Schools with snob appeal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look, UVA has long been a major snob school in the DMV. I realizes that this annoys the hell out of the UVA haters on this board, but that doesn’t change the reality of the situation and in fact probably explains it.

But, it is public. So not much snob appeal since anyone can go there.

Anyone can go there? What??

Clearly new to college admissions and have no idea how impossible it has become to get in to UVA or W&M instate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dartmouth and Princeton

Agree with this one. Good old money snob appeal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I always find these conversations about wasps funny because they mythologize a group of people who haven't really existed in a very long time.

My family is almost 100 per cent wasp, as in founded this country wasp, as in fled religious persecution wasp, as in fought in every conflict from the Bacon rebellion (both sides) on. But we're not wasps at all. I was the first person in my family born east of the Mississippi in almost 200 years and I will inherit nothing. There is nothing.

I'm not bragging, this isn't something to be proud of ashamed of. I'm bringing it up because there's a huge number of Americans just like me. Your DAR and your Dames women aren't coming from the people with summer palaces in Maine, or those who go sailing in the cape. They're coming from farm country. They're coming from factories.

The WASP illusion is very real, but it's full of people who are about as waspy as Ralph Lauren. Nothing wrong with that--but my point is, the "snob" appeal factor comes more from trying to keep up the appearance of wasp gentility than any bloodline.

I suspect this kind of class thing is nothing new. There's always been someone getting their family name on a crest or a tartan, becoming the ruling caste by adopting its mannerisms.

Lack of inheritance has nothing to do with whether someone is a WASP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Old Money schools will be the ones established for the longest time in the northeast or midatlantic. In chronological order:

Harvard
William & Mary
St John's College
Yale
U Penn
U Delaware
Princeton

All others are parvenus

Harvard is no longer old money Snob appeal. They get the actual best and brightest and don’t fill as many seats with white male legacies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does Vanderbilt really have snob appeal? I grew up in Nashville and 25 years ago Vandy was where the mediocre students in my class went.

As for student quality, it’s hard to objectively claim that Vandy students are mediocre. Your attitudes probably reflect the notion that it was a local school for you, thus not special. Almost all schools - even highly selective ones - admit more heavily from their metro and regional areas than other pl. For example, a simple google search reveals that in 2015, 15% of Harvard students were from Massachusetts while the state represented only 2% of the nation’s population.

I get that
A good percentage of Harvard graduates also stay in Massachusetts. Growing up Harvard graduates were everywhere including in my family so it wasn’t as impressive as it should have been. But it was impressive enough that I knew I wasn’t going to get in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a wasp here’s my 2 cents:
Princeton and Dartmouth over all the other ives -too leftist
All NESCACs
Seven sisters
UVM
Pine Manor
(Let me think by state)
Bucknell, F&M, CM is a good school but doesn’t have that snob appeal
The Quakers
UVA, HS, W&L URichmond Hollins
Wake is meh …
UNC
Duke - too many Yankees mixes up the status quo
Elon- too popular
AppState -boho in a good way
Rhodes- lots of strive-y yankee moms want their girls to go there
Sewanee- NOT
Vandy - I guess
UTK- lots of drinking
SpringHill College
Maybe Kenyon
Don’t know much about anything further west in terms of snob appeal.
Visited SMU once, kids looked too goody- goody and clean, it’s a dry campus etc no fun!
It’s just harder and colder in the east coast

Kenyon? Snob appeal? It's all pink-haired, theater kids, except for a few lacrosse players. No way. Not East Coast elite snobbery anway, not the way OP intended.

Same can be said for many LACs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dartmouth and Princeton

Agree with this one. Good old money snob appeal.

Unless you’re a legacy with strong academic credentials, old money types can forget about Princeton now.

