Line #1 YMMV/Accepted


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2	* CultClassic: Still has a dedicated fanbase despite majority negative reviews, with the movie [[ValuesResonance resonating more as time goes on]] due to the soullessness of college becoming more of a discussion point.
3	* DesignatedVillain: While he shows his true colors partway through the film, Hoyt Ambrose [[BitchInSheepsClothing acts like a legitimately nice person]] for the first half of the movie, such as going out of his way to try to welcome the schubby-looking Sherman to their fraternity even when the other brothers are rudely ostracizing him. But Bartleby constantly insults him to his face with no provocation from the beginning, implicitly just because he's going out with the girl B has a crush on, and the audience is implicitly intended to sympathize with him long before it turns out Hoyt is a mean-spirited cheater.
4	* EnsembleDarkhorse:
5	** Sherman Schrader is extremely popular for being a hilariously snarky, rational, timid, and sympathetic lackey to Bartleby. For bonus points, he's played by a not-yet-A-list Creator/JonahHill.
6	** Among the students who don't know the school's real nature, [=ADD=] (for his MotorMouth moments and MeaningfulName), the aspiring pyrokinetic kid, and former stripper Kiki are decently popular despite all of them having limited screen time.
7	* EsotericHappyEnding: Even generously assuming that S.H.I.T. ends up regionally accredited,[[note]]Which is actually worth something--unlike national accreditation; confusing, we know[[/note]] can provide decent education, and is ''not'' a for-profit school (employers look down heavily on said institutions, for good reason), the attendees are still basically doomed. The school has no connections or reputation that would lead its alumni towards jobs. Every single 'student' would have been far better off going to community college.
8	* HarsherInHindsight:
9	** Fake universities that teach nothing and are of dubious value are very common in the real world. They're usually considered a form of fraud as seen with Trump University. They're generally a lot less funny than this movie makes it to be.
10	** The entire plot can be seen as this in hindsight, given the scandals surrounding non-accredited, for-profit colleges that offered students what turned out to be [[ADegreeInUseless expensive, useless degrees]]. ''Website/{{Cracked}}'' [[http://www.cracked.com/article_25199_5-movies-where-heroes-villains-would-be-reversed-today_p2.html argued]] that nowadays, the plot of this film would be seen as a college-set version of ''Film/TheWolfOfWallStreet''. See StrawmanHasAPoint below.
11	* HilariousInHindsight: A character [[Series/BreakingBad named Schrader jokes about starting a meth lab.]]
12	* InformedWrongness: Yes the people at Harmon College are ivory tower elitists who coveted S.H.I.T.'s property ...but Bartleby was running a fraudulent college and having it shut down is the appropriate thing to do.
13	* RetroactiveRecognition:
14	** Schrader's dad is [[Series/ParksAndRecreation Jerry Gergich]]!
15	** Abernathy Darwin Dunlap (ADD) is [[Series/{{Gotham}} Oswald Cobblepot]].
16	* StrawmanHasAPoint:
17	** Bartleby is rejected by every college, so he ends up inventing one out of thin air. The thing spins out of control and becomes an actual, factual school set out of an old mental institution. Dean Van Horne at the more traditional Harmon College wages an accreditation war against the upstart. He's a JerkAss, and the new school (with its emphasis on the students) is presented as a brave bastion of new educational methods. But as he points out, the new place doesn't have a health center, more than one faculty member or even a ''library.'' One doesn't have to be a crusty old academic to argue that a college should at least have a library.
18	** Also in line with ProtagonistCenteredMorality. We're supposed to be cheering for Bartleby, but while his speech is inspiring, he basically ranted at the accreditation council and told them that he didn't care what they or anyone else thought, which should be a surefire way to get them to rule against him completely. In addition, this is also regardless of the fact that not only was everything he did so far essentially illegal but his college -- lacking both teachers and an actual accreditation program, and thus the ability to give legitimate degrees as well -- was setting up all of the students for failure in the real world without that committee's approval. Even if he did make a valid argument about the failures of conventional education, he had done very little up to that point of trying to actually make his new program viable in and of itself, in favor of trying to cover up the mess that originated from him trying to lie to his parents.
19	* TearJerker:
20	** The fact that scores of S.H.I.T.'s applicants weren't accepted anywhere which unfortunately can be TruthInTelevision. Further compounded when they discover S.H.I.T. was a lie.
21	*** Abernathy Darwin Dunlap claiming that his acceptance into S.H.I.T. was the ''first'' time his parents said they were proud of him. Its presented as a Funny (both in-universe and out), but it kind of becomes this when given more thought.
22	** Rory working ''since first grade'' to get into Yale only to be rejected. She spent 11 to 12 years (roughly 2/3 of her life at that point) academically busting her ass toward getting into her dream college [[HardWorkHardlyWorks only for it to be]] AllForNothing.
23	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Even critics who didn't like the film have noted that it is still one of the few comedy films in recent memory to have a genuinely original plot.
24	** Well, [[Film/CampNowhere not completely original]]...
25	* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: Between the just-before-smartphones level of technology and the "Going to college will guarantee a good job and financial security!" reasoning that the protagonists never fully reject, it's an unintentional snapshot of the world right before the Great Recession. This is also present on a subtler level; none of the protagonists even consider trade school or community college to be acceptable alternatives to getting accepted at higher-levels schools; these institutions and the skilled-labor jobs they teach ended up being some of the stablest after the bottom fell out of the economy.

Context YMMV / Accepted