Bwog has pretty much used up our Gossip Girl references and cliches at this point, but we were nowhere near GG-ed out enough to miss tonight's Big Episode: "The One in Which Those Kids Pretend Columbia is Yale" aka "New Haven Can Wait."

We spent an enjoyable hour squealing with our friends every time we saw a glimpse of a Columbia landmark. The camera angles were tight, to be sure, but the GG crew covered much of our beloved campus: they fought, lied, hooked up and backstabbed from International Affairs to Furnald.

The CW seems to have also hired somewhere in the realm of 10,000 extras all clad in plaid sweaters and horn-rimmed glasses, which we would never find in Morningside Heights, obvi, to stroll around campus. Some favorite moments from the episode after the jump.

Columbians, ready yourselves: only 7 short days until the very campus you call home is featured on the greatest television show in the history of the world. Next Monday's episode promises to be full of grand, sweeping shots of Earl and what looks like the Math Lawn, the only catch being that Columbia isn't Columbia at all in Gossip Girl world: it's Yale!

The kids head up to "New Haven" (hey, Cecily von Ziegesar, if that is your real name, what's wrong with Morningside Heights?) for a college weekend that the seizure-inducing preview touts is "worth the price of admission." This seems a fair approximation— there will be a Skull & Bones kidnapping of some sort, bitchy glares galore, girls throwing things at each other, and a make out scene! Bwog thanks the CW for providing all obligatory snark in this post by actually naming the episode "New Haven Can Wait." Here's to hoping we can too.

The school year has ended and next fall many professors will be packing their bags and leaving behind their Metrocards for the greener pastures of other universities -- Yale, in particular, seems to be popular among Columbia's professorial population. (Another way professors are just like us!) Bwog's rounded up some arrivals and departures of your beloved faculty, but let us know who we missed and we'll update the post.

David Kastan, the chair of the English Department and Edward Said Professor of English and Comparative Literature is heading to New Haven.

Noam Elcott will be joining the Art History Department as an assistant professor. Bonus fun fact: Elcott was The Blue and White's first moder editor (in 1998), following its 100 year hiatus.

Also heading to Yale is the Music Department's Brian Kane, who was at CU for a post-doctorate teaching fellowship.

Owen Gutfreund, responding to the University's decision not to grant him tenure, announced in January that he was uncertain whether he would remain at Columbia (as an associate professor of urban studies and director of BC/CU Urban Studies Programs) after this spring. A quick glance at the course directory reveals that Gutfreund will not be teaching any Fall 2008 classes.

Lit Hum lecturer Jill Muller did not receive a contract renewal

Say goodbye to Annalies Wouters of Classics

Another loss for the Music Department as Ruth Rosenberg heads to the University of Illinois, Chicago.

Professor of Political Science Thomas Pogge is headed to Yale's Philosophy Department (if you're keeping score, that's three for Yale).

Philosophy professor and YouTube user Christia Mercer is taking a sabbatical, as is Bwog's inamorato, the Abelard to our Heloise, the Antony to our Cleopatra, English and Comp. Lit professor Bruce Robbins.

Next school year marks the beginning of Barnard's hunger-striking Professor of Political Science Dennis Dalton's retirement.

Philosophy professors/married persons Patricia and Philip Kitcher return from sabbatical, the later of whom will be teaching Michael Seidel's Joyce course in the fall.

Seriously, if we can posit one common thread throughout a student body that is diverse in just about every conceivable dimension, it is that we all overthink things. Debates between eating dinner at Deluxe or the Heights will take half an hour; whether to major in History or Poli Sci (or Comp Sci or Applied Math) will take up the other half of your time here. And you'll still wonder if you made the right decision to begin with—the decision to come to Columbia.

We could tell you all the reasons why you chose correctly, but we're confident enough to believe these to be implicit. You'll get it; you'll know you did well by yourself. So, in the interest of paving your road to eternal regret, Bwog staffers Marc Tracy and Avi Zenilman present arguments in favor of elsewhere: six schools that may have given you a better college experience. Or not.

Stanford University

Best of several worlds: you get to be Bay Area without living in a city, you get great weather that is nonetheless seasonal, and you get Ivy-caliber academics without Ivy-caliber winters and Ivy-caliber classmates without Ivy-caliber pretension. Plus, redwoods.

What they have that we don't: Major league hook-up to Silicon Valley. Berkeley and San Francisco are not far off, and Yosemite's only a few hours' drive. Also, we really get the feeling that everyone there has great skin. And their quarter system allows for greater personalization of your studies. Plus, redwoods.

What we have that they don't: Palo Alto plays SoHo to Berkeley's Village. All that Silicon Valley stuff still has to go through Wall Street. And at the end of the day, you still can't get a decent knish. See our point?

Hook-up factor: If nothing else, the better weather means that you don't pass through the winter months forgetting that the opposite sex exists. Plus, redwoods.

A few days ago Google introduced a new feature called "Trends" that allows users to view statistics about the search queries that Google fields by the millions every day. And finally, we have proof that Columbia actually is more important than its ivied brethren.

A comparison by volume of the search term "columbia university" versus "harvard university" et al., and "columbia" versus "harvard," etc., reveals that Columbia is well ahead on both counts (and it's assigned us a fitting color).

Columbia 1, all other Ivies 0.

Update: Also, check out "columbia college" versus "harvard college".

The score: 2-0.