Is the average American really this clueless when it comes to colleges?

College Search & Selection
61

<p>I was at a party and some lady asked my mom where I was going to college. Everyone involved lives in GA.</p>

<p>Mom: Oh, he’s going to Emory.
Lady: Oooh.. It’s okay though! If he works hard, in a couple of years he can transfer to UGA or GaTech! </p>

<p>I can sorta understand that Emory is not as widely known as some other schools but then she brags about her daughter.</p>

<p>Lady: My daughter goes to GaTech. It’s a wonderful school. People call it the Harvard of the south!</p>

<p>That was really funny to me. If she called it MIT or something, I can see correlation between good engineering schools. But Harvard and GaTech seem pretty different to me.</p>

62

<p>Ha! I think that you may have me beat.</p>

63

<p>I’ve had people asking me if Carnegie Mellon was a nice little liberal arts college. I don’t really mind, though, since I hadn’t heard of the place until I started my college search.</p>

<p>Back when my grandmother was alive, she had both dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease, so every time I’d talk with her we’d make up a new school that I was attending. I remember saying Harvard, MIT, Caltech, and Cambridge, but the only school she was impressed by was CMU because of Carnegie’s name! So, yeah, at least we’ve got good brand recognition with the 95+ year old demented crowd.</p>

64

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<p>Yes, it is. If you’re happy with your choices, why is it important that other people bow down and acknowledge your college’s greatness? And “haven’t heard of your high school”? Good lord, how self-absorbed!</p>

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<p>Shrug, none of the UC colleges are known out here except for Berkeley and LA. Lot of Californians seem awfully perplexed when they find that out. And plenty of very good, decent, salt of the earth people don’t know UCSD or Cambridge. So be it. Not relevant to their lives, just because it’s relevant to yours.</p>

65

<p>I grew up in a rural community, surrounded by some of the most kind and thoughtful people you could ever hope meet. I’d estimate only about 1 in 10 have college degrees. College just isn’t part of the dominant culture there. It certainly doesn’t mean they’re stupid, or less worth my time. It’s just a different world from the CC bubble.</p>

66

<p>When I told I was going to Loyola U Chicago, people confused it with Loyola College in Maryland or U of Chicago. When I clarified by saying, no, it’s a catholic school in Chicago, people would think DePaul.</p>

<p>And when I was transferring to another school, I chose Maryland and Towson as safeties. My mom asked why I hadn’t considered UMUC, known for its adult and military students.</p>

67

<p>In Indiana, most people only know about the schools that are A) in state or B) are out of state but happen to have a decent basketball team.</p>

68

<p>I live in the kc area and people have been asking me where im going to college next year. I am going to northwestern and about half of the people think im talking about northwest missouri state university, and about a quarter have never heard of it. One parent gave me a keychain from northwest mo state i was like umm thanks? I also applied to Bowdoin and amherst, im pretty sure that everyone who asked me where i was applying had no idea where these schools were. Its not a big deal but sometimes its kinda frusterating when u and a friend are talking to someone and ur friend says they are going to ku or k state and u say ur going to northwestern and the person congrats ur friend and looks at u like ur from mars.</p>

69

<p>A friend of mine from central VA was recognized in the church bulletin for graduating from VPI & SU. Old lady said, "I thought he went to Tech?</p>

<p>Im sure it was quite a shocker for folks to realize there was a top LAC in NC when Davidson went on their NCAA roll. </p>

<p>Even the guidance counselors really only talk about Va Tech and NC State if you are good in math. If you are really smart, you might (along with thousands of other kids) get into Carolina or UVa. “why go to some school OOS when you can go to Carolina for so cheap?”</p>

<p>" Maybe thats not the right fit and I might like to look at Haverford or Carleton." </p>

<p>Response: REALLY BLANK STARE</p>

<p>Article in Raleigh N&O last year about a kid admitted to Harvard b/c some teacher made him. Other schools he applied to: Carolina, East carolina and NC State.</p>

70

<p>I think it’s wrong for guidance counselors not to know the top schools, because it’s their freakin’ job to counsel about college options.
But the average Joe, I think it’s a different story.</p>

71

<p>I used to be very ignorant, like, last year. I didn’t even know what Dartmouth was and I thought UC Berkeley was actually called “Berkeley University”.</p>

72

<p>It seems that people who grow up in towns where people haven’t heard of Amherst, Northwestern or Brown (not a problem in my home town, NYC) end up bridging lives. They will enter a new world by going to one of those schools. Yet they will always have a base in another reality. Pretty cool and remids me of Tim Russert.</p>

73

<p>I used to think UC Berkeley and Berkeley College was the same thing. </p>

<p>A few years ago, I was on the subway and there were these tourists who heard the conductor say the next stop would be 8th Street - NYU… they were trying to figure out what “NYU” is. </p>

<p>I went to the Cooper Union for undergrad, and the cashier at a bookstore half a mile away had no idea what it is, let alone what state it’s in. </p>

<p>To be honest, I still don’t know many of the LAC’s. I’ve never personally known anyone who attended one, so there’s never been a need for me to know them.</p>

74

<p>Doesn’t just occur in the US. Nephew who go PhD from MIT told us about foreign students shying away from MIT because they just thought it was a technical school and didn’t carry the weight of the ivies.</p>

75

<p>My GC sucked as well. He thought Vassar was an Ivy League school. It’s kind of bad to have a certificate in College Counseling and not even know what schools are in the Ivy League. He also pretty much never reccommended any schools outside of MA for top students.</p>

76

<p>I think this discussion is a giant reminder of why it’s important to pick a school that you like, rather than worry about prestige. Most people haven’t a clue what school you’re going to anyway. That holds true when you graduate, as well.</p>

77

<p>Americans can be provincial at times, especially about colleges and universities. Culturally, higher education is not emphasized. If it were, we would not need College Confidential to help fill in the blanks. By the way, only 25% of citizens have some college or university education.</p>

<p>Most people have heard of state schools, as well as most NCAA Division I champion sports teams, but private, non-Ivy schools are often not recognized unless someone in their family or social circle has looked at, applied, or attended one of them. What is interesting, at least from an anthropological perspective, is that income does, perhaps, affect school choices (like it does test scores) and whether an individual knows about a particular college or university.</p>

<p>I know less about state schools than private ones, because all my parents talked about while I was growing up was liberal arts colleges and private universities (also a few top public institutions, but that was often with respect to their win-loss records). My parents were just more familiar with the non-state schools because they went to private universities on the East Coast, had friends who went to LACs, and were helped by those who were fortunate enough to be able to know how to navigate the admissions game (college counselors included). The funny thing is, my parents encouraged me to look at many more schools than they had done during their respective college searches. The wished that they had looked at some other schools outside the region, as well as those that were publicly funded. So, they too had become more knowledgeable through familiarity and research. </p>

<p>Again, it’s what people are familiar with that often makes an impact. I should know, I still can’t figure our chemistry, but I can safely enjoy a good sociology book without having to use outside sources. Thank goodness knowing everything is not a requirement to be an American. And, my hat’s off to the high-speed internet, google, and cellphones with browser capabilities. Or, maybe that’s too connected?!</p>

<p>Ah, the perils of too little or too much information. :)</p>