Most Annoying?

Well, Swarthmore’s in the running for Gawker’s most annoying liberal arts college. I agree with one commenter, though. How the HELL did Dartmouth not get on this list? Outrageous. Also, in the interest of political balance, St. John’s should totally be on the list. Middlebury, Kenyon and Carleton I think too. Very not fair. And what the hell is Goddard doing on the list when these other worthy luminaries of annoyance did not qualify?

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12 Responses to Most Annoying?

  1. Ralph says:

    It’s gotta be lonely at the top, Tim.

  2. Timothy Burke says:

    It’s hard to set a superior standard for “annoying to Gawker readers”, I agree. It’s summer, too, so there’s no chance to coordinate with colleagues and students to come up with something exceptionally annoying. It’s almost as unfair as US News and World Report!

  3. Sdorn says:

    I’m rather intrigued to find out that Swarthmore made the list, but Haverford and Bryn Mawr didn’t. There’s a saving grace to the Orthodox Quaker origins! Oh, wait, that’s beginning to sound annoying…

    (HC ’87)

  4. Brad says:

    It is odd that Kenyon is not on the list; maybe they paid someone off.

  5. Timothy Burke says:

    Kenyon was on the original list.

    By the FUCKING way, Gawker shitheads, the first-year course on the Japanese Tea Ceremony is a really great course.

  6. The site seems to define annoying as being a self-righteous counter-cultural oasis rest-stop before becoming a middle-class drone who can’t shut up about how great their college was. I definitely don’t see my employer Middlebury fitting that bill (nor Swarthmore based on what I know), while my alma mater Oberlin is the paradigmatic case. The fact that it’s even a contest is because of east coast bias. Have they not seen the college motto? Oberlin: we invented self-righteousness!

  7. withywindle says:

    “My college? I went to Swarthmore.”
    “Isn’t that a girl’s school in upstate New York?”

    At least somebody’s heard of us …

  8. Brad says:

    “Isn’t that a girl’s school in upstate New York?”

    Probably due to The Mamas and The Papas.

    “When Cass was a sophomore, planned to go to Swarthmore But she changed her mind one day Standing on the turnpike, thumb out to hitch hike Take her to New York right away.”

  9. SamChevre says:

    Well, I don’t know what their criteria were, but I agree.

    Swarthmore was on my shortlist of 5 colleges, of which I visited 4. I liked every college I visited except Swarthmore, which I would have had to have been paid to attend.

  10. ben wolfson says:

    The rules specify no schools with graduate programs. Thus: no Dartmouth.

  11. Timothy Burke says:

    That should disqualify Wesleyan, Brown, I think Eugene Lang.

  12. hwc says:

    “Annoying” in this context means lack of preppies.

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