<p>Me: D is going to a great nursing program at the University of Scranton. The school seems to be a great fit for her and the program has a lot to offer.</p>
<p>Them: " Hmm, Scranton (?), isn’t that where “The Office” (television fiction) takes place?"</p>
<p>Me: Yes, and that is one of her favorite shows…;)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Some people understand that fit is important and some do not. Your anecdotes may simply show that you have run into members of both groups.</p>
<p>My personal favorite is someone telling me how a girl who is a true academic screw-up, who spent high school cutting class and not doing homework with the grades to prove it, whose primary EC would appear to involve the sale of controlled substances, didn’t EVEN get into my son’s beloved college.</p>
<p>Sometimes I go, “That’s terrible! She must have had terrible college advising! Didn’t someone tell her that these days the average SAT is XYZ and the average GPA is QRS?”</p>
<p>But when I just get told the tragic story of an otherwise unobjectionable student whose stats don’t even put him in the top 50% of accepted students at S’s college, but who nevertheless tried to use S’s college as a safety and (gasp!) didn’t EVEN get in, I mostly smile and nod and grind my teeth.</p>
<p>My mom, who lived in Chicago much of her life, thought UChicago was a public school.</p>
<p>S will be off to St. Olaf in MN next fall. We live in Buffalo, NY. We still get the “Does he know how cold it gets in MN?” question.</p>
<p>Our response: He spent this winter 400 miles ENE of Moscow, Russia. We think he’ll be able to handle it.</p>
<p>Me to my cousin: “Yes, D1 has chosen a college. It is Kenyon.”
My cousin: “That’s not in Kenya is it?”
Me: “No, it is in Ohio.”</p>
<p>Now when people ask me I usually respond that she is going to “Kenyon College, in OHIO”. I either get excitement or TOTALLY blank stares- not much middle ground.</p>
<p>When I told someone my son was going to Swarthmore in the Fall in 2004, she had not heard of Swarthmore. That isn’t unusual. So I said ‘It is a small liberal arts college near Philly. It used to be a Quaker school in the past’. </p>
<p>To which she said ‘Good, he is going to a religious school!’</p>
<p>Now that those same people are in the cognoscenti (spelling?) about Swarthmore, they wish their daughter had applied there because supposedly, it has better need-based aid than some of the schools she did get into!!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Why oh why did you correct your cousin??! You could have had so much fun with it over the years…"She’s coming home for Thanksgiving?’ “All that way?” “They have a bus that takes them to WalMart every week.” “They have WalMarts there?”</p>
<p>To be fair, not everyone has spent the last year obsessing over colleges like I have. That does not however excuse the mean-spirited rather than the clueless comments.</p>
<p>missypie- SO true! I need to be quicker on my feet! Re: the bus to Walmart- my D has never been to a Walmart so that will be like a foreign experience!!</p>
<p>When I was in college I went to visit a friend at Brown and bought a t-shirt, which had the logo written in the upper right-hand quadrant of the t-shirt, above… er… well you get the picture. A guy came up to me and asked" what color is the other one?"</p>
<p>I’ve been trying to come up with a zinging response for QM’s winning entry.</p>
<p>“Hmmm, you’re clearly very well informed on the subject. Please tell me more.”</p>
<p>“No, that’s outdated information. Everyone knows that nowadays Grove City is the most popular school for gay and lesbian students.”</p>
<p>“Yup. That’s why no one minds that the dorm bathrooms are co-ed.”</p>
<p>“The school receives federal funds, so they are strictly don’t ask, don’t tell.”</p>
<p>“Why yes, they DO have a wonderful study abroad program!”</p>
<p>My S will attend WashU. When asked, I make a point of mentioning the “in St. Louis” part of the name, to stave off the questions about Seattle. </p>
<p>I still get a lot of blank stares from people who have never heard of it, and questions about why he would want to go so far away, or why he would want to go to school in St. Louis. (We live in NJ.)</p>
<p>Some well-meaning relatives were very impressed that he was going to apply to TCNJ, and can’t understand why he would prefer to go far away to some school that they had never heard of.</p>
<p>Thanks Mamakin, I thought it must be something like that but then I started wondering if it wasn’t a branch of calculus!</p>
<p>When I decided to go to UCLA one of my Grandmas said to me “Why would you want to go to such a tiny school?”</p>
<p>People around here don’t talk about school much (except maybe" graduated HS!" or “going to college!”), and I have to confess I am afraid to ask; afraid I won’t say the right thing. After a few years here on CC, “TMI”. I think if someone volunteers , I will "smile and nod!!</p>
<p>PS I think “she has to be careful” bumps the other lesbian comments out of first place.</p>
<p>QM is still the undefeated champ in my book. :eek:
My kiddo got blank stares and “oh! how… nice…” when he first told people about Harvey Mudd. And the occasional “Harvard Med” reaction, and a well-meaning co-worker said he really should consider Calpoly instead because it has a good reputation and she thought he might get in. I think the best one, though, was when he was still considering Caltech – somebody blinked and then asked him, “Is that a community college in California?”</p>
<p>Having made an early faux pas myself (speculating about the merit aid geek_son might receive at a college I didn’t realize was on the other party’s A list), I’m pretty sensitive about it now. :o If a name catches me flat-footed, I just say something like, “Congratulations! I have to confess I don’t know much about that one – tell me what you like about it?”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I do the same thing. </p>
<p>On the positive side, I was talking with a parent whose S wants to do fashion design. The mother was talking about possible schools, and mentioned that the student was very interested in a school in Rhode Island. I said “Oh, is that RISD?” Her face changed from trepidation to pleasure, because finally, someone who wasn’t a design person actually knew about the school.</p>
<p>
Thats perfect, SlitheyTove! Study a a broad. LOL!</p>
<p>jym626, :D. I was proudest of that one.</p>