20 Ways to Avoid Inferiority at a Top 20 University

A satire on some struggles faced by college students at top (over-the-top) universities striving to be the best of the best:

How much do I hate myself, on a scale of 1 to 10 pounds heavier and 2 fewer hours of sleep? - Actual Emory Student

If you're proud of studying 10 hours straight last night, take time to admire the boaster behind you in the deli line who did 11 and hasn't eaten a meal yet this week.
Or make it a challenge to see who can kill the grade curve first. Bonus points for each mental breakdown had in the process.
Feel obligated to join, and actively participate in, every single club that emails you. All of them.
Never skip a beat working harder than two high school yous, all while accepting that you're still doomed for the inadequacy of an A-minus this semester.
Keep clinging like saran wrap to your fitness plan, ignoring the runner who’s sprouting wings and practically flying on the treadmill next to you and your commendable effort at a light jog.
Take no notice of an entire track team strutting past your cafeteria table at their physical prime. Instead, continue to quietly inhale your third post-lunch cookie.
Do not, under any circumstances, take sanity breaks. Any time not sleeping, bathroom-ing or hiking through the Georgia heat to your next class is best spent studying.
Strive to become an unrelenting perfectionist.
Better yet, become the best and most obsessive perfectionist of any you know.
Lock yourself in the stacks of the library tower for maximum productivity. Refuse emancipation under any conditions other than rapunzel-style escape.
Ignore the mounting existential dread. Remember from your ethics class that those sad little Frenchmen have been dead for a while now.
Ask everyone you meet about their GPA and how many AP/IB classes they took in high school as a fun icebreaker.
Throw in a couple questions about their career and life plans while you’re at it, "just out of curiosity."
Pay no mind to the division championships, national awards, and other outrageous external measures of success your peers are currently achieving, as you meanwhile stumble over the English language attempting to form an intelligent email to your world-renowned professor.
Spend every free second of finals week camped in the library, eavesdropping on the study sessions of other sleep-deprived, soulless study groups, silently measuring your level of burnt-out against theirs.
Check online for the last of your final grades at least four times a day during the first week of winter break until 11:59 p.m. on deadline day, just in case.
Catch up with friends from home by comparing how many A’s each person managed to emerge with for the semester.
Relish the perpetual sense of inadequacy alongside your peers, ignoring how statistically unnatural your college population sample is to begin with.
Always overwork and do way more than necessary, adopting the mantra that the “E” in your school’s name stands for how “Extra" everything must be.
Whenever you feel down, remember: don’t despair—compare!