By Dale Bell

Albright Hall: marble floors, ensuite bathrooms, a live-in on-call butler for each floor’s residential needs. You may never have heard of this seemingly mythical dorm, but Burke Blakeson, incoming Class of 2029, has, in fact, and its state of the art facilities are one of the primary reasons he’s decided to attend Grinnell.

Rumors of a “second Grinnell” have surfaced several times in recent months, as students have reported hearing construction noises and seeing the apparition of a “mirror college” floating in the mist somewhere beyond the Bear. 

In response to these rumors, the Scarlet & Black (a B&S subsidiary) sent their best two reporters to investigate, but they stopped receiving updates after the reporters entered the mist.

The B&S, after plucking this story from the S&B’s inept, toddler-like, hands, has blown this case wide open through a mixture of grit, investigative prowess, and a little help from our anonymous source inside Grinnell’s administration, Linda Cohn. In a series of memos anonymously given to us by Linda, the administration describes its monthslong plan to create a “Fake Grinnell” to trick prospective students into applying to the College. 

For more on this story, the B&S spoke with Grinnell’s Chief Admissions Officer Marcus deSade:

“You see,” says deSade, “my sole purpose on this earth is to increase the number of Grinnell applications. Yet I am stymied, blocked at every turn by the College itself, its cramped and vermin-infested dorms, its leaky buildings, the slop they churn out at the Dining Hall, and most of all, the students… Oh god… The students… Prospies have fled in droves. How could they not after seeing Physics majors, scurrying around hunched under the weight of their textbook laden backpacks, after seeing PoliSci majors, smug and quarter zipped, strolling the halls of the HSSC pretending their discipline has rigor, after seeing CS majors…? This, all of this, made my job the most difficult in the world. Until one night, deep under the fantastical influence of that green wormwood liqueur, I realized that I could circumvent every issue I had by simply making a new College. A desirable College.”

After waking up the next week, deSade immediately began implementing his vision for “Fake Grinnell.” The B&S gained an exclusive look into this new campus with our state-of-the-art fence-jumping technology. A wide road lined with oak trees gives way to a sweeping array of grand, white marble buildings, featuring rows of Corinthian columns and soaring cupolas. 

The Social Sciences and Hallowed Humanities Haven (also called SSHHH) is equipped with espresso bars in every classroom and several reservable “thematic studies” where students can work on their essays surrounded by leather-bound books in front of a roaring fire, with a complimentary glass of cognac. 

The new science building (also called Noyce) is home to a particle accelerator, adderall dispensers, and built in superiority-field dispersers which are said to make STEM majors over 30% more sufferable.

“I was here at the beginning,” says Alex Potemkin, a tour specialist hired from Prague to give prospective students “the best Grinnell experience possible”. “I remember when this whole thing was just some pretty big cardboard cutouts and reused set backgrounds from old plays. But recently, man, they’ve stepped up their game recently. Real buildings, classically trained actors playing students and professors, I barely even have to give tours anymore, prospective students just apply on the spot.”

The B&S also spoke with Grigory Ruse, an actor hired to play English Professor Grant Hildenberg, the chair of Fake Grinnell’s English Department:

“I was skeptical at first,” says Professor Hildenberg. “$500,000 a year to come to rural Iowa for an immersive theatre experience? It seemed too good to be true, but over the past few months I’ve really come to love this place, the way the ivy clings every so beautifully to the SSHHH, the smiles on the faces of my students as we start a simulated new class, and, I’m up for tenure next year… Oh, apologies, I have to cut this short, I’ve got a class on Renaissance Literature in five, I hope my students have done the reading!”

After the completion of the latest phase of Fake Grinnell applications are reported to have gone up a staggering 5,000%. However, Fake Grinnell has not been without its issues, as several of the well-paid and tenure-tracked actors playing professors have begun to outpublish their Grinnell counterparts. So, too, have Fake Grinnell students reported higher grades and more prestigious internships, and look to be on track to outperform Grinnell students in the post-grad job search when Fake Grinnell’s first class graduates this May.

Fake Grinnell’s meteoric rise has been noted by those outside of the Midwest as well, with several Ivy League schools sending evaluators to discuss whether it is time to expand the Ivy League label to include this upstart new institution.

As of press time, it was reported that all of our degrees were worth a little bit less now as Fake Grinnell has surpassed Grinnell in the U.S. News and World Report rankings, landing at a solid #7.