<p>There’s one thing I can say about Reed’s intellectual environment: If you want to impress anyone at Reed with your erudition, you need to drop better names than Sartre, Zizek and Nietzsche.</p>
<p>Seriously, Zizek? Who cares about Zizek? The man’s a fraud. Reed professors tell jokes about him on Twitter. (I’m not even making this up; my German lit professor is an avid Twitter user.)</p>
<p>Sartre is even less legit than Zizek. Not even anthro majors would quote him in class–that’s how you know someone’s theory has truly run its course.</p>
<p>Nietzsche is solid, but both old-fashioned and too mainstream. Overeager freshmen flexing their intellectual muscles tend to be obsessed with him, and that is not an image you want to cultivate.</p>
<p>As for Chomsky, he did grow up in America. He went to UPenn.</p>
<p>Seriously, no offense, but you need to up your game. You worry Reed may not be pretentious enough for you, but I think you’ll find out you’re not pretentious enough for Reed.</p>