No, I mean the combination of letters that spells “Harvard” is starting to look like a jumble of meaningless shapes. You’ve had that happen, right? You see a word too often and it becomes nonsense? Right? (I knew it. I’m a freak.)
You do make a good point, it’s just that I didn’t mean that. 
I wouldn’t say that Chicago is the better school, but overall it has more of a research-powerhouse reputation than Northwestern, which among academics is the be all and end all of prestige. Chicago has its fabu Economics department, and overall reputation for promoting interdisciplinary/inter-department research. Northwestern is of course also a top research university, but my impression (and I could be wrong) is that it’s reputation comes from its pre-professional programs (journalism,business,etc). And if you’re an undergrad going straight into the job market, your school’s research reputation isn’t going to affect you that much.
No, actually that happens to me too! And if I read or write the same word too many times in a short time period, I’ll become completely, irrationally convinced that it’s spelled wrong! This used to torment me when writing papers in high school and college, especially before the days of spell check. I remember this one paper in particular on energy. Energy energy energy. Arrgggh. [/slightly insane hijack]
It’s like how Babson is the Harvard of Wellesley, MA. Not to be confused with Wellesley College, also in Wellesley, MA.
Yale is the Princeton of Connecticut.
Harvard of Boston: Boston Col…ah fuck.
Oh and tdn, Playboy ranks us fairly high every year, as you can imagine.
Well, we just called an ‘Ivy League Truce’ amongst former Ivy League grads here in my college in Oxford. It was getting a little tense.
No, really.
Of course, I suffer from the well known ‘Cornell inferiority complex’ which results in things like octopus throwing if one isn’t careful.
I’m just glad to see my school on that list.
Well and that it’s higher than where my sister went.
Yep, we had a Pitt vs. Penn State house for a few years there. Football games (Penn State games, when we were both home) were often sources of hearing her yell ‘P E N N S T PENN STATE’ followed by me yelling ‘SUCKS’.
Amateur. A true Cornellian wouldn’t be fazed by anyone from Yale. Or Harvard, for that matter.
Oh yeah, I hate that. I once forgot how to spell maybe!
Everyone knows the only hard part about Harvard is getting in. Every Cornell person I have ever talked to says that you will wish you never got into Cornell because of the superhuman workload and crushing pressure. Ritualistic, public suicide is every student’s Plan B and many of them have to fall back to that plan.
It’s interesting to see those prestige ratings. I went to a school that is usually at the top of the US News ranking for colleges and in the top ten in the prestige ranking but nobody has ever heard of it. FWIW, though, most of the time, people are more impressed by names that they know regardless of quality. When I went to Medical School, we used to joke that there were three Medical Schools in Boston, the Medical School, the other Medical School, and another Medical School. My advisor at the other Medical School, told me when I applied for residency that he could get me into “a second-rate community hospital” affiliated with *the * Medical School, or if I really wanted a University setting I could leave Boston and go elsewhere, but he would not advise it. I decided to go elsewhere. If I had stayed in Boston, I’m sure it would have helped to have trained at Mount Auburn or Cambridge Hospitals, but considering that I don’t live there, I’m pretty sure that more of my patients come to me when they see I trained at Georgetown, ignoring the fact that they probably only know the name because of the basketball team, which has little or nothing to do with the quality of medical education.
oh its like when my dad has his yearly colonoscopy (yes yearly) and sits around in his bathrobe and boxers drinking the Cadillac of laxatives they give him. Good memories.
I once forgot how to spell “of”. I was nine, but still!
I say I went to a Big 10 school (and a Big 8). I started at CU in Boulder and ended up in Iowa City, <obligatory Go Hawks! here>
To me, it’s more about the major. Iowa’s nursing college was top ranked. (I went to CU for fun and I was clueless as to what I wanted to do).
To drag this back to Hahvahd. I like Tom Lehrer. Oh-other things… 
I know 3 people who graduated from H. One was an African-American doctor, who wore the ring and inserted Harvard into almost all conversations. After 6 months of this, we all reacted like this: :rolleyes: . He was a bit of a jerk. (“do not page me for 2 hours. I will be in church” No, buddy-you are a pulmonolgist with pts in ICU-I’ll page you any time night or day, if needed.) More :rolleyes:
The other two married each other-good god. They’re nice and all, but somehow it creeps into conversations…We’re thinking of Harvard for our son-he’d be a doublt legacy. Whatever.
