S-E-C S-E-C!! Let’s just say everything is scheduled around football games–weekends, trips, parties. Between “Go Gators! Roll Tide! Go Gamecocks! War Eagles! etc” it makes for a lively season.
I absolutely loved college and my alma mater (Vassar), but I don’t ever wear school gear or go to reunions or participate in alumni activities. I’ve always assumed this was because I went into an academic career, so I’m surrounded by university activities every day of my life. It’s a bit like laws and sausage-making.
@Gator88NE “VT’s alumni attachment is way off the scale” No kidding. I am almost at the point of no longer wearing a VT shirt when I go home to visit family, for fear of being associated with those wackos. But I do love the place, and the town. Took S1 to visit several times when he was college hunting. One time was because he made a nonchalant comment that he wished be had taken 5 mins to go look at something - so off we went the next weekend.
Says @T26E4 , the guy whose avatar is a JE coat of arms. In general, me too. Except I have a pretty large data set of cousins who attended the only other school that accepted me, and on average they are a lot more ambivalent about it than I am of Yale. Sure, some love it (although none quite so much as @Hanna ), but others merely respect it as a crucible in which their character was refined, and a few still hold grudges. (I’m sure Yale has people like that, too, but I haven’t met them.)
So, yeah, I admit I could love any school just as much, except for one. [Insert some sort of ironic smiley]
I’d like to see a list of schools that are least liked by their alumni.
Yes, I absolutely loved my alma mater (Columbia). I loved the school, the location, the curriculum, everything. My best friends are from there. I live 3000 miles away so I’m not a super active alumna and don’t follow sports or anything, but I have interviewed for the school, and have nothing but positive things to remember and say about it. It’s far more competitive to get into now, so neither of my kids is likely to go. I went to Berkeley for law school. Loved it too. But I am one of those people who loves school. I always have, since elementary school. If I were independently wealthy, I probably would have been one of those perpetual students with multiple masters and a PhD lol.
I did enjoy my alma mater (University of Washington), but I didn’t LOVE it. What I have found surprising is that I LOVE my kids’ school, Texas A&M, and if I was 18 again, I’d go there!
Other factors include the amounts of disposable income available in occupations a critical mass of a given college’s graduates go into and campus culture/peer pressure in the area of alumni giving.
On the former, that’s one area which hurts certain colleges like mine(Oberlin) regarding alumni giving as a critical mass of graduates tend to go into the lower paying professions centered on academia(Lots of graduates going on to academic PhD or MA/MS programs), K-12 teaching, fine arts/musical performance, social work, political activism, etc as opposed to other colleges which sends a critical mass of their graduates into much more lucrative corporate oriented careers right out of undergrad such as Wall Street/Ibanking/Finance, business organizational consulting with firms like BCG, etc.
On the latter, there was a discussion thread here some time ago about one Dartmouth soon to be alum being heavily pressured to give despite the fact she was doing her utmost to stand up for her right to voice her displeasure with her college experience by refusing to participate even if others offered to donate their money in her name. Considering what transpired in that story and the amount of peer/alum pressure applied to that student, one can wonder how much of the relatively high alum donation rate at Dartmouth is due to factors other than great love of the undergrad experience…such as peer/alum pressure to join in alumni giving/pledge drives…
@gluttonforstress – did nobody answer your question about why it’s okay to wear Stanford shirts? Because everybody fears the tree and loves the Nerd Nation!!
@gardenstategal - I knew it had to be something like that. But I fear that in another 5 years or so you’ll be just like the Harvard and Yale grads and won’t be able to wear your stuff for fear of overwhelming people with your awesomeness:)
Just a note on the last item in “glutton for stress’s” letter: While I am a Harvard graduate (business school), my wife has degrees from Berkeley and Stanford and our kids graduated from Stanford (two degrees) and USC (also two). While I could use the “H-bomb,” I never do. Wearing the sweatshirt kind of says, “hey, I think it’s a big deal that I graduated from Harvard.” It just doesn’t go over well here (I live in the Bay Area). On the other hand, with three Stanford degrees in our immediate family, I do wear a Stanford shirt from time to time and that gets lots of conversations started. Many of those conversations are about sports, but also there are a vast number of Stanford alumni events of all sorts in the area.
