If you thought our US News and World Report ranking of 23 was low, brace yourself: The 2009 Times Higher Education – QS World University Rankings just came out, and Georgetown is down to 129.

These rankings look at universities worldwide, so there’s a much larger pool of competition.  Still, this year’s ranking is noticeably lower than where we were last year (110th) and where we were in 2007 and 2006 (102nd).

The Times Higher Education—QS rankings also come with specific subject rankings.  While our Life Sciences and Biomedicine ranking was an underwhelming 162nd, we shined in Arts and Humanities and Social Sciences, coming in 75th and 57th respectively.

Ever wonder what the most toolish among us do with themselves after graduation?  This Sunday, the New York Times‘ Style section revealed the answer: they join the Ivy Plus Society!

The Ivy Plus Society is a group for young alumni of the Ivy League and a handful of other prestigious institutions—including Georgetown—with chapters in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and a newly started one here in D.C.  While the group is ostensibly a business-networking organization, the Times makes it clear what the real point of Ivy Plus is: finding suitable mates for super-status-conscious elitists.

The Times article is also a fun read in that a former Hoya wins the distinction of giving the most cringe-worthy quote of the piece.  Around the middle of the article, 2006 grad Ben Pike explains why he attends Ivy Plus Society events, making himself—and, by extension, Georgetown—look absurdly snobbish:

[Pike] said he hoped to meet New York women who were more than merely gorgeous. “I’ve been in the city three years and dated girls who are legitimate models, and that gets old,” said Mr. Pike, who works in private equity. “I have high standards. I’ve met people who are really smart but don’t have it together socially, and people who are fun but may not offer more mentally.” The total package, he explained, is tough to find.

Charming!

Sex free’s the way to be!

Being an amorous college student is hard enough at Georgetown, what with the lack of condom vendors and the whole Catholic morality complex, but we may have been one-upped on the preventing sex front—and by a secular school at that!

This year, Tufts University administrators revamped the school’s guest policy and added a clause that forbids “[engaging] in sexual activity while your roommate is present in the room.”  The new policy also says that an sexual acts should not interfere with a roommate’s privacy, sleep, or study habits.

Legislating common decency?  Perhaps, but Tufts administrators say new rules are a response to frequent complaints from roommates who had been put in “uncomfortable” situations or sexiled.

Of course, Tufts’ new rules aren’t all that much more intense than Georgetown’s.  Our Code of Student Conduct [PDF] states, “Cohabitation, which is defined as overnight visits with a sexual partner, is incompatible both with the Catholic character of the University and with the rights of the roommates.”  (No word on the University’s position on non-sleepover sexual activities, though).

The perfect Post columnist to have love-hate relationship with

There’s some good news and some bad news for Georgetown in Jay Mathews’ recent Washington Post column.  The good news: He thinks Georgetown qualifies as an “elite” university!  The bad news: He doesn’t think going to an “elite” university is important in the slightest.

Mathews’ Monday article urges students to focus on their experiences in their respective colleges and not get caught up in the name or prestige.

The article cites examples of “heroes” who did and didn’t attend prestigious, brand-name schools to argue why the college doesn’t determine one’s success in life. Billionaire businessman Warren Buffett, for example, attended the University of Nebraska at Lincoln; Oprah went to Tennessee State; and singer Bette Midler spent her college years at the University of Hawaii (I, for one, cannot imagine Bette Midler throwing a shaka sign).

Mathews concludes:

No one is sure where greatness comes from. These lists make clear that it does not have much to do with the name of the college on someone’s diploma …

Researchers Stacy Berg Dale and Alan Krueger found that admirable character traits—persistence, imagination, energy—produce success in life no matter which college a person attends.

While it’s depressing how quickly Mathews dismisses Georgetown’s hard-fought elite status, it does makes us feel better to know that the annoyingly knowledgeable kid in Econ isn’t necessarily the next Wall Street tycoon—or at least one can hope.

