Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People who went to Harvard usually do one of two things:

1. Open every conversation (meeting new neighbor; chatting to barista; and always sidelines of kid sportsball) with “WHEN I WAS AT HARVARD...”

2. Reluctantly mumble, a full year after making a new friend, “Uh, I went to school in Massachusetts.” And then swiftly change the subject.

Fortunately I’ve met mostly Option Twos, but Option Ones do exist. I ended a promising friendship upon watching the new friend shout, “But I went to Harvard!” at a California state motorcycle trooper.

No one has ever been offended when I have said "When I was at (private college ranked around #50)".

So why is it offensive for any college?

"When I was at Tulane..."
"When I was at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo..."
"When I was at Lehigh..."

Would anyone be offended by those?

I guess this thread reminds me of the exchange in the movie Broadcast News:

Tom: What do you do when your real life exceeds your dreams?
Aaron: Keep it to yourself.

People don't talk like that, except Andy on The Office, and that was a running gag about him being pretentious about his school. Normal people might say "in college..." but not "when I was at [school name]".

If someone did though, would you be offended?

Where did you go to college?
In Chicago?
Oh, where?
On the south side.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People who went to Harvard usually do one of two things:

1. Open every conversation (meeting new neighbor; chatting to barista; and always sidelines of kid sportsball) with “WHEN I WAS AT HARVARD...”

2. Reluctantly mumble, a full year after making a new friend, “Uh, I went to school in Massachusetts.” And then swiftly change the subject.

Fortunately I’ve met mostly Option Twos, but Option Ones do exist. I ended a promising friendship upon watching the new friend shout, “But I went to Harvard!” at a California state motorcycle trooper.

No one has ever been offended when I have said "When I was at (private college ranked around #50)".

So why is it offensive for any college?

"When I was at Tulane..."
"When I was at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo..."
"When I was at Lehigh..."

Would anyone be offended by those?

I guess this thread reminds me of the exchange in the movie Broadcast News:

Tom: What do you do when your real life exceeds your dreams?
Aaron: Keep it to yourself.

People don't talk like that, except Andy on The Office, and that was a running gag about him being pretentious about his school. Normal people might say "in college..." but not "when I was at [school name]".

If you are embarrassed, just say you went to Harbor university. Geez

Harvard you say Boston
Harvard business school people say HBS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's the old saying about having gone to school "near Boston" which is often dismissed as a false arrogance but if you say the name, it sounds snobbish. If it comes up, what do you consider the right way to approach it?

Right now I'd be ashamed of saying I went to Harvard. People would assume it was because of affirmative action, wealth, or both.

I'd just talk about something else, like my latest job.

Glad you don’t have that problem then.

This is a funny question. DH went to elite schools for undergrad and grad and every time he is asked he turns into mumbler who can't seem to answer the question because he is too embarrassed to say.

I am over 50, went to Yale and was true middle class, not the DCUM version of middle class. College was paid for, but just barely - it wasn’t quite as expensive as it is today. When I would go home and hang out with people who were not in top colleges or - gasp - not in college at all, you could feel the chill in the room if you said you went to Yale, even though they were the ones who asked. One guy said that he presumed I’d look down on him because he wasn’t in a “fancy school”. I just wanted to meet and talk to nice people.

So yeah, I went to school “in Connecticut”, or I just talk about “when I was in college.” Even to this day, if I drop the Y word it’s because someone else is being a pretentious a-hole and needs to come down a peg.

Anonymous wrote:There's the old saying about having gone to school "near Boston" which is often dismissed as a false arrogance but if you say the name, it sounds snobbish. If it comes up, what do you consider the right way to approach it?

Right now I'd be ashamed of saying I went to Harvard. People would assume it was because of affirmative action, wealth, or both.

I'd just talk about something else, like my latest job.

Anonymous wrote:People who went to Harvard usually do one of two things:

1. Open every conversation (meeting new neighbor; chatting to barista; and always sidelines of kid sportsball) with “WHEN I WAS AT HARVARD...”

2. Reluctantly mumble, a full year after making a new friend, “Uh, I went to school in Massachusetts.” And then swiftly change the subject.

Fortunately I’ve met mostly Option Twos, but Option Ones do exist. I ended a promising friendship upon watching the new friend shout, “But I went to Harvard!” at a California state motorcycle trooper.

No one has ever been offended when I have said "When I was at (private college ranked around #50)".

So why is it offensive for any college?

"When I was at Tulane..."
"When I was at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo..."
"When I was at Lehigh..."

Would anyone be offended by those?

I guess this thread reminds me of the exchange in the movie Broadcast News:

Tom: What do you do when your real life exceeds your dreams?
Aaron: Keep it to yourself.

People who went to Harvard usually do one of two things:

1. Open every conversation (meeting new neighbor; chatting to barista; and always sidelines of kid sportsball) with “WHEN I WAS AT HARVARD...”

2. Reluctantly mumble, a full year after making a new friend, “Uh, I went to school in Massachusetts.” And then swiftly change the subject.

Fortunately I’ve met mostly Option Twos, but Option Ones do exist. I ended a promising friendship upon watching the new friend shout, “But I went to Harvard!” at a California state motorcycle trooper.

God help me the day I care what email address people use.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The worst are people who are in their 50's and still use their school's alumni email address even when they have a proper work email address (Larla@stanfordalumni.org). It seems to be prevalent among Harvard and Stanford grads.

ITA! Further, when these boomers were there, the acceptance rates were around 20 to 30%. Glad you’re so proud, grandpa.

Chicago was 70% at one point.

Anonymous wrote:The worst are people who are in their 50's and still use their school's alumni email address even when they have a proper work email address (Larla@stanfordalumni.org). It seems to be prevalent among Harvard and Stanford grads.

ITA! Further, when these boomers were there, the acceptance rates were around 20 to 30%. Glad you’re so proud, grandpa.

The worst are people who are in their 50's and still use their school's alumni email address even when they have a proper work email address (Larla@stanfordalumni.org). It seems to be prevalent among Harvard and Stanford grads.