Appalling: Community Service Club Tells Freshman He’s Not Good Enough to Help Others

In recent times, Penn’s club culture has come under intense scrutiny and criticism for its competitive nature. Anyone at school will be able to tell you about unbelievable and downright crazy rejection stories, but none are as disheartening as Paul Green’s (C’ 21).

After five grueling interview rounds, with CIS160 brainteasers, basketball tryouts at Pottruck, and plenty of fake initiations, Green was finally rejected by the Social Impact and Justice Board. The reason? He was told that he wasn’t good enough to help other people.

We spoke with the club’s head, Justin Myris (W’ 18), seeking answers. “Many of our members have built three or four semi-functional wells in impoverished third-world nations for good Instagram opportunities, and some have even given their parent’s credit cards to school-building efforts,” Myris said.

“Then you have many members that have shown their commitment to impact by interning at reputable places like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and McKinsey. Those names have a huge social impact on campus. Paul, he probably has a good heart; but he’s simply not a strong enough candidate to do good things for those who need help. Our members need to be extraordinarily competent, especially when they show up to our once-every-three-month GBMs.”

Myris was later seen flipping off a sophomore asking for help with a simple integral for his finance homework. “That kind of help ruins the curve!”

“You would expect more support from your own TA,” the dejected sophomore told us.