Anonymous wrote:I went to law school at Harvard as a single young woman and didn't marry until about 6 years after graduating (so I have some dating experience with respect to your point).

OP, there's no way to say it without, as a PP said, it being a conversation de-railer or creating some other downside. When many people hear "Harvard" they go to that stereotype of "Hahr-vahrd" and make assumptions about the person. This can work for or against you, depending on a few factors.

In school, it was referred to "dropping the H-bomb." It had a dual effect: In general, if you were a guy, it caused women to go starry-eyed. If you were a woman, it caused men to go running.

It's as if people people stop seeing you as an individual and just put you in a stereotypical box (smart, bragging, perhaps spoon-fed as well). Men and women--girl friends, too. I think this may be more of a Harvard thing than a Yale or Colombia thing, because of the way the media portrays Harvard. It's also a bigger deal on the west coast because Harvard grads aren't a dime-a-dozen like in Boston, or to some extent, DC.

Hopefully things have changed since I graduated. I like Mr. Scientist's comments above, but I can tell you, you are (or were) few and far between.

Anonymous wrote:I went to law school at Harvard as a single young woman and didn't marry until about 6 years after graduating (so I have some dating experience with respect to your point).

OP, there's no way to say it without, as a PP said, it being a conversation de-railer or creating some other downside. When many people hear "Harvard" they go to that stereotype of "Hahr-vahrd" and make assumptions about the person. This can work for or against you, depending on a few factors.

In school, it was referred to "dropping the H-bomb." It had a dual effect: In general, if you were a guy, it caused women to go starry-eyed. If you were a woman, it caused men to go running.

It's as if people people stop seeing you as an individual and just put you in a stereotypical box (smart, bragging, perhaps spoon-fed as well). Men and women--girl friends, too. I think this may be more of a Harvard thing than a Yale or Colombia thing, because of the way the media portrays Harvard. It's also a bigger deal on the west coast because Harvard grads aren't a dime-a-dozen like in Boston, or to some extent, DC.

Hopefully things have changed since I graduated. I like Mr. Scientist's comments above, but I can tell you, you are (or were) few and far between.

Anonymous wrote:You want a conversation stopper..."what do you do?" and reply "computational physicist"....not only do you stop conversation, you create a sex repulsive force that gets a 2 m circle of emptiness around you.

Anonymous wrote:I would be more impressed by a number-one ranked school or college for the degree program, rather than whether or not you have an undergrad degree from an elite school.

Number one ranked Iowa Writers Workshop is in Iowa, first and best creative writing program in the country, home to Pulitzers. And guess what? It is in fly over country.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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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 wrote:I went to MIT and agree with the Oxford grad.