No one seems to think that you’re saying it’s a big deal that you went to Stanford, unlike “wearing” Harvard. I’m not sure why, except that Stanford grads are far more common here, everybody knows one, so no big deal. (Actually, Harvard grads are also common in our suburb, but they all seem to also keep a low profile on their Harvard connection.)
Harvard? Seems to spend too much time focusing on the past while Stanford appears to be the school of for the 21st century.
I should have mentioned that in my professional life, I no doubt got a great deal of mileage out of having a Harvard MBA on my resume. Early in my career, however, it became clear that once you had listed your education in your marketing material, you were better off never mentioning it to prospects or clients for risk of appearing too full of yourself.
I was just having this conversation with BF recently–I am strongly attached to my alma mater (Chicago)–and I have been reading a new book about the history of the university, written by the much beloved Dean of the College. It’s also the time of year where I do alumni interviews. BF thought it was pretty weird to read a several-hundred page book about one university and commented that I seemed unusually attached to my school–it seemed strange to him. He went to a big state U in the west. He loved his time in college, but he says it was mostly the location of the school, not the institution or classes or even the community. Doesn’t have a single t-shirt.
I love my grad school too–a school that is different from Chicago in nearly every way, and both stickers are on my car. I take pride in both of them, but for very different reasons.
I love my undergrad school and rarely think of my grad school, although I enjoyed my time there. Grad school was a departmental thing for me. D attends my undergrad school so I’ve had a great time visiting her, going to football games, walking around campus, eating at old favorite restaurants, hiking, and sightseeing old haunts.
“Harvard? Seems to spend too much time focusing on the past”
What in the world does this mean?
Your BF and similar-minded folks would likely feel it’s pretty weird many alums from my NYC public magnet would also purchase a thick book on its then 100 year history or wear clothing with our HS’s name/logo even several decades after graduation. And that includes alums who have moved far out of NYC or even the US of A.
At one alum gathering a few years back, saw an older alum proudly wearing a HS logo shirt from the class of 1934!
If one is that passionate about their alma mater, what’s the harm? 
I loveeeee my school. Mind, a huge part of that is I loveeeee that they gave me $$$ to attend, but I also generally came into my own in college, and took some amazing classes that have really stuck with me. I’m more enthusiastic than most alum I know/meet, but love that when I run into another BU alum there’s an instant connection and we can spout random acronyms and references and they just get it. It was the perfect school for me, but I also strongly suspect I would have expressed a similar lifelong and enthusiastic devotion to any school that offered me a scholarship and had engaging academics (and no dominant sports, religion or Greek life). I think some people just have a personality to attach to their alma mater (or sports culture/teams), and if you nail fit and have a good time, it greases the wheels, so to speak.
I like my alma mater. I enjoyed my time there and I wouldn’t say no to going back at some point and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to people… That said, I haven’t been back since I graduated(mostly because I’m busy and have just never found myself in the area) and I actually haven’t recommended it to anyone yet (again, mostly due to chance)…In all honesty I’m not the most nostalgic, rah rah rah, kind of person. I went to my school, had fun, got a great education, graduated and moved on. If I’m ever in the area again, I will definitely stop by the campus and see what’s going on. My fondest memory from college is the year I spent studying in the UK…now that’s something I have a lot of love and nostalgia for!
I think it depends on the person and the school…I know people who just adore their alma mater and are very very loyal to it. Most of the USC alums I know head back to campus nearly every fall weekend for football and I even know two USC alums who had their wedding at Town and Gown at USC. I also know just as many people who went to great schools and aren’t super attached to them…and they have great jobs and successful lives too. It doesn’t have to be one way and no one has to stay loyal to their alma mater. To each their own! Everyone has a unique college experience and people should have the experience that they want…
natty1988 wrote,
My retiring boss is a HYPS alum and has often told me that his evening MBA program at a Cal State University was a better educational experience than his undergraduate years at Stanford. He also told that statement to my son when he was not admitted to Stanford.