If it weren't for the .edu missing at the end of the URL — and, you know, the monsters — it would be pretty easy to believe the website for Monsters University, which is actually part of the brilliantly adorable new viral marketing campaign for Pixar's Monsters, Inc. prequel. For instance, we took the fake college's homepage and compared it to the sites for the two schools whose football teams competed in last night's Rose Bowl, during which a similarly subtle ad for the movie/college aired.

The Pixar marketing site is wonderfully straight-forward. In fact, its almost bland, in that typical collegiate cheerful PR kind of way that paints students as really happy and college life as equally rosy. Here, for instance, are student testimonials in the "Admissions" section:

The site also features a campus map:

And a sample question from the "MAT"—the "Monsters Aptitude Test": 

Spend some time in the "Campus Life" section, where you'll find some fairly banal details about housing and dining — exactly for the menu items (i.e. "chili cheese flies"), which are fairly... monstrous. 

Monsters University is due out summer 2013 — there's already concept art, along with hints at some other upcoming Pixar films — so we'll have to wait to see whether the actual product is as good as its early advertising. Meanwhile, we're considering applying since we're intrigued at the possibility of studying at the School of Liberal Arts and Monstrosities.

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Esther Zuckerman