<p>Today, I was talking with some Juniors at my school about their college lists for next year. Speaking with one very, very bright girl, a fellow senior said that she should look at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (where she is going). I proceeded to tell her that she should also look at Harvard, and consequently got yelled at by THREE separate teachers about how Harvard is “Not the only good school in the country”. </p>
<p>Its hard to show “college pride” with places like Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, or MIT because other people just think you are bragging or self-absorbed. That’s been my experience.</p>
<p>My experience has been quite the opposite. I come from a small Canadian town that generally lacks ambition, so everybody is excited for me when I tell them that I’ve been admitted to Harvard. Most people, knowing the type of person I am and my background, understand that I’m not bragging when I tell them where I’m enrolling in the fall.</p>
<p>However, I do understand when such candour might not be appropriate…</p>
<p>check out this comedy bit from a Harvard grad–it answers the question about why Harvard students hold back on saying “Haravrd”. Hilarious.
YouTube - David Moore Harvard Graduate</p>
<p>Yeah, I think Penn students get off the easiest of any of the top schools.<br>
80% of the time when I tell someone I’m transferring to Penn, they think I mean Penn State (even my academic adviser thought that). I usually just let them think that.
I can’t even imagine going to Harvard and trying to hide that. 10x harder than Penn.</p>
<p>I know what you guys are saying, even when I was still choosing schools I would tell people I got into Y and S, but I quickly learned to omit Harvard. </p>
<p>I can’t even imagine what it’s like to actually GO there and put up with it; you can’t even avoid it then! But, I will say, that when standing with my friend who also got in, and listening to her reply, when asked what schools she was considering, a couple small private schools in the northeast, and then have to say Harvard and Yale… it would have been significantly less awkward to say Harvard and Yale in the first place. </p>
<p>And I don’t think it’s that most people perceive Harvard (which gets a different type of response than Yale or Princeton or Stanford, especially outside the northeast. As it is said, “when you tell someone you went to Yale, you have to spend time proving how smart you are. But when you tell someone you go to Harvard, you have to start proving how ‘normal’ you are”.) students as arrogant dbags. It just isolates people because they assume that you’ve now had a fundamentally different life experience from them, one which society says is inherently better, and you aren’t going to be able to relate to them. </p>
<p>I didn’t really realize this difference until I chose a school and “I’m considering Harvard” turned into “I’m going to Michigan on full scholarship”. While, especially right now, people are thoroughly impressed, it’s a different kind of impressed. Kids who go to the great schools just under HYPS are labeled as great, smart, hardworking kids. But kids who go to Harvard are instantly stereotyped as some kind of superhuman enigma.</p>
<p>Strangely enough, it is that experience that I’ll miss the most not going to Harvard. I wonder how that affects ones life, and the kind of camaraderie it builds with other Ivy students. </p>
<p>Also, it just seems like it’d be kinda cool :)</p>
<p>Yeah when I first got in I told some people at my school and people started to think I was arrogant and kind of forgot how they saw me before the whole Harvard thing. I soon learnt after that.</p>
<p>Thought I would share the latest. S & I just got back from a week in Italy, D and H are still there, and from time to time in our conversations the names of my son and daughter’s colleges came up. For Tufts we got complete blank stares and for Harvard the most we got was “that’s a good school right?”. It was a novel experience compared to the responses we get here in the states.</p>
<p>It is truly amazing the reaction and I had not put much stock in it before this Spring. The reporter writing the Val story for the local paper could not ask about anything else and the story ended up seeming that S was only talking about Harvard. Then the most recent incident was at the doctor’s office where my son dropped off the immunization record to be completed. The whole office staff went into a tizzy and insisted on completing the form and interrupting the doctor to sign it. S was stunned. We thought it would take a week. So at a recent party where a number of kids from various high schools that were heading to Duke were in attendance, when S was asked if he were going to Duke, he just said no. A parent friend of mine was there and wanted to insert where he was going but thought she should leave it up to S (wise choice). Older S attends Stanford and we have been subject to awe due to that, to the point of now saying he goes to school in California. But the Stanford-bomb does not match the H-bomb in reaction across all demographics.</p>
So at a recent party where a number of kids from various high schools that were heading to Duke were in attendance, when S was asked if he were going to Duke, he just said no. A parent friend of mine was there and wanted to insert where he was going but thought she should leave it up to S (wise choice). Older S attends Stanford and we have been subject to awe due to that, to the point of now saying he goes to school in California. But the Stanford-bomb does not match the H-bomb in reaction across all demographics.</p>