OP don't wait for something to rock you to your core to realize that living your life trying to impress others or measure up is a complete waste of your time. When I was 40, I had three people I love die within 3 months. All the trivial things you think are important just fall away. Don't waste your time trying to please other people. Just live your best life for you and the people you love the most. It is a no win situation trying to measure up to everyone on the planet. There is no right college, job, city, house, car, school district, etc. Your college is a fine school that will get you where you need to go.

Unless you work on Wall Street or a top law firm or hang out with posers, nobody on the planet cares where you went to college. Most people just get a degree and a decent education and get on with their lives.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The scorn you see really only occurs around here and other areas with bubbles of progressive liberals. Most people could care less.

The first point is correct: people in the Northeast are far more obsessed with college rankings and prestige than the rest of the country. There are plenty of progressive liberals are the West coast, and they don't make nearly such a big deal about getting into elite schools as they do in the Northeast. There is just a very materialistic and competitive culture in the NE that is unlike anywhere else.

+1000

I've lived both places, and totally agree!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The scorn you see really only occurs around here and other areas with bubbles of progressive liberals. Most people could care less.

The first point is correct: people in the Northeast are far more obsessed with college rankings and prestige than the rest of the country. There are plenty of progressive liberals are the West coast, and they don't make nearly such a big deal about getting into elite schools as they do in the Northeast. There is just a very materialistic and competitive culture in the NE that is unlike anywhere else.

+1000

OP I feel your pain. My sister graduated from Berkeley, Umich med school and married a Yale doctor. She totally fits in with elitist academics, she has the swagger down and its intimidating....or it was...

I graduated from a third tier university and felt completely ashamed about it because my family was so enamored with her achievements and Ivy League physician husband. (Eye roll) A decade after graduation, I tried to repair my deep shame by completing grad school at U of M Ann Arbor. No one in my program shared my sister's elitist attitude. I later met my husband who has his PhD from Michigan and he is completely unpretentious about it. No one calls him doctor, he doesn't really bring it up unless people ask.


My point is that it's likely the values and attitudes of the people you are mixing with that leave you feeling this way, not your actual school. I met people who were elitist at my third tier school (because they were from a barely upper middle class suburb of Cleveland). And Ive met highly accomplished unpretentious types with Michigan degrees whohave disdain for people of my sister's ilk. Its the people not the school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread was so therapeutic for me to read, I'm a little teary-eyed right now.

I'm 25 years old and have the same chip on my shoulder as the OP, except it's much worse (maybe because my "shame" is so recent and I'm not very far in my career yet). I also came from a snobby background (like a PP described: elite private school, summers on Martha's Vineyard, four generations of wealth, etc). I underachieved in high school and ended up going to one of the U Mass schools.

Massachusetts is full of elite private schools (Harvard, MIT, Boston College, Wellesley, Tufts, Amherst, Mount Holyoke, Boston University, etc) and my family was VERY disappointed in me for not getting into even one of those schools and being forced to attend a U Mass school. I felt like a worthless person and still do.

I had a good time in college and I know, rationally, that my classmates were as smart and well-rounded as anyone from an elite school, but I can't help but feel that I have this stain on my record which I will always struggle to overcome and I will always be judged by the mediocre state school I went to. I'm intensely jealous of my peers.

So what are you doing now? You actually sound like a very entitled millennial. I hope that you have a job and take care of yourself instead of becoming a deadbeat because of your shame.

I don't think OP sounds entitled. She's wearing her insecurities openly, and it sounds like that makes you uncomfortable, as if they might be contagious.

I will say that DCUM is perhaps not the best place for people seeking assurances about their social, financial or educational status to visit.

For 98% of the population of the US, UMass is fine. The only people who really "look down" on where you went to school are upper[middle]class people who live in DC and the northeast. Outside of this bubble, no one cares. I was born in the northeast, but raised in other parts of the country. The way people view college is completely different. The level of "keeping up with the joneses" is so much less outside of this bubble.

