Anonymous
12/05/2014 20:54
Subject: women who attended elite schools...
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:It's just a habit, if they're doing it after they know you know where they went. Don't over-think this.
I do it myself sometimes, because people sometimes say really obnoxious conversation-stopping type things if I say the name of my school. Really there is no solution-- some people hate to hear "in Boston", others will be nasty if you say "Harvard". And you will be accused of "being weird" no matter which you choose. But I find that overall, I get a better reaction from "in Boston". I really am amazed at the nasty things people occasionally say if they hear the name of a fancy school.
BULL F'ing SHIT. I went to Princeton undergrad and Yale law. If people ask where I went to school, I tell them. I don't place a huge amount of significance on it so nobody ever reacts weirdly. If you're getting that much negative feedback, I can promise you that it's you, not your school. I'm guessing people find you annoying and want to take you down a peg, and they would probably say the same about any school you cited.
You sound like a really nice person. Are you, by any chance, a man? Perhaps you haven't noticed, but people sometimes treat well-educated men differently than well-educated women.
This is is f***king idiotic. I'm a woman who went to Columbia undergrad and I can tell you that the only people who are weirded out by my degree are people who already showed their inherent insecurities before they found out where I went to college. Tons of my friends, and my dates, have not batted an eye. In fact I usually get this response:
Me: (say I went to Columbia in course of conversation about funny college tales)
Date (who might have gone to a state university): Oh, what year were you? What major?
Me: [year] [major]
Date: Do you know X? I think he was in your year, definitely your major. He's a close friend of mine from high school.
That is how a normal conversation with a normal person goes when you bring up your elite college degree, regardless of whether you are a man or a woman. If you're not getting these reactions, then you are either an arrogant asshole and everyone can smell it, or you surround yourself with insecure people.
Well, that's because Columbia isn't that impressive.
Anonymous
12/05/2014 20:45
Subject: women who attended elite schools...
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:It's just a habit, if they're doing it after they know you know where they went. Don't over-think this.
I do it myself sometimes, because people sometimes say really obnoxious conversation-stopping type things if I say the name of my school. Really there is no solution-- some people hate to hear "in Boston", others will be nasty if you say "Harvard". And you will be accused of "being weird" no matter which you choose. But I find that overall, I get a better reaction from "in Boston". I really am amazed at the nasty things people occasionally say if they hear the name of a fancy school.
BULL F'ing SHIT. I went to Princeton undergrad and Yale law. If people ask where I went to school, I tell them. I don't place a huge amount of significance on it so nobody ever reacts weirdly. If you're getting that much negative feedback, I can promise you that it's you, not your school. I'm guessing people find you annoying and want to take you down a peg, and they would probably say the same about any school you cited.
You sound like a really nice person. Are you, by any chance, a man? Perhaps you haven't noticed, but people sometimes treat well-educated men differently than well-educated women.
This is is f***king idiotic. I'm a woman who went to Columbia undergrad and I can tell you that the only people who are weirded out by my degree are people who already showed their inherent insecurities before they found out where I went to college. Tons of my friends, and my dates, have not batted an eye. In fact I usually get this response:
Me: (say I went to Columbia in course of conversation about funny college tales)
Date (who might have gone to a state university): Oh, what year were you? What major?
Me: [year] [major]
Date: Do you know X? I think he was in your year, definitely your major. He's a close friend of mine from high school.
That is how a normal conversation with a normal person goes when you bring up your elite college degree, regardless of whether you are a man or a woman. If you're not getting these reactions, then you are either an arrogant asshole and everyone can smell it, or you surround yourself with insecure people.
Anonymous
12/05/2014 20:22
Subject: women who attended elite schools...
Well, I'm a Yale grad, and it has been a conversation stopper and immediate shutdown on more than one occasion (and he asked, I didn't offer). And when you work in an environment that has people from all backgrounds, you hear things like "so-and-so thinks s/he's all that because s/he's always bragging about Harvard", even though I experience the same conversations and the person really hasn't - maybe mentioned it once.
So there's a lot of context. If I'm attending an event at the University Club, of course I don't beat around the bush. But in an unknown environment, "I went to school in Connecticut"
And as another pp points out, you can't win. You're a pretentious bitch no matter which one you select. And you, OP, seem to care about it a lot. You seem to be fixated on how "intellectual" your date is because it's very important for us to know that "you're at that level too". I don't care. I'm going to find you interesting or I won't.
So there's a lot of context. If I'm attending an event at the University Club, of course I don't beat around the bush. But in an unknown environment, "I went to school in Connecticut"
And as another pp points out, you can't win. You're a pretentious bitch no matter which one you select. And you, OP, seem to care about it a lot. You seem to be fixated on how "intellectual" your date is because it's very important for us to know that "you're at that level too". I don't care. I'm going to find you interesting or I won't.
Anonymous
12/05/2014 20:13
Subject: women who attended elite schools...
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:It's just a habit, if they're doing it after they know you know where they went. Don't over-think this.
I do it myself sometimes, because people sometimes say really obnoxious conversation-stopping type things if I say the name of my school. Really there is no solution-- some people hate to hear "in Boston", others will be nasty if you say "Harvard". And you will be accused of "being weird" no matter which you choose. But I find that overall, I get a better reaction from "in Boston". I really am amazed at the nasty things people occasionally say if they hear the name of a fancy school.
BULL F'ing SHIT. I went to Princeton undergrad and Yale law. If people ask where I went to school, I tell them. I don't place a huge amount of significance on it so nobody ever reacts weirdly. If you're getting that much negative feedback, I can promise you that it's you, not your school. I'm guessing people find you annoying and want to take you down a peg, and they would probably say the same about any school you cited.
