Hey! Me, too!
My uncle is both an ex-marine and has an MS from Cornell. He’s neither dopey or pompous, but he is a bit arrogant. Thing is, he was arrogant before he went to Cornell. And he hated the marines. He makes fun of their commercials.
I had a Harvard grad for an English teacher once, and he first mentioned it when he was directly asked where he went for undergrad. Between growing up in a DC suburb with lots of attorneys and doctors, and attending a fairly prestigious research university, I’m sure I’ve met more Harvard grads, but I never remember anyone rubbing it in my face. YMMV.
Of course, anyone who went to Harvard for linguistics is probably bitter that they couldn’t get into MIT, so who knows?
Hostile Dialect,
Hostile Dialect, Narcissist
Speaking as a graduate of … you know* … I’ll have to say, you can’t win for losing. Obviously, it is pompous and silly to go looking for opportunities to mention that you went to HARVARD or, more coyly, that you went to school “in the Boston area.” But let’s posit that you are a reasonable person who just happened to go there; what exactly are you supposed to do? You shouldn’t look for excuses to bring it up, absolutely. But if it does, by chance, become relevant to a conversation, you risk being criticized for mentioning it; you also risk being criticized for beating around the bush.
It’s not much of an issue for me because at this stage in my life, no one cares where I went to school. But if it comes up, I try to say “Harvard” in the same tone of voice I’d use if I went to UNH.
- Only for grad school; I went to a different snob school for undergraduate work “in the Boston area.” Sorry; I didn’t get much of a say, I dutifully went where my parents told me to go.
“When I was in grad school in Connecticut…”
Surprising how few people know that Yale is in CT 
I say it because I do not like people making a big deal about it, mostly because it’s not a big deal. I happened to be in one of the less-spectacular departments that is definitely outclassed by programs at state schools. Just because a school is famous doesn’t mean it’s good at everything.
On that same note,
…is funny, because if it’s for undergrad, it’s also not really a big deal. I find it odd that they have one of the best chemistry graduate programs, but the “easy way in” when you’re applying for undergrad is to apply to the school of chemistry.
I say, “Swarthmore, outside of Philly” for undergrad because most people have never heard of it and ask where it is.
I only ever knew one man who was a Marine. He never bragged about it to me, but my bro-in-law said he could be pretty boastful about it. The funny thing is that this particular Marine spent his service as jeep driver to a colonel or somesuch. Not the macho, battle-hardened life you think of when you think “Marine.”
Hahhhhvahd PhD, baby, checking in to say hi to all the plebes.
I work in academic research, so “where did you get your degree?” follows just after “what’s your name?” in the small-talk department. I work in the Harvard Medical School area, which is a separate institution from Harvard University, so I usually say “the other Harvard” or “across the river” (a common term around here, meaning HU when used by HMS people and HMS when used by HU people) to be clear about it.
ETA: What they actually want to know, of course, is which lab you got your PhD from. I had a pretty big-name mentor, and I’m a bit more shy about mentioning him than Harvard itself (since Harvard grads are a dime-a-dozen around here).
As a non-American, I haven’t met that many Ivy League students or grads. I once took a summer course abroad that was linked somehow to UPenn and Brown (and Vanderbilt, I believe), and I found it quite an interesting sociological study. There were a fair number of students who wore a school sweatshirt pretty much every day, and schools were a big topic of conversation. I’ve only ever seen this kind of devotion in Queen’s students and grads here in Canada - I know some who still, years after graduating, have a homecoming party every year.
There was also the girl in the train station, who, when I asked where she was from, nearly tripped over her tongue telling me she went to Yale. I knew from her accent she was North American, but I was more asking if she was American, Canadian, from Texas, Alberta, you know. I thought afterwards that I should have asked where the town of Yale was.
Wearing the school shirt every day does not in itself imply that a student is a snob. Americans are pretty fierce about school spirit, especially when sports are involved. I was definitely into the school spirit at my univeristy, but the snobbery (mostly classism) drove me nuts.
I would have to agree, especially because I am currently a grad student at the school where olives was an undergrad and people are INSANELY spirited here. It’s weird. It doesn’t seem all that snobby, though.
You should move to Florida and listen to the people from Michigan moan about everything. It’s kind of a common trait among displaced folks. I’m sure that both of the folks that moved from Florida to Michigan do the same thing.
So next time California dude(tte) starts talking about how things are back in Cal, just do what we do: politely suggest that they go the f&ck home.
