I address this tasteless rant to the cross admits, those beguiling high school seniors who, on March 30, were admitted to both Yale and Harvard. If recent statistics hold true, almost 61 percent of you will make the biggest mistake of your young lives and choose Harvard. But I come to you as John the Baptist, a voice crying in the wilderness, to spread the gospel of Yale and warn you of that lascivious university that is Harvard, that Jezebel, that Bathsheba, that Whore of Babylon. (Too many weird Biblical allusions, Josh, you’re scaring them off.) Ahem. If you’re still reading this, beloved cross admits, here is a totally secular appeal to you: Yale, not Harvard, is the way and the truth and the life, the alpha and the omega.
First, one of the most common criticisms of Yale concerns its location in New Haven. Let me assure you that New Haven is actually wonderful. It has all the things a college student needs: paved streets to jaywalk across, running water containing trace amounts of lead and an Apple Store. And I haven’t even told you about Toad’s Place, the magic rabbit hole down which I (drunkenly) fall every Wednesday night. Plus, it’s only a quick train ride to New York City, where there are lots of cool things to do, like protest outside of Trump Tower. In the end, just remember that Cambridge is but a dingleberry dangling over the Charles River from the anus that is Boston.
In terms of campuses, Yale is so far superior to Harvard I actually kind of feel bad for all those students slumming it in Massachusetts. Our exquisite neo-Gothic buildings, adorned by gargoyles and phallic spires, meld with charming Georgian architecture and the Brutalism of the School of Architecture’s Rudolph Hall. Sterling Memorial Library is a cathedral of learning, and its cavernous rows of books are a terrific place to have sex (or so I’ve been told; all my orgasms are purely intellectual in nature). Harvard, on the other hand, has more bland brick buildings than a KB Homes subdivision, neither aesthetically ideal nor an aphrodisiac.
Moving beyond the strong correlation between architecture and copulation at Yale, our residential college system absolutely pounds Harvard’s. (Nope, you’re literally the only one who thinks that’s a double entendre.) Indeed, Harvard’s residential college system is the American Health Care Act to Yale’s Affordable Care Act. Theirs is a watered-down version of ours, a poorly conceived system that attempts to replicate the popularity of ours so ineptly that even they, in the end, agree ours is better. Yale’s residential college system is a wholly unique experience across American universities, forging community and friendship in a manner only rivalled by Tinder.
And our campus cuisine is inimitable. Our dining halls’ delicacies include croutons, vegan hushpuppies and Hanoi fried cape shark (no, I haven’t tried it). Additionally, every dining hall offers spa water infused with leftover fruit and salmonella. The only minor drawback about the Yale dining experience is that the dining halls’ chairs tend to be quite flimsy. A few days ago, when I sat down, the entire back of my chair broke off and clattered to the floor. I was flexing, of course, but still.
Yale is also much more artistic and creative than Harvard, probably because we’re just more interesting in general. The Yale University Art Gallery is the oldest university art museum in the western hemisphere, and right across the street from it is the Yale Center for British Art, home to one of the world’s largest collections of paintings depicting dudes wearing wigs. Speaking of artists, George W. Bush ’68 recently published a book of his own folksy paintings, leading one critic to ruminate, “If only he’d gotten into art school.” And everyone here sings so beautifully, it is not uncommon for someone to burst into song during a midterm.
Let us not forget, too, that the biggest upset in November did not involve a now forest-dwelling Yale Law School alumni, but rather the Yale football team. Yes, that’s right, never forget that we defeated the Harvard Crying Crimson in The Game. Tommy Lee Jones could only furrow his unibrow as Elis jumped from the stands onto the field, some of us breaking our legs in the process, and celebrated.
Perhaps most important, though, is this — the Yale Daily News is the oldest college daily newspaper in the nation, and objectively the best college newspaper, too. The “Harvard Crimson” is a sad little provincial publication, not fit to be used to clean George H.W. Bush’s ’48 bedpan. Its website is as unattractive, outdated and poorly designed as Cleveland’s skyline. (If you are from Cleveland, I sincerely apologize -— you’ve overcome so much.) More often than not, its articles contain more typos than sources. Just read the Crimson’s pitiful attempt to sway you cross admits — a meager column so devoid of facts and complex sentences it more resembles a Trump tweet than a piece worthy of publication. Look, too, at the only headline the Crimson could muster — “Yuck Fale.” How witty, how thoughtful, how daring. If I were you, dearest cross admit, I would be insulted.
To fully illustrate the stark contrast between Yale and Harvard, I offer you this — while Yale was producing such luminaries as Meryl Streep DRA ’75, Jodie Foster ’85 and Anderson Cooper ’89, Harvard gave the world Ted Cruz, Steven Bannon and the Unabomber. I will admit, though, that Yale is usually ranked lower than Harvard in some arbitrary and generally suspect college rankings. But if we learned anything from November (other than that Harvard sports teams choke like the Tony Romo-era Dallas Cowboys) it is that polls are more worthless than the iPhone’s autocorrect feature. Besides, no one turns their nose up at a Yale degree. We’re not Dartmouth, for crying out loud. But we are smart, funny, nice (I am not this acerbic in person, I promise), cool (I am this cool in person, though) and, above all, excited to have you as a fellow Bulldog.
Welcome to the pearly gates of Yale.