I wasn’t really into the whole college snobbery thing, but I suffered from it the other day. I was talking to an instructor in my grad school class and mentioned that my daughter was thinking of attending Boston U. She sniffed (she’s from MA) and actually said to me, “Boston College is a much better school. Better have her go there.” Um, clue phone-she doesn’t WANT to go there. Honestly!
There is a UVA type who really worships Jefferson, I used to enjoy teasing them. One time, with a straight face, I told someone there that I had never heard of Jefferson. He about crapped himself in indignation.
Can I hazard another perspective?
My experience is exactly the opposite. Classmates and colleagues going through all sorts of verbal contortions to avoid the “H-bomb”:
“I go to school in Boston.”
“I’m in a grad program on the East Coast.”
“Yeah, I go to Harvard, but I’m studying religion/education/public health… It’s not like I’m at the B-School or Law School!”
“I only have a grad degree from Harvard, I went to a STATE SCHOOL for undergrad.”
“no response, trying to change the subject”
In fairness I have used all of these myself.
Silly, really. But it’s fairly true in my experience that people raise their eyebrows when you mention Harvard (which I often mistype as “Havrad”). As one of my professors said, “Nobody’s agnostic about Harvard.” Now I just say I went there it if I’m asked, I mention it if it’s relevant, and that’s about it. Reactions tend to other be people’s issues, not mine…
I have a friend who claims to be a graduate of UCLA. University of Clinton on Lincoln Avenue. It’s a community college. In Clinton, Iowa. On the river between Rock Island and Dubuque.
And, Elenorigby, all the cheering in the world won’t do a bit of good. Iowa is going to be in the running to anchor the Big Ten this year. Predictable and inept offense, predictable and pedestrian defense and inadequate special teams.
I went to a state school because I could afford it – in those good old days when Kennedy was in the White House, undergraduate tuition for 17-18 semester hours was $95.00. Of course you could get a brand new VW Beetle with an AM radio and a more-or-less heater for $1700. We graduates of less-than-elite universities take great pride in out modesty and lack of pretension. In fact we are prideful and pretentious about it. We say things like “When I was in the third semester of freshman remedial English at Iowa City…” and “The year Iowa went 0 and 11, I was a fourth string utility lineman on the practice squad.”
Piffle. So you went to Harvard? I can go one better than that.
I was admitted to Harvard, but I turned them down.
The admissions office actually called me up to check on my sanity. They weren’t used to being blown off by high school seniors in Tulsa, Oklahoma. But I wanted to study engineering and Rice (my alma mater) had a better program. I’d just applied to Harvard as a back-up.
One of my wife’s colleagues at UCLA is also a member of the “too good for Harvard club”. Being an academic he’s had several opportunities to use it to deflate the egos of overly proud Harvard grads.
When I turned Cal down I actually got a letter asking me to participate in a survey about why I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to do it but they sent me an email about once every two days for a few weeks! Finally, I put “geographical reasons” (which is the truth, really), but I fought my more base inclination to mention their condescending acceptance letter. It was on the lines of “Congratulations, you’re good enough for us! We know this will be the achievement of your lifetime.” Yes, because my life will be over as soon as I don cap and gown. I don’t recall exactly the wording, but it was dripping with smug.
That said I’d have gone in a heartbeat if I wasn’t married and my husband wasn’t tied to LA.
Transylvania? Pshaw. Everyone I know there are crazy drunks, stick with the UK Flunker-story.
I kid, I kid. I have a few good friends down at Transylvania - met them when I was at the old Morehead State University…as prestigious as that was, I dropped out. Of course, now when I meet people and they are discussing schools, all I hear about is Ohio State. Honest, I’m a little sick of it. Yes, they have a football team, but come on. I think it bothers me most because when people find out that I go to the small state school down here in Southern Ohio (Shawnee State) they write it off as if we’re still a community college.
Honest, I know people from both places in my program. It’s not hard to find someone majoring in English, I imagine. Guess what? They both study the same stuff. As a matter of fact, I have had several professors teach here and at another school (OU, I’m looking your direction) and teach the exact same material. I just paid half the price for it. Tell me, how does that make a prestigious school better?
What is the worst about this is that people equate a lot of money with a good education. I paid much less for my school, therefore they must have just passed me because I paid them some money. That logic is horrible.
Brendon Small
Where does the U of Slutsylvania rank? This thread is actually a pretty bad color on everyone