@Hanna I would recommend that before setting your posts in stone, you re-read your posts from the context of your position of privilege and see how people without that privilege would respond to them.
" too busy “having a good time” to care about academics"
Can you quote the part of my post where I contrast having a good time with academics? Academics are part of having a good time and loving your school.
They have chosen schools that are more suited to their goals and their personalities. There are literally thousands of kids that have the academic chops to excel at a northeastern private school, but, contrary to popular belief, not everyone wants that small campus experience. A large state flagship provides an abundance of growth opportunities academically, socially, and culturally. And if you get to have some fun growing, that’s a bonus.
I’m from the South and I wasn’t offended.
I also think it’s generally true that people around here don’t care as much about prestige.
My kids went to a competitive magnet HS that sends a few kids to top 20 schools every year. But a lot of kids, sometimes including the top graduates, go to LSU. Nobody thinks much of it, and the kids at LSU aren’t busy comparing themselves to their MIT classmates.
“They have chosen schools that are more suited to their goals and their personalities.”
Exactly. And schools that they may have been dreaming about since they were kids. I think the OP’s experience is rare. I was born in the Midwest and have lived here for all but 7 years of my life…most college-bound kids here do not see Big 10 schools as anything but a first choice.
@Hanna your post was dismissive of people in state schools. If reinforced class stereotypes of them not focusing on learning. You can’t go back now and say that “having a good time” includes academics. Check your privilege, please. No wonder people who graduated from Harvard often have a reputation of arrogance.
@HappyAlumnus I feel like you are taking offense at and reading into @Hanna’s post things that aren’t implied. I don’t get how you’re interpreting her posts as you are. She isn’t criticizing public schools nor the students who attend them.
Additionally, I find your 3 posts directed at her attacking and belittling.
If anything, I think @Hanna ‘s post points out a problem in the northeast (either too much focus on prestige or a lack of appealing in state options) not a problem in the Midwest.
@doschicos, I am simply standing up for the less fortunate. I showed Hanna’s posts to two family members who did attend state schools (one turned down MIT and the other turned down Vanderbilt) and they found them insulting.
I agree with @doschicos -you seem to be misinterpreting @Hanna 's posts. Both of my kids went to public schools and I took no offense to anything at all she said. I think you owe her an apology for your attack on her.
No, I will not apologize to Hanna. We can each interpret her posts based on our respective plain readings of them. In my and my two family members’ readings, they are condescending and offensive.
I think that all of us can benefit from re-reading our posts and reflecting on them before they become non-editable, as what we may not intend to be offensive may in fact cause offense.
Further, I went to Harvard as well and when I was there, people never would have made blanket statements about people at less prestigious schools; we were all very conscientious of not saying or doing anything that could be seen as looking down on anyone, since many of us were from atypical Harvard backgrounds or had family members and friends at less-selective schools and we all knew the arrogance that would be attributed to us. The Harvard culture, when I was there, effectively prohibited making statements that could be seen as condescending. Perhaps things differed at other times and in other Harvard schools.
“I am simply standing up for the less fortunate.” What does that mean? Are you equating state school kids with the less fortunate? If so, that seems a bit of a stretch.
There are no “less fortunate” here to stand up for. The Midwest has excellent state universities and folks who recognize that and embrace it.
As does Virginia.
The “less fortunate” would include people who attend their in-state schools, such as Ole Miss, for economic reasons despite having the grades and test scores to go to, say, Stanford. Such individuals should not be viewed as simply “having a good time” and not caring about other things. They work very hard and their schools are often superb despite sometimes lacking the name recognition that a private school would get.
i view s person being able to get an education at Ole Miss as fortunate. Ole Miss has plenty of “name recognition” so maybe not the best example. Most people really don’t obsess over whether they go to a private school or not.
@sevmom, Ole Miss is an excellent school and has many talented students. Perhaps because Hanna and I both went to Harvard, I know that there are plenty of people in Northeastern-pedigreed circles who would not view Ole Miss, or state schools, or their students, as favorably, unfortunately.
So part of what really bothered me about Hanna’s posts is that I know what someone with a Northeastern elite pedigree may be thinking when claiming that students at state schools are “having a good time”, and it’s not positive or complimentary. Someone with a Northeastern elite pedigree may well mean that as a sneer.
So now you are lumping all people with a “Northeastern elite pedigree” together and claiming to know what they meant (reading too much into their comments)? Who’s the one stereotyping and judging here?
The fact of the matter is that very very few of top 30% of students in public OR private high schools in MA, CT, NY, NJ aspire to attend UMASS Amherst, UCONN, Bing, or Rutgers but many many in that same educational bracket in the midwest look forward to going to their flagship.
That’s the point of Hannas post. And I agree with her. Is it because midwest flagships have better academics than the Northeast ones? I doubt it.
@doschicos I have a Harvard degree and live in the Northeast, so I am one of the people I refer to as having a “Northeastern elite pedigree”.
I definitely do not state that all people with “Northeastern elite pedigrees” are the same–I very intentionally state that there are “plenty of people” in that category who “may” look down on people at Ole Miss who are “having a good time” (i.e., not every person in the Northeastern elite pedigreed category is the same, and some do not share that view). I fall into the latter category, as do plenty of “Northeastern elite pedigreed” people.
So stating that many people in a group may think one way means that some do not. That is not stereotyping.
If you’re walking through the Yale campus and you state that unlike at Yale, “people at Ole Miss are just having a good time”, there are plenty of people who will take that as a sneer. But not all will.
@suzyq7, generalizing about all people in a group is what Hanna did, and which is what is so offensive.