Does the fact that nobody's heard of the amazing LAC you got into bother you?

<p>AdvisorMom, a few people say "that's a good school, congratulations!" which embarrasses me, actually, but I'm very shy. Usually people have never heard of it so I say "it's a very small school in Massachusetts" and I like it that way.</p>

<p>No. I couldn't care less that some people have never heard of Pomona. I know it's a great school, and I know I worked my butt off to get in. I even turned down Dartmouth for it. It's a better fit, and, honestly, that's all that should matter. In accordance with a lot of other people on this board and to be perfectly blunt - if it matters that much to you, you need to rethink things a bit. Sorry to sound so harsh. College isn't about a name, there are a lot of small LACs that are much better academically than some Ivies but people just assume that because you went to an Ivy or are going to an Ivy, a) you're smarter than everyone else, and b) you'll be getting a better quality education. All that matters with college is what you make of it. You can go to whichever state university and take advantage of it and get a great education and you can also go to UPenn and slack off and get nothing out of it. And vice versa, of course. It doesn't really matter which school you're at, it only matters how motivated you are to take advantage of what you have. Because there are a lot of people who don't have what you have, which is the opportunity to go to college and to decide what you want to do with your life. Tons of people in this world would do anything for that opportunity, and you're worrying about the fact that some people may not have heard of your school. I'm sorry I'm so preachy today, I'm just really tired of all this fuss over college.</p>

<p>do you think i'm denying all of that?</p>

<p>i know i'm luckier than most and i know that name pales in comparison to the individual college experience. </p>

<p>the point, here, is that all of this grieving occurs subconsciously.</p>

<p>It used to bother me. I got into Cornell, JHU (with full tuition scholarship), NU, Tufts, BC honors, Ohio State honors (with full ride), Case. I picked Mudd primarily because out of the privates it offered the best merit aid/financial aid option. Most of my friends at school would go WHY DID YOU PICK MUDD OVER CORNELL ***. I would have to say to them "Mudd is a better school" and they'd just look at me like I was crazy. Some of my friends joke that "I made up my school" and "it isn't real." My parents thought that Mudd was worst than Case and just around OSU level. </p>

<p>Then they found some articles about Mudd in magazines. I guess that changed their mind out of anything. Most people are such prestige-whores. The moment they saw it listed as a "new ivy" by newsweek they flipped out and changed their mind about it. I still don't think they realize how hard or selective Mudd is. When they see my GPA... probably around 3.0... I know they're going to go off on me. My mom said that "summer isn't a time for a relaxing." That really ****ed me off. If I went to an easy state school then yeah it wouldn't be, but I haven't gotten a chance to relax all year.</p>

<p>Haha, atomicfusion...I'm in hs and I'm really considering Mudd. And when I tell people I'm going to apply there, they'll shrug and ask me why I don't aim higher. It makes me laugh.</p>

<p>I would have gone to JHU. Full tuition?? Come on!</p>

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I would have gone to JHU. Full tuition?? Come on!

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<p>I actually received the letter stating I had gotten the scholarship on May first, as I was walking out to my car to drive to the post office to submit my Mudd enrollment forms. I got virtually the same amount of money at Mudd as I did JHU (10k scholarship + 26k in grants), they were very generous. </p>

<p>I was only considering OSU honors and Mudd in the end because Mudd was the best deal AND the best school out of the privates. I ended up choosing Mudd at the last second. Mostly I don't regret my choice because the education I'm getting here is second to none and it's only for a cost of 10k/year in mostly loans. </p>

<p>However, sometimes when I'm staying up to ridiculous hours in the morning doing homework, like tuesday night when my engineering team pulled an all-nighter and worked for 20 hours straight on our 72 page final report, I think to myself "why oh why didn't I take the blue pill???"</p>

<p>Hahaha. Harvey Mudd's still good. I just personally like JHU, but only because it's a better fit for me. Full tuition is pretty amazing. Do you mind listing your stats?</p>

<p><em>sigh</em> I know that employers and grad schools will recognize the name, but it is still a bit aggravating when people ask where I'm going, I say Wesleyan, and they look at me like I'm from Mars. Everyone either has not heard of it at all, or returns with "Why would you want to go to an all-girls school?" At which point, I have to patiently explain that Wes never was an all-girls school. </p>

<p>Despite my explaining this to her several times, my sister still insists that Wesleyan is an all-girls school. </p>