Swine Flu: Scourge of college coeds everywhere

As you’ve surely noticed from your hacking, sniffly friends and classmates, H1N1 has hit Georgetown.  But we’re not the only ones: a virulent H1N1 strain has spread rapidly through several D.C. college campuses, according to the Washington Post.  UMD College Park, for one, has already reported 435 cases of flu-like illness.

With students sharing living space, classrooms, and red solo cups, H1N1 has the potential to spread widely on campus, according to the Post:

Swine flu appears to have spread to most of the country’s colleges and universities. A weekly survey by the American College Health Association found influenza-like illness at 72 percent of schools surveyed as of Sept. 4. The flu is being contracted at a rate of about 18 cases per 10,000 students.

In other parts of the country, H1N1 is most widespread at Washington State’s Pullman campus, where more than 2,600 students have contracted flulike symptoms, according to Inside Higher Ed.

At Cornell University, where a junior died Friday due to complications related to the flu, the Inter-Fraternity Council at Cornell University has enacted a moratorium on all social events for a week.

Imagine a brave new world where tour guides no longer continuously face their groups

Earlier this week, the New York Times ran an article about the evolving world of college campus tours. If you thought they were still all rote repetition of historical trivia and guides walking backwards, you’re in for quite a shock.

Apparently there’s a grassroots movement to turn the tour guides around so they’re walking the same direction as their groups and to make the tours more conversational and less statistics- and dates-based. The campaign seems to be spearheaded by TargetX, a consulting firm that audits colleges’ tours and makes recommendations, and has adherents at the likes of the University of Texas at Austin and nearby American University.

The Times article highlighted one institution in particular, Hendrix College, a liberal arts school in Arkansas. Hendrix revamped their campus-visit programs three years ago and has since seen increases in the number of high schoolers visiting and applying to the school (granted, the number of students applying to college in general has also risen).

But what say you, should Blue & Gray explore some forward-facing pacing and ditch the dates?

The U.S. News & World Report’s annual college rankings came out today and—surprise, surprise— Georgetown is once again 23rd on the list of national universities. We’ve come in 23rd for the past five years straight (maybe we can get a consolation prize for consistency?).

The business school also held steady, coming in 21st, as it did last year.

There’s some reason for cheer, though. While last year we were tied with the University of Virginia, this year they’ve been bumped down to 24th, and good ol’ 23 is ours alone. Although there was some reshuffling of the Top 22, none of the schools who beat us this year weren’t also above us last year

Also positive: we came in 24th on the list of best values for national universities, up 8 positions from last year. The best values metric is determined using the “ratio of quality to price,” the percentage of students receiving need-based aid, and the average percentage of the total cost covered by financial aid.

If that intractable 23 is still bringing you down, though, let the survey of high school counselors cheer you up: they ranked us 9th. Granted, we’re tied with seven other schools, but being neck-and-neck with the likes of Cal Tech, Dartmouth and Penn ain’t bad.

The eternal conflict: curmudgeonly neighbors v. rowdy co-eds

With new neighbors’ groups popping up left and right, it looks like we’re in for another year of fights between residents and the University.  But Georgetown’s not the only school dealing with a seemingly perpetual town-gown rift—as an article in yesterday’s Washington Post makes clear, other local colleges are also plagued by conflicts over students living off-campus.

So what exactly are our nearby peers dealing with?

At Catholic, neighbors are pressuring the Metropolitan Police Department to enact a zero tolerance policy for disorderly conduct.  For UMD-College Park, a recent debate about whether to maintain rent control for single-family houses turned into a fight over whether or not students should be living off-campus.

Permanent residents can make trouble for administrators as well as students, the article points out, by leveraging their power over zoning and construction issues to pressure schools.  For example, in 2001, GWU was not allowed to increase enrollment or begin new construction projects until it started housing at least 70% of its students on-campus.

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