Those computer-literate geniuses from Harvey Mudd College (HMC) don’t seem to mind showing off their prowess in any playing field–including competing against other colleges for Victoria Secret lingerie. In this tiny engineering, science, and math undergraduate college where the male population outnumbers its female population 2 to 1, the students have managed to override the one-vote-per-day rule and bypass the image verification software towards school-emblazoned pink panties. With a population of less than 800 students, HMC racked over 1 million votes within a few weeks, taking first place with nearly double the votes of the next college. As of now, HMC stands at the top with over 2 million votes.

Not only that, but they hacked the system to vote for every other college after them, most of which were just as unlikely as themselves to win the contest, to spell out “Harvey Mudd Rox, Boo CalTech” by taking the first letter of the top 28 colleges on the list, a move against their long-time rival, the California Institute of Technology. The slogan was just completed today, in time for Guy Fawkes Day. This was changed from its previous slogan of “WIBSTR”, meaning “West Is Best, Screw The Rest”, a slogan from one of the on-campus residence halls of HMC.

How is this even possible? HMC is well-known for its brilliant-minded and successful students. Despite its small size, it holds its own against the greatest engineering, science and math colleges of the country including Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) of New York, and California Institute of Technology (CalTech). And because HMC may be often overshadowed by its rivals in terms of size, they never let go of the chance to show off. Sure, the cheating scripts are unethical, but no one can deny that once again, HMC trumps the competition with their intellect and knowledge.

This particular instance concerning Victoria’s Secret was a cooperation by most of the school campus. None of the students seem to be remorseful about the cheating at all; in fact, they are rather proud of their college’s accomplishment and claim that the program they wrote to bypass the system was, if anything, “simple” and “very easy to do”.

HMC should look out, however; MIT had attempted to hack the system in the Victoria’s Secret contest before, some years ago. They had been disqualified and subsequently banned from the competition. No doubt, however, the MIT students are also taking a good laugh at what HMC has done–especially the CalTech comment, since MIT and CalTech are well-known for their rivalry as well.

Victoria’s Secret has since reset the competition. Currently, Saint Louis University is in first place.

http://www.vspink.com/nominate_your_school.jsp

http://cmcforum.com/life/10152009-harvey-mudd-1-victorias-secret-0