I live in the South and tell people I went a small LAC in New England and leave it at that. 99.99% of people have other things going on in their lives and don’t care about anyone’s alma mater. Congrats to your daughter and hope she enjoys her time at her LAC!

Anonymous wrote:Help her come up with one sentence to explain (not justify -- no reason to be defensive). "I'm going to LAC XYZ in [state] in the fall. I'm so excited because it has [whatever she likes about the school]."

+1. If she feels compelled she could say "it's about the same size as [insert Davidson, College of Charleston, Stetson, Wofford, etc] and I love it". Hopefully no one is rude enough to carry on about how they've never heard of it.

And yes I know it might not be exactly the same size or academically similar to any one of these examples but my point is that she can analogize to something small in the region she's in that people are more likely to have heard of.

Anonymous wrote:I’ve never heard of Bates, I’m aware of Colby but no one ever talks about it IRL, and I’ve only ever seen Bowdoin mentioned on this board.

I’m not surprised people in the South haven’t heard of any northeastern colleges without football teams or sororities.

Anonymous wrote:If she wants name recognition, go to a football school.

This is really the answer. For most people name recognition is based on the school's athletic program.

I do think the further you get away from the East Coast, kids are more likely to go their state flagships instead of more competitive liberal arts colleges. I think part of it is the cost. It is a lot harder to make 300,000 in Akron than it is DC or New Jersey.

My kid went to Northwestern University for undergrad. Relatives in Michigan assumed it was Northwestern Michigan College, a community college in Traverse City. When kid went to grad school in Texas, people assumed he had gone to Northwestern State University in Louisiana. There are apparently quite a few colleges that are subjects of such confusion, & high-quality schools are not immune.

Colby, Swiss, and Cheddar. Blended all together.

Anonymous wrote:There is very little difference between the top 10 LACS. They all offer excellent academics!

+1

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Name thr college or this is meaningless.

I’m trying to stay anonymous. It’s one of Colby, Bates, Bowdoin.

LOL, you live among ignoramuses

Just tell them it is one of the 31 colleges at Cambridge.

Williams students are asked if they go to “Williams and Mary”. It’s all good. Only people in this narrow DC or other narrow metro area bubbles care about the differences amongst the top 50 schools.

Anonymous wrote:For what it's worth when I went to MIT there was a certain subset of my family who thought it was like ITT Tech. My standard reply was " yeah, it's something like that." I hope she thoroughly enjoys her experience.

Hilarious! I had relatives who thought Stanford was in Connecticut.

Anonymous wrote:There is very little difference between the top 10 LACS. They all offer excellent academics!

How would such a belief apply to this topic?

Eh, there will always be gaps in regional knowledge. When I was in high school on the west coast, I was asked why I wasn't applying to a specific college in the MidWest, by an alumnus. I'd never heard of it. It was a good school, probably one of the best regionally, but literally no one from my high school had ever gone there, so my chances of knowing about it were slim to none. After college, I started at a federal agency that had a significant element that came from the south. And they would go on and on about Auburn. I don't follow football, so this was another one I'd never heard of. They were stunned. Honestly, other than Duke, Morehouse, or Spellman, I really have no gauge for colleges in the south (other than the one that was featured in the documentary about sororities - Alabama? - which would be a hard no from me for my kid after watching that).

There is very little difference between the top 10 LACS. They all offer excellent academics!

For what it's worth when I went to MIT there was a certain subset of my family who thought it was like ITT Tech. My standard reply was " yeah, it's something like that." I hope she thoroughly enjoys her experience.