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The Yale Admissions video—oh my god.

By 16 January 2010 15 Comments

If you have ever doubted Ethan Kuperberg’s genius, prepare for your ambivalence to be blown away by this video:

This new Yale admissions video is just out of control. When I came to the end of the first musical bit, and realized there were 9 minutes left, I flipped out. Make no mistake: for any current Yalie, this is 17 minutes of pure bliss. You will recognize virtually everyone in a starring role; especially prominent is Bullblog favorite Sam Tsui. But the video is inclusive enough that Sam is just one three FOUR (!) Duke’s Men to appear in the flic. The video’s funny rhymes and excellent cinematography (by Gold Coast resident Streeter Phillips) showcase the entire cast in the best possible light.

The only question is whether this was a smart choice on Yale’s part. I think the answer is probably yes, in that this video will get circulated quickly throughout the internet and serve as edgy, fun buzz for the College. But who will it actually get to apply? I’m just not sure it does much to reach outside of Yale’s already very ample base of gay men and theatre-loving girls. In the video, Kuperberg prominently shows the range of extracurriculars Yale has to offer, but I doubt that many people who make it to that part of the video will be interested in much but the theatre, comedy, and a cappella.

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15 Comments

  • NO BIG DEAL

    gabe at 11:32 am on January 16th 2010

  • 2 legit 2 quit.

    michael at 12:18 pm on January 16th 2010

  • The fact that the Herald got no face-time really hurts my feelings…

    Emily Barasch at 2:50 pm on January 16th 2010

  • not funny at all

    garget at 12:15 pm on January 17th 2010

  • I appreciate all the work that went into this entertaining video—and it does convey what my son says about being at Yale—”It’s like trying to take a drink from a fire hydrant.”

    Yale Mom at 10:56 am on January 18th 2010

  • Actually, drinking from a fire hydrant = MIT. Yale is more like drinking from a golden goblet filled with sweet, tangy nectar.

    Beaver at 11:58 am on January 18th 2010

  • Beaver—Then the golden goblet overfloweth

    Yale Mom at 1:53 pm on January 19th 2010

  • Actually, the expression is “like trying to drink from a fire hose”, but then, what do Yalies know?

    martin at 4:31 pm on January 19th 2010

  • The symbolism of water gushing fr a fire hydrant—more than fr a hose—better represents the vast opportunities and choices available to Yale students

    Yale Mom at 5:14 pm on January 19th 2010

  • I loved it!!! Really catchy!!

    ericshriver at 12:49 am on January 23rd 2010

  • “Like trying to drink water from a fire hose” is 100% MIT. It was an expression coined by one of the presidents back in the day, and there was even a prank for it involving using the nozzle of a fire hose on a drinking fountain on MIT’s campus.

    And unlike the Yale analogy, it doesn’t represent ‘the vast opportunities and choices available to students’. It represents the inane amount of coursework MIT students are expected to keep up with each semester; an attempt to survive the onslaught, really.

    Hearing it referenced to by Yale is just hysterical.

    Imagineer at 6:37 pm on January 23rd 2010

  • “Hearing it referenced to by Yale is just hysterical.” Not just referenced, but completely mangled. The more appropriate transmutation for Yale might be “like trying to drink from the wrong end of a garden hose”.

    martin at 10:08 am on January 25th 2010

  • As a retired professor I found the musical ..cute! Cute in the extreme. Not sure I’d want to teach the students that this video is presumably aimed at.
    Briefly.. if I were looking to teach somewhere.. this is not where I’d go. Still, I guess the hippy hoppies have to go somewhere.

    Dean at 10:18 am on February 24th 2010

  • Back in the day, there was a “new Yale Fight Song” competition won by Scott McClardy with the song below. We still sing it to remember the gargoyles, Jody Foster & the National Guard and Yalies. It captures a lot in just a few words and a catchy tune:
    Har-vard men have higher SATs
    and the Princeton campus has a lot of trees.
    Colum-bia has New York to walk around
    And I’m sure there must me SOMETHING up at Brown,
    But YALE’S got… a better football team,
    Yale’s got… a better football team,
    Yale’s got… a better football team
    And we know that’s all that mat-ters.

    20thc.grad at 11:13 am on August 10th 2010

  • The song “Yale’s Got” was written by Scott McLarty (me, supplying the music) and Hunter Prillaman (lyrics) as the submission to a Yale Band contest for a new football song. We won the contest and got a few hundred dollars. I heard recently through the grapevine that the song still gets performed sometimes — can anyone confirm this? Hunter and I were both Class of 1980 (JE).

    Scott McLarty at 8:27 pm on November 9th 2010