[Anonymous]

Snob appeal for the masses: HYP, Stanford, MIT, Ivies (maybe minus Cornell), Berkeley, UVA, Michigan, Duke
Snob appeal for the academic elite: Swarthmore, Amherst, Williams, Carleton, Grinnell, Chicago, MIT, Caltech, Reed, St. John's (Annapolis), Deep Springs
Snob appeal (but not a member of the lists above--snobby because IFKYK..., as opposed to large state schools): Seven Sisters, Kenyon, Oberlin, Hamilton, Haverford, various pricey SLACs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Old Money schools will be the ones established for the longest time in the northeast or midatlantic. In chronological order:

Harvard
William & Mary
St John's College
Yale
U Penn
U Delaware
Princeton

All others are parvenus

Harvard is no longer old money Snob appeal. They get the actual best and brightest and don’t fill as many seats with white male legacies.

Oh please!

[Anonymous]

This is one of those tell me where you went to school without telling me where you went to school posts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a wasp here’s my 2 cents:
Princeton and Dartmouth over all the other ives -too leftist
All NESCACs
Seven sisters
UVM
Pine Manor
(Let me think by state)
Bucknell, F&M, CM is a good school but doesn’t have that snob appeal
The Quakers
UVA, HS, W&L URichmond Hollins
Wake is meh …
UNC
Duke - too many Yankees mixes up the status quo
Elon- too popular
AppState -boho in a good way
Rhodes- lots of strive-y yankee moms want their girls to go there
Sewanee- NOT
Vandy - I guess
UTK- lots of drinking
SpringHill College
Maybe Kenyon
Don’t know much about anything further west in terms of snob appeal.
Visited SMU once, kids looked too goody- goody and clean, it’s a dry campus etc no fun!
It’s just harder and colder in the east coast

Great list. I'd add Hobart and William Smith. Had to laugh at Pine Manor (aka Pine Mattress).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hamilton.

Agree with the Dartmouth skiers - that was so random and true.

Also agree with Deep Springs but that’s an impossibly hard admit. Literally almost impossible. Perfect for Holden Caufields

Claremont Mckenna

College of Charleston

SMU

Salve Regina

—- I have a certain profile in mind, and it’s not new, phenomenal wealth brought about by the Valley or private equity.

We were surprised to learn that something like 10% of students at College of Charleston are from the top 1%.

[Anonymous]

West Point. They believe they are intellectually, physically and morally the best America has and what irritates the rest most is that they are not wrong.

[Anonymous]

2nd Gen Indian Americans

MIT
Stanford
Cornell
Berkeley
UCLA
Northwestern
Duke
Harvard/Princeton/Yale
Michigan

White Southerners
Vanderbilt
SMU
Deep South State flagships
Duke
Princeton
Washington and Lee
UVA
Tulane

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If we're talking historic old money/blue book WASPs, you can find your answer in this article from 1963, "Colleges of America's Upper Class" https://www.unz.com/print/SaturdayRev-1963nov16-00068/

It's Yale by a lot. Followed by Harvard, then Princeton. Then there's a sharp drop to everything else. For women, it's 7 sisters + junior colleges, more evenly mixed.

Summarizing here:

Colleges most commonly attended by the 1963 college-aged cohort:
Yale (171) > Harvard (123) > Princeton (76) >
Pennsylvania (44)> Trinity > Middlebury > Virginia> Stanford> Williams> Hobart/ North Carolina (tied)> Boston U.> Dartmouth

For women college students, also decreasing order/10+ students listed):
Smith> Vassar> Radcliffe> Wellesley> Wheaton> Bryn Mawr> Sarah Lawrence> 3 junior colleges (Bradford, Bennett, Briarcliff)> Hollins> Connecticut College> Mt. Holyoke> Wells

And for the alma maters of the men listed in the blue book:
Again, Yale (2234), Harvard close behind (1746), Princeton 3rd (1422)
Then there's a sharp drop:
Williams (325), and it goes down from there:
Columbia> Virginia> Cornell> Dartmouth> Amherst> M.I.T.> Trinity> Pennsylvania> Brown> Annapolis> West Point > N.Y.U.> California (Berkeley)> Georgetown> Colgate> North Carolina> Hamilton> Wesleyan

Poor Wells closed recently.