Yes, a point you mention only very occasionally.
Oil thigh
na Banrighinn
áBanrighinn gu brath!
Cha Gheil! Cha Gheil!! Cha Gheil!!!
As the proximate cause of this thread, I should state that I noted this phenomenon mostly with recent Harvard grads, most particularly Harvard Med grads.
Did I mention I graduated from Johns Hopkins? 
Totally. It’s so lame.
If the direct question of “where did you go to school” is asked, any person who didn’t go to an Ivy League school will just tell you where they went. And that includes Ivy-level schools like MIT or Stanford. Actually, most people who went to Ivies will just tell you too, but if someone does the vague geography thing, you know they’re just itching for you to ask again so they can shuffle their feet and say “well, Harvard, actually.”
I had an “in New Hampshire” once. So I said, “oh, UNH.” He was like “no…” I said in that slow voice that parents use when asking their toddlers if they need to go to the potty, “Did you go to Dartmouth?” He said yes, and I asked him why the heck didn’t he just say so. He said something about how “people are” when they find out you went to a prestigious school.
I was so irritated at that point that I laughed and said “About Dartmouth? Really? C’mon!” Heh.
I had another Dartmouth grad that did this to me! He said “Dartmouth? It’s in New Hampshire?” in the exact same tone of voice I’ve heard people say “Grinnell?It’s in Iowa?*” to me! The question marks are because they say it with a slight rise at the end to denote the implicit question “have you heard of this obscure school?” (No offense meant to Grinnell, of course. It’s just not well-known in these parts.)
It was just such an obvious ploy of false modesty to pull that “oh, you may not have even heard of it” business. Or, like Bayard said, he thought I was too unsophisticated to have heard of such an exalted institution as Dartmouth.
FWIW, I’m not trying to pick on Dartmouth here. It’s just that I happened to meet two jackasses that went there.
I’ve definitely met both the “tell you within two seconds that they went to Harvard” types and the “avoid telling you at all costs” types. Both are annoying, because they’re making assumptions about how you’re going to react to the fact that they went there because it’s obviously such a big deal that they did. But Ivy alums aren’t exactly a rare breed around here, so it really isn’t a big deal, and it just seems so odd when someone thinks that I’m going to be impressed by an Ivy League undergrad degree.
MIT grad here. A lot depends on if I’ll mention it. If I’m having a casual discussion and want to talk about the Italian food in the North End, I’ll just say I went to school in Boston because it isn’t relevant to the topic. And I have had people actually be intimidated by the Big Bad MIT, which is just annoying.
My friends just give me a hard time every time I do something stupid.
ETA: On topic, a good friend is a Harvard Law grad, and she doesn’t hide from it, but brags about being a New Yorker a lot more.
At least you actually ARE a doctor.
Whenever i mention Hopkins, everyone seems to assume i’m in medicine or public health. Half the world doesn’t seem to realize that it has all the science, arts, and humanities subjects of a regular research university.
And it’s usually relevant in the context of the discussion. If we are in a talking about socioeconomic class, careers, recruiting or job searching, education, or even “what’s the big deal with Ivy League schools?” I think it is certainly appropriate to discuss some of my first hand observations on the behaviors and traits of people I have met from those schools.
If people are intentionally coy or understated about where they matriculated, it’s probably because of people like you. Would you have made a comment if I occassionally mentioned that I worked with a lot of community college grads? Probably not. Because no one gives a shit. But as soon as you mention certain well-known schools, there is a certain connotation associated with them.
IMHO, if you need to walk on eggshells around people because of how educated you are or where you went to school, maybe you should seek out a more educated class of people. Or seek out work where you will be among your peers.
Are you and Olive talking about U of M? I’m about to start in Ann Arbor for law school this May 
I would think that if you were hanging out with people from Boston, it would be fairly commonplace to meet people from MIT and Harvard. (Since I would frequently meet people from MIT and Harvard when I lived in Boston…while attending business school…in Boston*).
Being highly educated is like having money. Everyone likes to pretend it doesn’t matter, but it does. Trying to downplay that you went to Harvard or MIT when talking to a bunch of State grads is like trying to downplay driving a Bentley to work. While you don’t want to stick it in people’s face, it’s hard not to notice it as a bit out of the ordinary. Unless you happen to be someplace where it isn’t out of the ordinary.
- I didn’t go to Harvard. I just don’t like telling you folks who I worked for or went to school