<p>o_0</p>

<p>Hee. I'm going to Wellesley, almostmidnight, and my father still mixes up the names sometimes (I considered and visited, but did not apply, to Wesleyan). Not to further depress you, but people from my school think Wesleyan is Illinois Wesleyan...and come to think of it, when I mentioned Wellesley to one of my friends he thought I was talking about (Illinois) Wesleyan. </p>

<p>I actually think of Wesleyan as pretty well known, being that one of my favorite college admissions books, The Gatekeepers, was written about it, but I guess not everyone is a college admissions junkie like me :)....</p>

<p>It doesn't matter where you go to school (unless it's Harvard or a state school) there are going to be people....sometimes lots of ignorant people that don't know what/where it is. Sometimes it is a blessing. It allows you to have school spirit without being percieved as bragging...something the Harvard/Princeton/Brown/MIT folks can't get away with in public, because the moment they open their mouths (even if asked) telling their college affiliation (or worse wearing it) is considered bragging.</p>

<p>I go to a top LAC, and everyone from my high school thought I was retarded for turning down Duke.</p>

<p>I think the more important question should be why do you care what others think of the name of your school?</p>

<p>And lots of those LACs you mentioned are better than Cornell. Most people who know that Cornell is an Ivy know some of those LACs. Kids from my high school thought the Ivy League was just Harvard and Yale.</p>

<p>I enrolled at middlebury, incidentally</p>

<p>Yeah it's frustrating, nobody has ever heard of College of the Atlantic, maybe because it has 280+ students, or that it's in Maine, but I wasn't really looking for a sticker school. Sometimes being anonymous is good, then you know your education isn't just a label, but it's also nice for others to recognize the quality of the college you go to.</p>

<p>I don't go to Pomona, I'm a Mudder. But I thought I'd share this anecdote.</p>

<p>One time I was at my doctor's for an appointment. We were chatting, and I told him I went to HMC. He said, "Oh I know about that. My daughter wanted to go to Pomona really badly, it was her first choice. But I couldn't let her do that to herself."</p>

<p>I thought it was because he was a protective father and wanted to keep his daughter as close to home as possible.</p>

<p>Instead, he said, "Well see, she got into Princeton, and I told her she wasn't going to throw that away to go to some school called Pomona. Some schools are just better."</p>

<p>I almost walked out and demanded a refund for my appointment right then and there.</p>

<p>Other than that, though, he was a pretty nice guy. Just incredibly ignorant of good colleges.</p>

<p>Eeek. I can totally understand your annoyance, tiyusufaly. Although Princeton is obviously a hard school to turn down, that really grates (and I say this as the daughter of P grads...they would NEVER say something like that about a top LAC). "do that to herself"...yikes. </p>

<p>On a personal note, I have to say that now that I have decided and am telling people that I'm going to Wellesley, I'm feeling the annoyance of a bunch of blank stares and polite "Oh, where is that?"'s. Only two people from my school so far have demonstrated that the actually know anything (ANYTHING, as in, they have heard of it) about Wellesley. Beyond that, people are usually just like, "Okay". Also, despite my best efforts to mostly not talk about it, people often know that I applied to Ivies, and so they ask me if I got in, and I have to say no and than try to not sound so lame by going "But Wellesley's a good school too!", which of course people are just like, Sure. So, yeah. Annoying. </p>

<p>But I know that not everyone will be so ill-informed, and that Wellesley really is a pretty well-known school, so I try to comfort myself with that and with how fabulously happy I know I will be there. :)</p>

<p>Hillary will change all of that when she becomes president.</p>

<p>^^Hee! That would be pretty awesome...although I'm going to be conflicted, being that the Democratic frontrunners are respectively from my home state and my soon-to-be college! Obama is pretty stinkin' big here (and might be my preference, but don't tell let the Wellesley-heads hear me!).</p>

<p>Don't worry, everyone in the Northeast knows Wellesley. Didn't people in Chicago see "Mona Lisa Smile"?</p>

<p>Apparently not. I should stress that this is people from my HS...I really haven't spoken to neighbors and other adults around town, whom I would assume would give me many fewer blank stares. Very, very few people go OOS from my HS--if they consider it, it is generally for the Ivies (which we hardly ever get anyone into (zero acceptances this year)) or for another Big Ten school, and LAC's may as well not exist for most of my classmates. Unless of course, we were talking about Illinois Wesleyan, which almost everyone in my school knows about, even though it's...ahem...not <em>quite</em> up there with Wellesley, etc. Still a solid school, for sure, but man am I happy I didn't like Wesleyan--that would be a nightmare to explain to my classmates.</p>

<p>But yeah, I do think it is kind of weird that so few people seem to have heard of Wellesley, because it really isn't a low profile school, especially now.</p>