<p>ha ha ha</p>
<p>well, at least we agree on one thing</p>
<p>that cogent discusions while drunk are to be lauded</p>
<p>btw I recently read an anthropology article that discussed the fact that up until the 17th century the h. sapiens state of mind may have been a drunk one. Alcohol was used instead of water because of its antiseptic properties and its nutritional value.</p>
<p>sempitern,</p>
<p>I know trolls on boards with thousands of posts. Just because you have numbers of posts doesn't qualify you for anything.</p>
<p>It's your tone, your general willingness to just creep into boards and attack schools, and the way you incite arguments that are trollish traits. You may make good points, but if you're starting more fights than quelling them, you may want to reconsider your tactics.</p>
<p>bah humbug</p>
<p>I've been around long enough to know when a thoughtful 700 word response is called for. Most of the time though, those dont get read so to conserve my intellectual stamina I often have to resort to shorter messages which sometimes lack the finesse of longer discussions.</p>
<p>I don't think you guys need to respond to him. He will go away and doesn't deserve attention and conversation. </p>
<p>Some mistakes in UCLAri's basketball comments:)
USC had beaten UCLA for several consective years until last season, been to at least sweet 16 several years ago. Duke is a basketball school, and one of the weakest football teams in ACC.</p>
<p>I have two friends (they are a couple) living near Duke. The wife is a UCLA grad, while the guy got his master from USC years ago. Because of the job, the lady goes to duke very often, some kind of collabration. She said Duke is not as good as UCLA, maybe on par with USC. Her word, not mine:)</p>
<p>I'm not turning this into a Duke v. USC thread</p>
<p>here is what I said</p>
<p>"my purpose is not to say that my alma mater is necessarily better than USC but rather, to point out what I perceive to be flaws in USC. Its nothing personal really."</p>
<p>Yeah, that really flies on a USC thread. </p>
<p>Oh, and I know that USC has made the tournament, but how many titles do they have? Hmmm???</p>
<p>Hehehe.</p>
<p>"He will go away and doesn't deserve attention and conversation."</p>
<p>HA HA HA. YEAH RIGHT. I only leave boards on my own volition. Heck, I hung around the washu board for a long time before my opinion of the school changed when I sent in their waitlist reply card. At which point I wrote a thread apologizing for my earlier writings.</p>
<p>So what do you accomplish by causing so many people grief, other than enlarging your own ego?</p>
<p>oh puh-lease. </p>
<p>if someone can't take some anonymous criticism of their alma mater from the internet then they really do have an extremely fragile psyche.</p>
<p>notice how I did acknowledge the negative data regarding Duke.</p>
<p>as for ego, I don't see how this inflates it. I am anonymous on this board, or at least I try to be. I didn't apply to USC or UCLA so I have no personal stake in the rivalry and I am not particularly fond of both schools.</p>
<p>ego.... no ego involved here. Heck, if ego were involved, right now I would hate Pton because I got rejected from there. But I don't because I realize that it is a great school with (mostly) great people headed there in the fall.</p>
<p>No ego, huh? Then why spend any amount of time bashing other schools? </p>
<p>You obviously have very little consideration for the fact that many people come here for advice in very fragile states to begin with. It's important to be supportive as a community, not divisive. </p>
<p>Or maybe that's just my take as someone who got sick of dealing with self-aggrandizing twerps throughout college.</p>
<p>"It's important to be supportive as a community, not divisive. "</p>
<p>yes and lets all hold hands and sing kumbaya and eat smores while we're at it. There is a line between being supportive and trying to suppress any negative discussion.</p>
<p>"Or maybe that's just my take as someone who got sick of dealing with self-aggrandizing twerps throughout college"</p>
<p>oh no, there isn't an ad hominem attack there. UCLAri, even though I may dislike your alma mater. I won't attack you personally and in doing so I'll take the high road.</p>
<p>Oh, believe me, I know I travelled the ad hominem route, but I'm making a point: You need to look at your posts once in a while and consider that you affect the mood of the thread when you come in and start throwing yourself around as you do. Maybe you think it's funny or something, but it's not.</p>
