Are you ever secretly jealous of people with degrees from elite private schools?

Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:People hate to admit it. But I’m also sometimes jealous. Not often, but I do often think it would be nice to have a “brand name” degree. It’s the kind of thing that stays with you for life in the same way that other “brand” items like a luxury handbag or car doesn’t.


If you’re in your 30s or later, this is just sad. I don’t even know where most of my colleagues went to undergrad, let alone spend time romanticizing their experience compared to my own (which I’m very happy with Btw).
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:Elite grad here, trust me I would have been happier going to a state school on so many levels.


+100
Anonymous
We have a good friend who went to a state flagship and always talked about how the network he made there, including fraternity brothers and friends he met through his activities, was far more important than his school or anything he studied. DH and I both grew up with an anti-Greek prejudice, but have really come around to this view point. Our neighborhood is filled with smart and extremely successful people who attended all sorts of random colleges but have extensive friend and business acquaintance networks that we now benefit from as well. We have plenty of friends who attended Ivies too, but they don’t stand out as better educated and certainly are not more successful as a group. This reality has helped to keep me from stressing too much about elite schools for our kids, though it’s hard to ignore those pressures around here.
Anonymous
Not jealous at all. I actually feel sorry for some of them because they are in big debt and none of them have jobs that are all that stellar. Actually one of them has a low paying academic job, that could be a dead end if he doesn't move on.
Anonymous
No, I am happy with my life. Neither I nor my spouse went to college. We still own our own house, have a child, pets, cars and go on nice vacations, e also have friends. We have no debt aside from our mortgage.
Anonymous
I am not jealous of people with degrees from elite universities but I do admire it. My DH went to Oxford and he has that level brain. I do not. I wouldn't have got in if I tried and I wouldn't have thrived if by some fluke I did get in.

I meet people sometimes who have been to Brown or Harvard and I think what a wonderful experience that must have been but I don't feel jealousy or envy about it.
Anonymous
I'm not even remotely jealous of anyone's education. College is college. Where you went doesn't matter. All I'm jealous of is people who make a lot more money than me. We're pretty rich ourselves, but there are people who are a lot richer. I envy them for sure.

In the real world, it's money that talks. Not educational pedigree.
Anonymous
No. I went to a state school that at the time, was pretty much everyone's safety school. Now it's hard to get into and I would never be able to get in (and I was in the honors program back then). My undergrad degree is worth so much more now than it was in the late 90s.

Grad school, I went to a school that is just under Ivy League and it was a joke. It makes my resume look really good but I could have learned just as much at any other school.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:I'm not even remotely jealous of anyone's education. College is college. Where you went doesn't matter. All I'm jealous of is people who make a lot more money than me. We're pretty rich ourselves, but there are people who are a lot richer. I envy them for sure.

In the real world, it's money that talks. Not educational pedigree.


What an empty life.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I'm not even remotely jealous of anyone's education. College is college. Where you went doesn't matter. All I'm jealous of is people who make a lot more money than me. We're pretty rich ourselves, but there are people who are a lot richer. I envy them for sure.

In the real world, it's money that talks. Not educational pedigree.


What an empty life.


LOL. As opposed to being jealous because somebody went to Harvard? Seriously? At least my jealously makes sense.
Anonymous
Why only private schools? I’m jealous of people with degrees from places like UCLA and Georgia Tech
Anonymous
No - I feel like the people who make the biggest deal about having gone to an Ivy are those who are SAHM.
Anonymous
I get what you mean OP. I went to a commuter state school and earlier a Catholic parish H.S. Boarding schools + Ivies are so posh. My kid went to HYP and never has to prove how smart/posh she is.
Anonymous
I went to a state school for undergrad and one of the "elite private" schools listed in the OP for grad school. It was a waste of money and I should have gone to a cheaper grad school that was a better fit, versus the most prestigious. Oh well, live and learn.
Anonymous
I think the people who are talking about money and how that's so much more enviable are more tacky than education envy.
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