Anonymous wrote:My child’s first choice school is Penn. I had mentioned that it would be a reach for him and that usually 1 kid gets in from our school. At some point, I realized that they thought I was referring to Penn State. When I mentioned UPenn was an Ivy League school, they seemed confused. These are Americans. Do people really not know the difference????

They’re YOUR kid. Did you not teach them the difference?

I am on a small team at work. I have a degree from Penn. Another member of my team went to Penn State. A third teammate who lives in an UMC suburb of NYC had a child applying early decision to a different Ivy, so should have been reasonably aware of such things.

He very confidently said that Penn State is in Philly and clearly go them confused - gave him a chance to self-correct but he dug in. I deferred to my Penn State colleague to correct him so as not to sound like a total snob.

I am a bit of a snob. And I do judge people on these things. If you want to succeed in corporate America you will likely cross paths with people from these schools so should have some basic awareness of them - don't need to be an expert. And if you don't know, fess up rather than faking it - it is very easy to tell.

Anonymous wrote:My child’s first choice school is Penn. I had mentioned that it would be a reach for him and that usually 1 kid gets in from our school. At some point, I realized that they thought I was referring to Penn State. When I mentioned UPenn was an Ivy League school, they seemed confused. These are Americans. Do people really not know the difference????

I have a U Penn degree. Everyone seems to just confuse it my whole life with Penn State, probably because of football giving it a big brand. I've tried saying U Penn, or U of Penn, and still they assume Penn state asking how I liked living in Pittsburgh.

I assume it's the same with WUSTL, everyone assuming you went to UW or GW. No one realizes a Washington U can be outside Washington State or Washington DC.

OP,

I have several degrees, I am extremely well-read and due to my international upbringing, have a global perspective on current events. I could not possibly care less about these two schools. It's not snobbery: it's just that knowing the difference between them does not matter to most people.

Anonymous wrote:My child’s first choice school is Penn. I had mentioned that it would be a reach for him and that usually 1 kid gets in from our school. At some point, I realized that they thought I was referring to Penn State. When I mentioned UPenn was an Ivy League school, they seemed confused. These are Americans. Do people really not know the difference????

So your child does not know the difference? I would calmly explain. No need to denigrate on a simple mistake.
BTW, I’m from Pennsylvania. People hear clearly say “UPenn” or “Penn State” (there’s also Penn college).

Sorry but the vast majority of the population cannot differentiate between UPenn and Penn State. They are one and the same thing.

Anyone who worked in college counseling would tell you that. Even among highly educated parents.

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in New England and was very aware of and had friends at all the ivy schools, seven sisters and other prestigious east coast schools as well as places like UCLA and Stanford etc. but to be honest schools like Chicago and Duke and Vanderbilt and Northwestern were never on my radar. Doesn’t mean I’m stupid.

Exactly. I was born in California before the rise of Duke as a basketball power. It was never mentioned.

When I came East, nobody talked about Stanford much until Chelsea Clinton decided to go.

It is many times harder to get into these elite schools than when we were kids. It's making people obsessive.

One thing I have seen in different regions of the U.S. is local rich people going to the state flagship. These people and their social circles are not Ivy-obsessed. Virginia is somewhat like this with UVA.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child’s first choice school is Penn. I had mentioned that it would be a reach for him and that usually 1 kid gets in from our school. At some point, I realized that they thought I was referring to Penn State. When I mentioned UPenn was an Ivy League school, they seemed confused. These are Americans. Do people really not know the difference????

Yeah. There are people who don’t know the difference. Just like there are TONS of people who know a lot of things you don’t know but they would consider basic knowledge.

Don’t be a snob, OP. It’s not a good look.

Exactly.

Anecdotally, I think being hyperaware of all the different colleges and universities, and which ones are in the Ivy league, etc., is sometimes a sign of socioeconomic insecurity. I grew up MC, both of my parents were first gen college students, and it seemed really important to them that my siblings and I knew stuff like that. I think they thought it would make us appear fancier than we were.

My spouse, on the other hand, grew up wealthy and it was assumed he'd go to college where all the other men in his family went, and so he never really bothered to learn the differences between this school and that school. Most of what he did pick up probably came from following college sports.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For most kids whether you go to Penn or UPenn, the outcome is about the same

You wish that were true but it's not.

Unfortunately it really is, if you control for inputs (ie, compare two kids with the same test scores, high school GPA, family income and education) and look at modal outcomes rather than outliers.

Anonymous wrote:My child’s first choice school is Penn. I had mentioned that it would be a reach for him and that usually 1 kid gets in from our school. At some point, I realized that they thought I was referring to Penn State. When I mentioned UPenn was an Ivy League school, they seemed confused. These are Americans. Do people really not know the difference????

Yeah. There are people who don’t know the difference. Just like there are TONS of people who know a lot of things you don’t know but they would consider basic knowledge.

Don’t be a snob, OP. It’s not a good look.

Anonymous wrote:For most kids whether you go to Penn or UPenn, the outcome is about the same

You wish that were true but it's not.

Anonymous wrote:I'm from PA and people there don't even know the difference. I remember finding out when applying to college and I have Ivy league educated parents (not Penn). It's just not something most people sit around talking about.

Agreed. I grew up in Western PA and people there are not Philly-centric. This made Penn people mad.

My parents went to Cornell and a lot of my friends and my mother's prospective employers were unfamiliar with it. This was a small input to my college decision-making.

Anonymous wrote:On this board, people confuse University of Washington (Seattle) and Washington University (St. Louis) all the time. People confuse names, doesn't mean much.

Our DCs will know what school they are going to!

Yes I love how people always ad the location of Wash U when mentioning it. Kind of like Miami of Ohio.

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in New England and was very aware of and had friends at all the ivy schools, seven sisters and other prestigious east coast schools as well as places like UCLA and Stanford etc. but to be honest schools like Chicago and Duke and Vanderbilt and Northwestern were never on my radar. Doesn’t mean I’m stupid.

Surely you r an ignoramus.