<p>"You need to look at your posts once in a while and consider that you affect the mood of the thread when you come in and start throwing yourself around as you do"</p>
<p>its not funny or a joke. it is a discussion of the pros and cons of colleges. As for "mood". Pretty much any negative comment will lower the mood of a board. Does this mean we should only have positive comments and have a pleasantville-like cc. of course not.</p>
<p>Here, maybe this will lighten the mood :) :D :) :D :) :D :) :D :p</p>
<p>To further my point:</p>
<p>My issue with your attitude on this board isn't the suppression of negatives about school x or y, but that you come into perfectly upbeat and positive conversations, and launch into tirades about how this or that school is just crap.</p>
<p>I mean, short of your beloved Duke and Princeton, you don't seem to like any schools. You seem overwhelmingly negative about almost every school you post about, and it's tiring to those of us who are trying to support students in a decision that they're already nervous about. </p>
<p>I have issues with USC, but notice how I'm able to post them without causing controversy like you. You get more flies with honey than vinegar.</p>
<p>not true</p>
<p>I also like</p>
<p>Yale
Stanford
Dartmouth
Swarthmore
Amherst
Williams
UCSD
UCB
New College of Florida
U Colorado at Boulder</p>
<p>and... my local cc which I attend :D</p>
<p>"it's tiring to those of us who are trying to support students in a decision that they're already nervous about."</p>
<p>I would thing that most of them have already made their decisions... but ok. I believe that students should know the pros and cons of schools before making any decision</p>
<p>"You get more flies with honey than vinegar."</p>
<p>I agree heartily, but there are times when the opposite is necessary</p>
<p>Trust me, in 99% of situations, honey is a better solution than vinegar.</p>
<p>ok, well, I'll have to continue this later as it is now time for me to count sheep</p>
<p>I agree with you sempiterm that both the pro's and the con's of a school need to be highlited for those considering it. Perhaps I'm guilty of only pushing the pro's of USC, but at the same time, the fact that I see the cons as basically negligent things not worth mentioning say something about the school. I also agree with UCLAri in that you just need to take a look at your posts and realize they're not constructive. Posting the cons of a school is one thing. Posting what you did...</p>
<p>"I disagree.
For me, USC will always be the haven for rich white drunk kids.
I have a friend who got a full ride + some other award to go to USC because she's a PSAT NMF. Guess what, she DIDNT pick it.
I didnt apply to either USC or UCLA. All I know is that the arrogance exhibited on campus rubs me the wrong way.
USC=University of Spoiled Children
USC=University of Second Choice
I think that the fact that they are using their money to try and "buy" scores(which the students have) to raise their rankings is despicable."</p>
<p>is quite another. Instead of highliting noteworthy cons, you're just inflaming people who take offense at the animosity in your post. This isn't just "anonymous criticism" and we don't have fragile psyches. It's just something that's bound to happen when you call an EXTREMELY proud student body's alma mater the "University of Spoiled Children," which doesn't serve to highlite any con, but merely a misconception so pervasive and false that the 2005 Fiske Guide to the Colleges, in its opening sentence about USC, derides the validity of that unfair title.</p>
<p>A good critical post would look something like, "from my impressions, the student body has always seemed disproportionately homogenous and wealthy. So much so that I think this negatively impacts the school." NOT "for me, USC will always be the haven for rich white drunk kids." </p>
<p>Most especially when that's more likely to be a descriptor of Duke.</p>
<p>you guys all use such big words on here. i know what 90% of them mean, but would never have the guts to use them in a sentence. bravo.</p>
<p>Aaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnyways........ Moving on.</p>
<p>It's funny how this USC thread has become an argument between a UCLA and Duke person. </p>
<p>So. The rivalry...</p>