Jessai Flores

On Feb. 19, Rumpus, the Yale satirical tabloid magazine, will publish its annual 50 Most Beautiful People edition — a list of the 50 most attractive students on Yale’s campus, as judged by the publication.

The edition, which includes interviews with and photos of the students who make the list, is a tradition of more than three decades, first appearing in the spring of 1994. 

Ryan Craig ’94 LAW ’99, who alongside Euny Hong ’95, David Friedman ’94, Chris Douvos ’94 and Aaron Craig ’95, co-founded the publication with the following tenets: “Everything had to be about Yale, everything had to be true and everything had to be interesting, if not spectacular.”

Ryan Craig told the News that the execution of the 50 Most Beautiful List should be credited to his brother, Aaron Craig, and the initial idea to his roommate, Alex Sion ’94, who in addition to coming up with the list, also came up with the name “Rumpus” for the publication.

“On a winter Saturday night in our Hopper suite in early 1992, [after he] had a beer or two in him, [Sion] proclaimed, ‘Tonight we are going to have a Rumpus. Things are going to pop, snap, and come unglued,’” Friedman wrote. 

After overhearing Friedman recall the statement one evening, Ryan Craig is said to have yelled “That’s the name … Not ‘The Rumpus’ or ‘The Yale Rumpus,’ just Rumpus,” according to Friedman. 

Rumpus’ first 50 Most Beautiful People issue contained “a cover shot of Yale’s number one musical-theater diva Marisa Mickel, as well as more than a few people with Ultimate-Frisbee connections,” according to Aaron Craig. “Reaction to the first issue was mostly favorable, though everyone had a few ‘how could you have picked x’ and ‘how could you leave out x’ [sentiments].”

AJ Nakash ’26, the current editor-in-chief of Rumpus, told the News that the creation of the list is an extensive process, with the first round of nominations sent out through a campus-wide email in early November.

This year, Rumpus received over 565 nominations, with 383 unique individuals ultimately nominated, leading to an acceptance rate of 12.6 percent. However, Nakash told the News that preference for those chosen is given to individuals who are nominated by Rumpus’ 25 members, who are allowed to nominate 20 individuals each.

This preference accounts for why the 50-Most List, which aims for an “even as possible distribution” of grade levels, has for the last two years been “heavily skewed towards the class of 26” as the “bulk of the Rumpus staff was in the class of 2026,” according to Nakash.

Two student groups are also selected as part of the 50 Most List each year. This year, the Men’s Ultimate Frisbee team and the Anti-Gravity Society — which is a juggling club — have been selected.

After 48 individuals are selected, members of Rumpus then carry out one-hour interviews with each to craft compelling articles. Rumpus members are also responsible for replacing any selected individuals who say no to the nomination or do not reply to Rumpus’ confirmation email. This year, seven of the 48 originally selected were replaced, with three explicitly rejecting the nomination.

“My interviewer happened to be a friend of mine and somebody I felt very comfortable around. It lasted roughly two hours,” said Siona Jain ’26, an alumnus of the 50 Most List. “It got pretty personal, but I honestly felt very at ease with my interviewer because we were swapping stories back and forth … I was fairly open.”

Members of Rumpus are provided with a sample list to choose their questions from. Nakash told the News that members are not bound to the questions and are encouraged to add special questions tailored to the individual. 50-Mosters are also allowed to refuse any question or cut their responses from the record.

“One of my favorite questions is, ‘When did you know you were beautiful?” said Nakash. “We ask about what they were like as a kid, or what they wouldn’t be the same without. Just like quickfire questions.”

Nakash told the News that personality could make or break when making it onto the list, with “personality [being] equal to looks when it comes to 50 Most.”

He also said that anyone who asks to be on the list or has previously been on the list is automatically ineligible.

Fatima Aw ’26, a member of last year’s 50 Most List, told the News that she thinks it’s an honor to “share this title with Usha Vance and the other legends who have graced the list before [her].”

“It’s fun and a little surreal to be included,” said Aw. “I think everyone takes it with a grain of salt, though. It’s not like we’re all sitting around waiting for Hanky Spanky and the other Rumpus writers to crown us as ‘hot.’”

Grant Tucker ’27, who is in this year’s 50 Most, told the News that being selected is a fun experience as it provides the opportunity to be involved in an optional, yet unique, set of activities, including the interview, a photoshoot and a “Hot Ones” style video.

“The people at Rumpus just like to have fun and are very blunt, which I feel is refreshing in such a serious, sometimes over-the-top environment,” said Tucker. “It’s just good, kid-like fun that people forget to have every once in a while.”

Nakash believes that if the idea for the list were to come up for the first time today, then “we would shut that [idea] down so quickly because we’re like ‘no’ that’s just asking to be canceled,” said Nakash.

He believes that the list has been allowed to persist through the decades because ‘it’s not objective [and] because you can’t make an objective 50 most beautiful list. That’s just impossible.”

“Rumpus was very much of its time, the tabloid culture of the 1990s,” said Craig. “Somehow it’s still current. And with a product of tabloid culture in the White House again, I don’t see that changing anytime soon.”

In recent years, Rumpus has risen to prominence in pop culture with Usha Vance, an alumnus of the 2006 50 Most Beautiful People List, becoming the Second Lady of the United States and the mention of the 50 Most Beautiful People List in an episode of “Sex Lives of College Girls.”

In celebration of the release of the 50 Most Beautiful People List, Rumpus will host a launch party at Lilly’s Pad in conjunction with Woads.

The 2025 edition of the Rumpus 50 will not be digitally released.