Andy Bernard's Academic Career

Andy Bernard went to Cornell University (graduating in 1995 with an unspecified Bachelor of Arts) and is smug about it. He was, by his own admission, not a particularly good student.

Academic career
Andy Bernard was not particularly gifted academically.


 * By his own admission, he "never studied once."
 * He failed Introduction to Philosophy and had to take it again.

As a high school student, Andy tried to lead a student protest against standardized tests, but chickened out and took the SATs anyway. He scored a 1220, which is the 80th percentile in general, but is a poor score for a Cornell student, putting him in the bottom 25% of the student population. His poor score contributed to his being wait-listed at Cornell, but he was ultimately admitted because his father donated a building to the school.

Cultural references
Andy's identity is tied up in the fact that he went to Cornell.

Cornell is a member of the of elite universities in the United States. While it is not as prestigious as the so-called (Harvard, Yale, Princeton), it is still among the top 20 schools in the nation.

The joke about Andy bragging about having attended Cornell is not so much a joke about Cornell, but rather a joke about Andy: He's the sort of person who brags about having gone to a prestigious school, which is a sign of insecurity and ironically is an indicator that he isn't very successful, because most successful people who go to prestigious schools tend to downplay the fact.

Andy comes from a rich family whose wealth and connections could get him a job as a corporate executive, but he struggles to get by as a paper salesman at an unknown company. His obsession with Cornell is funny because it means so much to him, and he thinks it impresses others, even though it doesn't.

Incidentally, many of the actors and writers went to Ivy League schools: Mindy Kaling went to Dartmouth; John Krasinski went to Brown; B.J. Novak, Michael Schur, and Charlie Grandy went to Harvard; and Ellie Kemper went to Princeton. NBC executive Kevin Reilly (who championed the show during its struggling first season) went to Cornell.