All Harvard grads eventually learn this--you cannot win. If you tell people you went to Harvard--you are an elitist, self-important name dropper trying to impress everyone with your academic pedigree. If you try to avoid the question, you are engaging in false-modesty, which demonstrates that you are even more arrogant. You're only option is to lie and claim you went to Cornell.

Luckily, Harvard wasn't my undergrad, so I can usually get away with telling people where I went to college and not mention my Harvard degree at all.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I see an acquaintance I know has a senior or college freshman son/daughter, is it bad manners to ask where he/she is looking or has decided to go to school? I am just trying to show interest and make conversation and am curious since we will be doing the college search for our oldest soon. But sometimes I sense people are disappointed in where their kids are going, if they can't say that it is a really elite school. One parent even offered that her daughter had "not lived up to her potential.". Is this too loaded a question?

Wow. What a truly awful thing to say about one's teenage daughter. I kind of shocked that no one else has commented on it.

I did earlier in the thread.

Anonymous wrote:Read 17:24. Carefully. That's the person who needs a muzzle.

It is fine to be interested in someone else's kids. It is tedious to want to brag about your kids except to your spouse and maybe their grandparents.

The irony in 17:24 was totally lost on you, wasn't it.

Read 17:24. Carefully. That's the person who needs a muzzle.

It is fine to be interested in someone else's kids. It is tedious to want to brag about your kids except to your spouse and maybe their grandparents.

Thanks pp. I'm 15:36 again. I was raised in the midwest. We were taught not to brag for one thing and number 2 -- we were taught to mind our own business. So, I don't needlessly pry into other people's business unless someone asks me a specific question.

Anonymous wrote:You made a pretty big jump there between point B, the PP's announcement that she really wants to tell people where her DC got in, and point S, your assumption that she wants to be courteous and that she cares how her audience feels.

I mean, I guess she does care how her audience feels, but she wants them to feel impressed by her DC.

Point B is just something you or someone else made up. I was criticizing it, not agreeing with it.

Point S isn't an assumption, it's a fact -- read her post at 15:36. Unless you think she's lying. I don't think she's lying, because if she cared so much about impressing her audience she'd come right out and ask the leading question, which is exactly what she's avoiding doing.

You made a pretty big jump there between point B, the PP's announcement that she really wants to tell people where her DC got in, and point S, your assumption that she wants to be courteous and that she cares how her audience feels.

I mean, I guess she does care how her audience feels, but she wants them to feel impressed by her DC.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So let me get this straight. My kid just got into an Ivy (really! Although I'm not the faux modesty poster). For whatever reason (pride, schadenfreude, being a sad person who lives through my kid's success) I want you all to know about it.

So my take-away from this thread is, I should most definitely start a conversation about your kid -- just so I can work my own kid's Ivy into the conversation. Because if I held back, that would be false modesty.

Uh, OK.

No. If you are not genuinely interested in other people's kids, don't ask. But it you don't want to ask because it might result in a question about what your kid is doing, and you don't want to answer that because your child is so very magically superfantastic that no other child can compare and the other parent will just feel terrible about her loser kid, you should punch yourself in the face until you lose consciousness.

You made a pretty big jump there between Point A, the PP's concern over how someone else might feel, and Point B, your claim that PP feels her own kid is magically super fantastic.

Look, it's pretty indisputable that some parents will feel bad -- maybe not you, or so you say -- but there's no way for PP to know which type of parent she's dealing with. So she wants to be courteous. I guess if society has reached the point where we don't care how our audience feels, that is if we're all as callous and self-centered as you, then we really should punch ourselves in the face...

Anonymous wrote:When I see an acquaintance I know has a senior or college freshman son/daughter, is it bad manners to ask where he/she is looking or has decided to go to school? I am just trying to show interest and make conversation and am curious since we will be doing the college search for our oldest soon. But sometimes I sense people are disappointed in where their kids are going, if they can't say that it is a really elite school. One parent even offered that her daughter had "not lived up to her potential.". Is this too loaded a question?

Wow. What a truly awful thing to say about one's teenage daughter. I kind of shocked that no one else has commented on it.

Anonymous wrote:So let me get this straight. My kid just got into an Ivy (really! Although I'm not the faux modesty poster). For whatever reason (pride, schadenfreude, being a sad person who lives through my kid's success) I want you all to know about it.

So my take-away from this thread is, I should most definitely start a conversation about your kid -- just so I can work my own kid's Ivy into the conversation. Because if I held back, that would be false modesty.

Uh, OK.

No. If you are not genuinely interested in other people's kids, don't ask. But it you don't want to ask because it might result in a question about what your kid is doing, and you don't want to answer that because your child is so very magically superfantastic that no other child can compare and the other parent will just feel terrible about her loser kid, you should punch yourself in the face until you lose consciousness.

So let me get this straight. My kid just got into an Ivy (really! Although I'm not the faux modesty poster). For whatever reason (pride, schadenfreude, being a sad person who lives through my kid's success) I want you all to know about it.

So my take-away from this thread is, I should most definitely start a conversation about your kid -- just so I can work my own kid's Ivy into the conversation. Because if I held back, that would be false modesty.

Uh, OK.

as if

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
It can be tricky to ask OP. My kid goes to an Ivy, so I never asked people because it seems loaded. So, if they say their kid goes to "x" and ask me where mine goes, it seems that I'm just trying to brag. So, I never say where my kid goes.


Get over yourself -- the rest of us already have. And, yes, DH and I both went to an Ivy and so do our kids.

Just ask "how's Jessica/Jason enjoying senior year?"


Yet you do see how you felt the need to brag?

Ah, legacy kids...

Nope , different schools, actually -- to my disappointment.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It can be tricky to ask OP. My kid goes to an Ivy, so I never asked people because it seems loaded. So, if they say their kid goes to "x" and ask me where mine goes, it seems that I'm just trying to brag. So, I never say where my kid goes.

Get over yourself -- the rest of us already have. And, yes, DH and I both went to an Ivy and so do our kids.

Just ask "how's Jessica/Jason enjoying senior year?"

Yet you do see how you felt the need to brag?

Not bragging, but wanted to head off the typical DCUM accusation of sour grapes.

Why not just myob until someone raises the issue.