As Van Wilder, the newest film in the National Lampoon series, hits theaters, students paying $7 to the box office and $36,000 to the bursar may wonder if they're getting their money's worth, asking "Why isn't our school more like that?"
Others feel Duke's social scene fits right into the world of seventh-year undergrad Van Wilder. You decide for yourself.
Welcome to the fictitious campus of Coolidge College:
Where guys will try anything to get laid and where the grass is perfectly maintained during recruitment weekend; where underage drinking occurs in both the dorm rooms and the bar room; where according to campus king Van Wilder, basketball is "the heart of the institution."
Maybe this school's not so fictitious after all.
In the movie, a student reporter uncovers information about Coolidge's most popular super-senior and his classmates. The truth? Students have more money troubles than meet the eye, skip classes to do activities they find more enjoyable and worry about life after graduation.
If this isn't Duke life, I don't know what is.
On the other hand, fraternities at Coolidge line up pledges in their tighty-whities in a candle-lit room reminiscent of 18th century dungeons, performing cultish rituals while being harassed by older members during chapter initiation.
Contrary to what Duke's administration may believe, one does not often hear a Duke frat boy remark, "Let's crap in the chapter room and have the pledges clean it up," as one Delta Iota Kappa does in the film. Perhaps hazing is better left to Hollywood.
And while DIK fraternity claims all the studs on Coolidge's campus, back at Duke, I wonder, "Are our fraternities filled with complete DIKs, too?"
Maybe this "lampoon" isn't so far off after all.
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