Was there a specific reason why you "underachieved"? Maybe you witnessed firsthand that being an alum of a prestigious school didn't guarantee happiness in life and/or immunity from other struggles. There are plenty of paths for people who did not graduate from Ivies etc. It's only a permanent "stain" if you see it that day.

Therapy perhaps?

Good luck.

If this is a continuing issue, you really need to get out of your bubble. I went to a state school that's well regarded in my home state but virtually unknown here. It NEVER comes up except when I mention that we vacation in that college town. I have no idea where most of my 30-40-something friends and coworkers went to college and we all have successful careers.

I now routinely hire college student/new grad interns and their college is pretty much irrelevant to me. I care about their major, their academic experiences, research exposure, past internships, etc. We post our job listings at a variety of public and private colleges and hire from a variety of places.

I will be happy to send my kids to state universities, although if they can spend less to go to a private school, that's fine too.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The scorn you see really only occurs around here and other areas with bubbles of progressive liberals. Most people could care less.

The first point is correct: people in the Northeast are far more obsessed with college rankings and prestige than the rest of the country. There are plenty of progressive liberals are the West coast, and they don't make nearly such a big deal about getting into elite schools as they do in the Northeast. There is just a very materialistic and competitive culture in the NE that is unlike anywhere else.

Have to agree, and I'd include the DC area in this grouping. Check out the morons trashing good VA schools on the other thread.

A friend of ours went to some local school in Maine, got his PHD from University of Mississippi. Now he is a professor at Oxford.

Anonymous wrote:The scorn you see really only occurs around here and other areas with bubbles of progressive liberals. Most people could care less.

The first point is correct: people in the Northeast are far more obsessed with college rankings and prestige than the rest of the country. There are plenty of progressive liberals are the West coast, and they don't make nearly such a big deal about getting into elite schools as they do in the Northeast. There is just a very materialistic and competitive culture in the NE that is unlike anywhere else.

The scorn you see really only occurs around here and other areas with bubbles of progressive liberals. Most people could care less.

Anonymous wrote:In my experience the better the school , the less physically attractive.

Well, gotta make up for it, right?

If you took UMass Amherst and airlifted the campus into the South, Midwest, Northwest, etc., it would instantly be one of the better schools in the region. It's only "bad" compared to the super prestigious schools in Massachusetts.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread was so therapeutic for me to read, I'm a little teary-eyed right now.

I'm 25 years old and have the same chip on my shoulder as the OP, except it's much worse (maybe because my "shame" is so recent and I'm not very far in my career yet). I also came from a snobby background (like a PP described: elite private school, summers on Martha's Vineyard, four generations of wealth, etc). I underachieved in high school and ended up going to one of the U Mass schools.

Massachusetts is full of elite private schools (Harvard, MIT, Boston College, Wellesley, Tufts, Amherst, Mount Holyoke, Boston University, etc) and my family was VERY disappointed in me for not getting into even one of those schools and being forced to attend a U Mass school. I felt like a worthless person and still do.

I had a good time in college and I know, rationally, that my classmates were as smart and well-rounded as anyone from an elite school, but I can't help but feel that I have this stain on my record which I will always struggle to overcome and I will always be judged by the mediocre state school I went to. I'm intensely jealous of my peers.

So what are you doing now? You actually sound like a very entitled millennial. I hope that you have a job and take care of yourself instead of becoming a deadbeat because of your shame.

I don't think OP sounds entitled. She's wearing her insecurities openly, and it sounds like that makes you uncomfortable, as if they might be contagious.

I will say that DCUM is perhaps not the best place for people seeking assurances about their social, financial or educational status to visit.

For 98% of the population of the US, UMass is fine. The only people who really "look down" on where you went to school are upper[middle]class people who live in DC and the northeast. Outside of this bubble, no one cares. I was born in the northeast, but raised in other parts of the country. The way people view college is completely different. The level of "keeping up with the joneses" is so much less outside of this bubble.

Anonymous wrote:I know many who will not hire ivy grads. They just have had bad experience with them.

That sounds silly, but it's true. Some law firms won't hire from Yale Law, for example, because the graduates have a reputation of being very smart, but also arrogant and utterly lacking in practical skills.