<p>And no one can spell Rensselaer, including apparently most of the applicants!</p>
<p>I’m glad I’m not the only one who was clueless about Cal.</p>
<p>Well, Berkeley or Cal or whatever looms a heck of a lot larger in California than it does in the rest of the country. (As does every college in its own backyard, to be sure.)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Here in Chicago, people tend to say simply “Wisconsin” (or sometimes Madison) to refer to the University of Wisconsin. And of course Washington University in St. Louis is “Wash U.” I don’t know how people in Washington State refer to their state university, but it would seem to be rather hard to mistake any of these three for one another in conversation.</p>
<p>My guess is that not too many people who did not go to Stanford know that it is also referred to as “the farm”.</p>
<p>Around here, Cal refers to California University of Pennsylvania</p>
<p>Nope, that “the farm” thing was also new to me based on being on CC. Frankly the existence of a million billion UC’s was also new to me. Who knew?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Hey, it’s right there on the sides of the helmets. And those folks are convinced that Stanford actually IS a “junior university.” </p>
<p>Back in the Midwest, “Miami was a university when Florida still belonged to Spain.” Or so says the tee-shirt you can buy in the bookstore in Oxford, Ohio.</p>
<p>Here in NC, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is almost always referred to as simply “Carolina”. The only problem with that is that the state to our south also has a flagship university that is “Carolina”. We live near the border of the two states so people sometimes have to clarify which “Carolina” they’re talking about.</p>
<p>One of my kids goes to Wash U. Everyone asks how she likes living in the Pacific Northwest.</p>
<p>I always thought “the farm” was a CIA training center near the state university that is called a college and most people assume a Catholic college, The College of William and Mary.</p>
<p>Washington State University is called “Wazzu” out here.</p>
<p>Classof2015. When I read WUSTL, I always hear it as Wussle in my head.</p>
<p>I got your point! :)</p>
<p>And I agree with another poster who said that it seems that some folks didn’t get this was a light-hearted thread to start with.</p>
<p>University of Vermont is known as UVM for some reason.</p>
<p>My husband also likes to refer to the U of M as “UMich,” and he must be the only person on the planet to do so.</p>
<p>To the “Cal” referring to UC Berkeley thing, as someone that grew up in the Bay Area and is now going to UC Davis, I mainly hear that from either alums, current students, or relatives of the former two cases. Otherwise most people I know call it Berkeley, and some (including me) sometimes shorten that to Berk. Now if we’re talking about in writing, that’s when I see people call it Cal more.</p>
<p>I never really thought about it until I talked to people from outside the area, particularly OOS students, but the way I usually hear UCs and CSUs referred to can get confusing if you’re not used to it. A lot of times if there’s either a UC or CSU in a certain location, I and many others just say the city name. For instance, I remember during orientation that me and another Bay Area native unintentionally confused a classmate from LA when we referred to CSU Sacramento and CSU Chico as Sac and Chico, respectively. Of course, if you’re talking about cases like LA and San Diego, you can usually figure out which school they’re talking about either because they outright say it (eg UCSD or San Diego State) or because they were talking about either the UC or CSU system beforehand. Then there’s cases like San Jose State where I always hear it referred to as such and never as San Jose…Yeah, the way we refer to schools is pretty odd now that I actually stop and think about it more, haha.</p>
<p>Moving away from UCs and CSUs, there’s University of the Pacific. Back when I lived in the south bay, people called it Pacific. Once I moved to the east bay, people called it UoP. Now if it comes up in conversation I just adjust how I refer to it based on how the other person is referring to it.</p>
<p>All of this just shows how regional our colleges and universities can be.</p>
<p>
Even worse for international schools. I have an engineering degree from overseas from a school with a pretty rigorous curriculum and a solid reputation there, but sometimes the abbreviation is mistaken for a local school in the US. Years ago when I was a newbie, someone was explaining to another about me, “His degree is from ITT, but his techie and math skills are actually really good…”</p>
<p>Someoldguy, while a slight exaggeration, the Miami T is a response to all those people asking why a college in OH was named after one in FL (when the one is OH is >100 years older…)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Haven’t heard of any high-reputation ITT in another country. On the other hand, if someone says IIT around here, most people think of the elite universities in some other country, not the university in Chicago.</p>
<p>And then there’s Cornell College vs Cornell University. Or the two very different Wheatons… Not to mention getting St. John U (Catholic NYC) vs St. Johns (Great books Santa Fe or Annapolis) mixed up.</p>
<p>And poor old Johns Hopkins - why the s?</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>Mr. Hopkins was named after his great-grandmother whose last name was “Johns.”</p>
<p>In the spirit of the thread, I could say that the common name is John Hopkins U and the official name is Johns Hopkins U.</p>
<p><a href=“Home | Johns Hopkins University”>Home | Johns Hopkins University;