pm)
We’re all accustomed to lying about our ages. For many years, we had to lie upwards in order to buy booze and get into bars. Then, one day, bam! You’re old enough to drink. And then wham! People will be asking about your life plans, talking about trends you don’t understand, and making you feel old for still taking introductory lectures. Don’t let this happen to you. Start lying about your age before the world attempts to thrust responsibilities upon you that provide nothing but stress and general confusion.
(02/15/21 7:42am)
When thinking of the greatest fantasy TV shows of the past decade, your mind is likely to go one of two places: Game of Thrones and Outlander. These two incredible, thought-provoking shows of equal cultural impact have brought joy to the hearts of millions. Surely, you have experienced that same sudden rush of excitement when you hear the "Game of Thrones Main Title" (DA da DA DA da da) as you do with the "Skye Boat Song" (“sing me the song of a lad that is gone”).
(05/22/19 2:00pm)
The students of GSWS069 (The Ethics of Being a Chauvinist Pig) were on the edge of their seats last Tuesday as their professor finally got into the raciest unit of the curriculum: Pornography. Well, most of the students were on the edge of their seats. One exceptional young learner, Milton Thompson (C’20) was sitting as far back in his seat as possible, edging in his seat.
(05/03/19 6:09pm)
Breaking news reports that when Ryan Frampton (C ’21) got out of his History of Modern Thought class on Tuesday, he had not gotten a notification on his phone all class. This is extra-embarrassing because inside sources report that Frampton has allowed for push notifications from nearly every single app on his phone — even crazy ones such as Calculator and Slack. History of Modern Thought is an hour and 20 minutes long, which isn’t that long, but it’s not that short either. To go a whole hour and 20 minutes without anything on your phone trying to communicate with you is truly humiliating.
(05/04/19 5:23pm)
It’s the exact same thing every day. College is a mind-numbing circle of working, sleeping, eating, drinking, smoking, hanging out with friends, going on adventures, going to parties, watching TV, and stopping frequently to wonder what it’s all worth. With so much mundanity, it’s hard to feel like the exuberant young woman I used to be. That’s why I steal my roommate’s shampoo for the rush.
(05/04/19 5:25pm)
Being a Trump enthusiast is a lonely, polarizing life. People think they can make gross assumptions about me just based on this group that I have chosen to affiliate myself with. I feel this kind of prejudgement every day. With just one glance at my laptop, people assume that I write for The Statesman or support defunding Planned Parenthood. It’s just another example of the bigotry running rampant in our nation that people think they can judge me based on the things that I actively use to express myself with. But still, when people read over the back of my laptop in class, they linger. When I am gone, they will sing anecdotes of my name. And when I stroll down Locust Walk on a sunny day with my MAGA hat on, for one instant — one fleeting, beautiful instant — someone will make eye contact with me.