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Harvard student and egomaniac is synonymous is it not?</p>
<p>To Gryffon5147:</p>
<p>Well dear, I don’t think that is such a big deal. You’re just gonna have to learn how to brilliantly save yourself out of these situations
after all you got to Yale, so this is nothing you can’t do, right? ;)</p>
<p>For the next time, how about you substitute the awkward silence on your part with a nice smile and “Cool, so what are you going to major in / focus on?”</p>
<p>As long as you make her/anyone going to community college feel as if their college is as important as yours instead of waiting awkwardly and letting them ask million questions about Yale, you’ll be alright.</p>
<p>(Sorry if I sound like Oprah. I just thought it was really unnecessary for that situation to go wrong, so hey - next time! 
)</p>
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<p>When I tell people I’m applying to the top schools and I’ll do my damndest to get in (in slightly different words), I also often get this reaction - not just from people one or two years ahead of me, but people almost at PhD-level. I hate to say it, but I only get this reaction from people who never attended a university even close to said top schools. It’s like they consider the fact that you might do better than they have a personal insult…</p>
<p>■■■■■ alert</p>
<p>Slight diversion: what type of person comes onto the Harvard forum and insults Harvard students like** iamsounsure**? A person who joined CC about a week ago asking for help b/c he’s near flunking out of HS but has high SATs, is an international and wants to know of good US colleges to attend.</p>
<p>Starve him by ignoring him.</p>
<p>Good advice T26E4. I usually find it best to ignore the inflammatory posters.</p>
<p>Believe it or not having an unpopular opinion does not constitute a ■■■■■.</p>
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I agree with this.</p>
<p>The fact of the matter is most Harvard students are going to have big egos and a disconnect with reality. However this is a stereotype and like all of them it isn’t entirely true and some Harvard students are just normal people like everyone else.</p>
<p>The fact that you go to Harvard doesn’t make you a better person, or even a more intelligent person that someone who doesn’t. When people think they are some how better than others though is where the problem arises and one might wish to conceal which college they have attended. And this “I don’t want to tell you where I’m going because I’ll make you jealous” is definitely as pretentious as it gets.</p>
<p>Please don’t insult me T26E4</p>
<p>iamsounsure - All I will add is that until you have lived the situation you are only speculating. Concealing where D is attending college has nothing to do with ego or believing that she is better than anyone else, it has to do with reactions to that fact. This is something that has caught me completely off guard since I never anticipated it before her acceptance. My not expecting it may also explain why you find this so hard to believe. Until you have lived it, you are only speculating. As for Harvard students having 'big egos and a disconnect in reality", that IS only a stereotype so why even bring it up.</p>
<p>Concealing where you’rr attending just makes you seem more conceited imo. If people don’t like it they just have to deal with it</p>
<p>And stereotypes are stereotypes because they are usually true.</p>
<p>From what I’ve seen whether its Harvard or some other elite school, you’re quickly put in your place ego wise as everybody else is at least as smart as you if not smarter.</p>
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It’s not really to keep the other person from being jealous, though. At least for me, it’s because I don’t want to talk about it with everybody, particularly with people I’ve just met. It makes the focus of the conversation the school rather than actual information about your life.</p>
<p>I actually have the same feeling about telling people I’ve just met that I’m a scientist, and that my husband is an aerospace engineer. It elicits the same conversation-ending “Wow, you must be smart!” that I hate. So it’s not school-specific, or snobbery-specific – it’s actually a very egalitarian impulse. </p>
<p>I had the “school in Boston” thing backfire on me once as an undergrad. I was at home in Ohio getting my hair cut, and the hairdresser asked where I went to college, and I said “Boston,” but she thought I said “Ball State”, and by the time I realized what she thought I’d said, we’d been talking too long for me to correct her. Awkward.</p>
<p>Trying to hide that you go to Harvard from someone who asks you makes you MUCH more arrogant. Do you think you are really that much better than someone else that you CAN’T tell them where you go to school because you are afraid it’s TOO GOOD? Are you THAT arrogant in nature that you feel people will automatically distance themselves from you for going to HARVARD?</p>
<p>Well, I think that is /what I implied. I did not say all Harvard alums/students, I said the ones that I have met. I try not to judge a whole group of people.</p>
<p>However, if you want my real opinion, I think that Harvard is overpriced for undergrad work. Now law school, that is a different story. Unless of course you get a scholarship. There are plenty of undergrad schools that offer near the same education for a fraction of the cost.</p>
<p>But to each his own. </p>
<p>Yes, your correct that if someone does not mention they went to Harvard I would never know. However, there has been a couple of times when people have gone out of there way to say they went to Harvard when we were not even on the subject.</p>
<p>conman, Harvard is THE cheapest school for “undergrad work.” I would have had to pay over $10k more to go to my local state school.</p>
<p>Also, there are over twenty different kinds of Harvard sweatshirts. I suppose that is because nobody wants anyone to know they went to Harvard.</p>
<p>Really, my State school is a little under seven thousand a year. Please correct me if i;m wrong, but Harvard is around 30k, right?</p>
<p>^ $7,000 a year is most likely not counting room and board; my state school, with both of those factored in, costs about $22,000. And Harvard is $50k, but financial aid often makes that a significantly lower number, which is likely the case for rb3.</p>
<p>Yes, that is tuition only. I agree, if you can get financial aid, got for it.</p>
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[QUOTE=rb3]
Trying to hide that you go to Harvard from someone who asks you makes you MUCH more arrogant.
[/quote]
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<p>Or they have learned from experience that sometimes it is better to avoid awkward social moments.</p>
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<p>The problem is not what the Harvard student thinks of the other person. The problem is what the other person will think of the Harvard student if the Harvard student reveals he or she is a Harvard student. Alas, some people don’t like to hear that others are doing better than they are, so Harvard students reason it’s better to play it safe and not drop the H-word too much.</p>
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<p>It’s not about being arrogant, it’s about learning from experience.</p>
<p>What? Because someone attends Harvard doesn’t mean they are “doing better” than anyone else. See this is the arrogance I am talking about.</p>
<p>but people might think otherwise.</p>