How do you deal with an inferiority complex? I can’t be the only person to feel like my low-ranked private school education was not worth the effort and money I put in. I’m graduating from a top 100 school in a city (not NYC) with an extremely prestigious school down the road, and I feel like garbage. I know my school is a joke and doesn’t really have successful alumni to hold up as role models. It’s a stressful feeling, and when I bring our status up to my peers they usually get angry or defensive.
The students from the elite school look down their noses and avoid contact with us. When they find out we go to such and such school, we become lepers. Everyone reacts differently depending on where you tell them you go to school. I feel like there is a whole part of society that is closed off to me because of my college.
I know that I’m going to get responses saying “Don’t bother with elitists,” or “That’s not the real world”–but I suspect it is, and in any case doesn’t answer my question. None of my Ivy League-educated academic advisers or therapists seem to be able to grasp the question, let alone answer it. My peers just want to bury their heads in the sand.
Grad school. Do your research and find the best one you can be admitted to. That is what employers will likely care more about down the line. Do well. Do internships. In short, work hard to prove to others and YOURSELF that you are worthy.
You might find Frank Bruni’s book insightful: Where You’ll Go Is Not Who You’ll Be. Read the powerful stories of all the highly accomplished people and see how many of them went to less prestigious or even hardly known colleges.
I graduated from a top Masters program today and found out that the other Masters students came from over 200 different universities around the world. I had no idea- mainly because it’s just not something that comes up.
Truly, I understand the inferiority complex. I had several high school friends stop talking to me because I chose the “less prestigious” Michigan school. But, really, I am so grateful for that time and that education. Honestly, to hell with everyone else. Them looking down on you says WAY more about them than anyone else.
I can’t say anything you haven’t heard before, but truly, no one cares outside of whatever town you’re in and it’s probably overblown in your head
No you are not inferior unless you let them. My brother and I used to hang out with people from Wharton and Berkeley law school. When one of these guys asked my brother where he went to school, he danced around and was so embarrassed that he didn’t say he was at a CC. Fast forward nearly 40 years those guys didn’t turn out so hot, multiple marriages or girls who married them because of their earning potential, but unfortunately the marriages didn’t last.
I know it’s hard for you to believe now, but it actually isn’t the real world.
I actually live in a city now with a top 100 school that isn’t in the same league as the local top 25 school. But you know what? In the office, nobody outside of those 2 schools actually cares. There seems to be virtually no correlation between rank and which of those 2 schools someone went to. Also, neither of those 2 schools is anywhere close to a majority; the big local (not very elite) state flagship dominates in representation while the flagship of a close-by state is probably 2nd in representation.
Oh, and teenagers and young adults can be mean. Most people get over themselves at some point.
Everyone’s comments above are valid, but in the end no one here can help you with a psychological condition that causes you to distort reality. We (and your “Ivy League-educated” academic advisers and therapists) may as well be telling you the sky is blue when you see it as obviously green. Anyone reading your post can appreciate your disconnect from reality–you characterize a top 100 school as “low ranked” when there are several THOUSAND colleges in the US; you expect your peers to be welcoming of your insulting remarks about the quality of their education; you make the absurd claim that students at a neighboring college treat you and your classmates as “lepers”. This is much more than a mere inferiority complex that you need to “deal” with–it strikes me as closer to paranoia. Please address your mental state with a professional before it cripples you even more. I wish you well.
If you are going to moan and groan about things like how much respect your private school gets compared to other private schools you are making yourself a helpless victim. I don’t deal with victims every day but I do deal with people of about your age who like to play the victim card every time they have a problem, concern or issue big, small or perceived. They are just giving themselves crutches. They are just making excuses for not getting things done. That way thy can blame something else for their failures and shortcomings.
Everyone has problems and challenges. Everyone. The best thing you can do is get into the attitude of nothing will stop you from setting reasonable goals and setting action plans towards achieving them and then going out and doing it. I’d also echo the “who cares what other people think,” comment. The best comment on this whole thread so far is the person(s) who pointed out the disconnect from reality you are sticking to. That is exactly right. There is a “disconnect.” I won’t say you need professional help. You might, you might not, I have no way of knowing, professional help is what wealthy people do. Everybody else just bucks up and changes their attitude and gets back on the horse.
You are living with a kind of high school mentality that has nothing to do with the real world. In the real world, every day, people who went to the most prestigious schools and people who went to third-tier publics work side by side and respect the heck out of one another every single day. In my firm, we have people who went to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, and Penn, and people who went to Temple, St. Joe’s and LaSalle, and that makes absolutely no difference. I doubt St. Joe’s or LaSalle would make a list of top-100 anythings that wasn’t limited to Catholic colleges, but I know tons of smart, successful people who went to college there. One of the friends I respect most went to Albright College, a place that is barely on the CC map. Our current mayor went to Penn (Wharton), and it looks like he’s about to be succeeded in office by a high school classmate of his who went to LaSalle, or maybe by a guy who went to Franklin & Marshall.
I know people who went to college at Albion College or CCNY or Utah and wound up clerking for the Supreme Court and doing great things.
My wife and I both have very snobby academic credentials, and every once in a while maybe we get a little advantage out of that, and sometimes a little disadvantage, too. But I can promise you that we don’t look down our noses at anyone or treat them like lepers because of where they went to college.
"Grad school. Do your research and find the best one you can be admitted to. That is what employers will likely care more about down the line. Do well. Do internships. "
That completely misses the point - that just kicks the can down the road and says “it’s not high school that is the determining factor in how you should feel about yourself, it’s the grad school that is the determining factor in how you should feel about yourself.” Either way, it’s self-esteem derived through the eyes of others.
JHS is exactly right. This is a high school mentality. People who sit there and judge other people based on the college they went to are LOSERS – so how losers think of you is of no consequence whatsoever. I love myself elite colleges too, but true intelligence is looking at the person, not their diploma.
Most people graduate from high school emotionally and socially when they graduate from high school physically. There will always be some who don’t. They are the ones who will always be concerned about hierarchies, and whether they’re seated at the “cool table.” Avoid them. They are boring and, usually, miserable. They will never enhance your life. I have always told my kids that they need to have open minds and open hearts, because they will be very boring people living very boring lives if they don’t.
Amen to the comment by @MommaJ. By FAR the best advice in my opinion.
I would only add that you should probably not hang around on a site like this one where there is so much stress on ‘elite’ schools. It might give you a warped view of the real world.
If you argue I’m disconnected from reality, what does that make everyone else here? I think I asked a perfectly valid question, and I appreciate the reasonable responses. I’m not suffering from any serious mental illness. I’m just characterizing life as I see it (and unlike my peers, not how I choose to see it).
