NYU publications have been gloating about it for the past week or so already, but now the Observer notes that Stanford and NYU toppled the Ivies in a recent Princeton Review poll about applicants’ ideal schools. Stanford came in first, followed by NYU, and then Harvard (which was my own top choice, waitlisting bastards that they are). Of course, this sort of thing is generally meaningless: selecting a school should have very little to do with what everyone else considers ideal, and the quality of education you’ll receive depends on many things, but not whether or not you attend an Ivy. But Stanford and NYU folk can perhaps be forgiven for a slight degree of smugness.