To the reader: This article originally appeared in Student Life’s annual April Fools’ issue. Please don’t take anything in it as fact. We made it all up.

Washington University moved down 245 spots in this year’s U.S. News and World Report ranking of undergraduate colleges and universities.

Last year, WU was battling Columbia University in New York City and Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., for the 10th spot. However, the university now is competing with Fontbonne University and Honest Bob’s Plumbing Academy for the 250th spot in the list of top-tier schools.

“Today is a sad day for Washington University,” said Chancellor Mark Wrighton. “Our failure is largely due to our complacent students and uneducated faculty, who have brought embarrassment to the educational environment here.”

The university was ranked 319th in faculty resources, which takes into consideration student-faculty ratio, the number of professors with the highest degree in their field, and the percentage of faculty who can speak English. WU was closely followed by Emory University and Idaho Valley Culinary School.

I think it shows the complete lack of emphasis the university puts on undergraduate education,” said Arts and Sciences sophomore Michael Wrong. “I think it’s unfortunate that so many classes are taught by professors instead of TAs. A teaching assistant might not have a PhD, but at least he’ll spend less time hitting on all the freshman girls in class.”

“One of my professors made an announcement the other day that he wants more students to come during his office hours,” added Judith Bonteal, a freshman quadruple majoring in English, Spanish, American culture studies, and history. “He played it off like he meant to say ‘come to his office hours,’ but we all knew what he meant.”

Added Bonteal, “I mean, it’s nice that professors want to know their students, but it’s not good that they want to know them in the biblical sense.”

Despite the university’s overall ranking, the business school moved up 13 spots to receive the number one position. The undergraduate business program had been ranked 14th but is now considered the top undergraduate business program in the nation.

“Our graduates delight their employers with the level of their capability and training,” said Art Bluebum, dean of the business school. “It also doesn’t hurt that our students are way hotter than the other students on campus. Take that, Arts and Sciences!”

Bluebum pointed to the school’s new training programs in how to fake interest during business meetings and how to purchase a BMW by age 22 as further examples of the school’s “cutting-edge” programs.

This year’s U.S. News rankings will be published in the newsstand book “America’s Worst Colleges,” which also contains feature articles on what to do when you realize your university blows harder than Hurricane Gloria. It will go on sale April 16. The rankings and several of the feature articles will also be published in the April 23 edition of U.S. News and World Report magazine.

Popularity: 1% [?]

 Print This Post

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 1st, 2003 at 12:00 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.