You sound like a really nice person. Are you, by any chance, a man? Perhaps you haven't noticed, but people sometimes treat well-educated men differently than well-educated women.
Anonymous
12/05/2014 20:12
Subject: women who attended elite schools...
Anonymous wrote:It's just a habit, if they're doing it after they know you know where they went. Don't over-think this.
I do it myself sometimes, because people sometimes say really obnoxious conversation-stopping type things if I say the name of my school. Really there is no solution-- some people hate to hear "in Boston", others will be nasty if you say "Harvard". And you will be accused of "being weird" no matter which you choose. But I find that overall, I get a better reaction from "in Boston". I really am amazed at the nasty things people occasionally say if they hear the name of a fancy school.
BULL F'ing SHIT. I went to Princeton undergrad and Yale law. If people ask where I went to school, I tell them. I don't place a huge amount of significance on it so nobody ever reacts weirdly. If you're getting that much negative feedback, I can promise you that it's you, not your school. I'm guessing people find you annoying and want to take you down a peg, and they would probably say the same about any school you cited.
Anonymous
12/05/2014 18:52
Subject: women who attended elite schools...
Anonymous wrote:It only bothers people who didn't go to those schools or schools of that ilk and people who are hung up on those schools. Because if you did attend an elite school, you know exactly how your dates feels, and it wouldn't bother you at all. If you didn't attend one of those schools but you felt secure about your education and place in life, it also wouldn't bother you.
The fact that it bothers you enough to post about it is telling.
+1. And that intelligence is a "huge plus point." See, for a lot of people, intelligence is a necessity that goes without saying. Not just a plus factor.
Anonymous
12/05/2014 18:34
Subject: women who attended elite schools...
Where's Harvard? I think I heard of it somewhere!
Anonymous
12/05/2014 18:32
Subject: women who attended elite schools...
Anonymous wrote:I went to Oxford. It's kind of a conversation stopper. Best just to avoid the subject altogether.
You all are really strange. I went to Harvard for my undergrad and then Harvard Dental school. It does not stop a conversation. It invites more questions.
Sounds like you might be the one who kills the conversation.
Anonymous
12/05/2014 18:15
Subject: Re:women who attended elite schools...
Anonymous
12/05/2014 17:51
Subject: women who attended elite schools...
First dates can feel very job interview-ish. I sometimes feel like I'm being asked to read the dude my resume. So I try to steer the conversation away from that sort of thing.
Anonymous
12/05/2014 17:46
Subject: women who attended elite schools...
It only bothers people who didn't go to those schools or schools of that ilk and people who are hung up on those schools. Because if you did attend an elite school, you know exactly how your dates feels, and it wouldn't bother you at all. If you didn't attend one of those schools but you felt secure about your education and place in life, it also wouldn't bother you.
The fact that it bothers you enough to post about it is telling.
The fact that it bothers you enough to post about it is telling.
Anonymous
12/05/2014 17:45
Subject: women who attended elite schools...
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I don't know. It turns me on when I found out the woman went to a elite school, depending on the school. MIT -- I love you.
-- A male scientist here.
OP here - it isn't a question of turning me on or not. intelligence is a huge plus point when i look for a long term relationship - i don't care if you got it as a autodidact or from 8 years at HYP. but if it is from the latter, just be comfortable in where you went as you did spend 4+ years of your life there so it shaped you in some little way into the person that's sitting across from me.
I doesn't mean they are uncomfortable. It's just a way of trying to avoid derailing the conversation, or avoiding a nasty response. If you date women from elite schools for long enough, you will eventually be nearby when this happens, and then you'll understand better.
Anonymous
12/05/2014 17:31
Subject: women who attended elite schools...
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:It's just a habit, if they're doing it after they know you know where they went. Don't over-think this.
I do it myself sometimes, because people sometimes say really obnoxious conversation-stopping type things if I say the name of my school. Really there is no solution-- some people hate to hear "in Boston", others will be nasty if you say "Harvard". And you will be accused of "being weird" no matter which you choose. But I find that overall, I get a better reaction from "in Boston". I really am amazed at the nasty things people occasionally say if they hear the name of a fancy school.
do you do it only for your undergrad?
Because i have noticed that - no issues in saying 'i went to yls' but will then say 'i went to undergrad in boston'....wtf?
I do it for both, but it's the same school for both. I haven't really noticed a difference in that way. I think perhaps only fellow professionals really care where you went to grad school, so it's more ok to say the name. The kind of people who react poorly to a fancy name don't tend to differentiate among grad schools very much. I dunno... not something I've noticed, myself.
Anonymous
12/05/2014 17:30
Subject: Re:women who attended elite schools...
It depends on the context whether I say it or not. If the relevant information is the school I went to, I'll say the name of the school. If the geography is all that's relevant (say, we're talking about how much we like Boston), I'll just say I went to Boston, not to Harvard.
Anonymous
12/05/2014 17:30
Subject: Re:women who attended elite schools...
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I went to MIT and agree with the Oxford grad.
I posted "why" and now I see you have agreed with Oxford. I think this says something about who you socialize with. They sound starstruck by excellent schools. I am not diminishing MIT or Oxford but it doesn't leave me speechless. Lots of smart people go to those schools that end up very ordinary or less than that (aka Oxford was their peak). So, the schools are a social and intellectual marker for me but don't knock me over in amazement.
If you have been to the moon or perhaps invented something amazing that everyone uses, then yes, I would be amazed and speechless.
