<p>I’ve always referred to Cincinnati as Cincy
UPenn and Penn State is a common mixup
And I didn’t know that Cal and Berkeley were the same thing for yrs.</p>
<p>
My hypothesis: If Tulsa were to adopt the name UT, it would compete for name recognition with the University of Texas - Austin, a school in the same athletic conference. Interestingly, Texas A&M calls UT-Austin TU which can prove confusing to people who associate TU with the University of Tulsa. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same line of reasoning dictated why the University of Colorado - Boulder is known as CU rather than UCB. It plays in the same athletic conference as UC Berkeley so any abbreviations of UC-B would likely cause quite a bit of confusion.</p>
<p>I can’t think of any reason why OU and KU are referred to as such.</p>
<p>Oops sorry, Craig T Nelson, I was thinking of a different show…same kid, right dad, wrong show.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Texas is one of the 10 teams in the Big XII*. Tulsa is in Conference USA, but will be moving to the American Athletic Conference.</p>
<p>*Meanwhile, there are 12 teams in the Big Ten.</p>
<p>Schools which start their name with “The”, at least in the ABET accreditation listings:</p>
<p>The Catholic University of America
The Citadel
The College of New Jersey (Formerly Trenton State College)
The George Washington University (Formerly George Washington University)
The Johns Hopkins University
The Ohio State University (Formerly The Ohio State University)
The University of Akron
The University of Alabama
The University of Alabama in Huntsville (Formerly University of Alabama in Huntsville)
The University of Kansas (Formerly University of Kansas)
The University of Memphis (Formerly Memphis State University)
The University of Texas - Pan American
The University of Texas at San Antonio
The University of Toledo
The University of Tulsa (Formerly University of Tulsa)</p>
<p>Yes, these are the names listed in the ABET accreditation listings. Don’t know why it lists The Ohio State University with a seemingly identical former name.</p>
<p>Boy oh boy Whenhen, that’s quite a whopper of an error, putting U Tulsa in the same conference as UT-Austin. I’m sure that the folks at Texas A&M are bent over laughing at that one.</p>
<p>Yikes. The worst part is, I went to the TU-OU game thinking we were in the same conference…</p>
<p>(Blushes and hangs head) My first fall semester at Michigan (the University of), I was confused that there was a football game against Michigan State – I thought that was just another way of saying U-M. I thought it must be some kind of intramural game. I honestly thought that University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Michigan Technological University were just different names for the same school.</p>
<p>(I married the person who kindly explained my error instead of choking on the joints they’d just inhaled as they rest of the onlookers did.)</p>
<p>^ I guess you weren’t a native Michigander, huh, ChoatieMom?</p>
<p>Lucky for you that you sent your application to the right one. You might have ended up in Houghton.</p>
<p>I never understand when people on here say PennState and UPenn get mixed up. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a Philly suburb, but no one I knew every confused them. Everyone knows PSU is the big football school in happy valley and Penn is the urban Ivy school. They could not be more different :)</p>
<p>I also am very puzzled by the whole Kansas KU abbreviation.</p>
<p>Someone from one of my high school’s (in Oregon) recent graduating class went to Penn, and I knew of many people that wholeheartedly believed she was going to Penn State.</p>
<p>Outside of the East Coast, many people have no knowledge of any Ivy League schools other than Harvard or Yale, maybe Princeton, and are more likely to recognize schools with more TV exposure due to sports.</p>
<p>When UPenn’s basketball team made the Final Four in 1979, one t-shirt vendor actually sold shirts with Penn State on them. But that was the year of Bird and Magic, so no one really cared.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Don’t forget The College at The University of Chicago (at least that’s what they called it back in the day).</p>
<p>“Maybe it’s because I grew up in a Philly suburb, but no one I knew every confused them.”</p>
<p>Of course it’s because you grew up in Philly. I did too. Awareness of colleges is highly regional.</p>
<p>Interesting…I graduated from Ohio University…and I still refer to it at OU. Didn’t know I was violating some copyright infringement thing! It will always be OU to me.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>(Hangs head lower) Not only native, grew up within 45 minutes of A2. I just thought there was only ONE university of/in Michigan, just different ways of saying the same place.</p>
<p>Choatie, that must have been one HUGE joint, since the smoke from it was so thick you couldn’t distinguish between UM, MSU and MTU. LOL</p>
<p>Rmldad, I too, remember UPenn’s unbelievable Final Four run in 1979. They were one of our hated rivals (and we were the last team to defeat both Penn and St. John’s, the East Regional finalists, in the regular season that year). We got a big laugh when we saw the huge “Go Penn State” buttons that some nitwit vendor was selling at the Final Four. Ha ha.</p>
<p>I have never heard people in California refer to UCB as Cal, except UCB students. Cal is more known as a logo on sport clothes. People call UCB UC Berkeley or just Berkeley. The word “Cal” is hard to get through the ears of people who don’t go to UCB. Interestingly many Asian business owners name their stores Cali something like Cali Bakery, Pho Cali,…</p>
<p>I did a little research on the University of Kansas and the official reason the school is referred to as “KU” is…no one knows. However there are a few theories:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The University of Kansas is written in Latin on the colleges seal and some have said that it translates to Kansas University, thus the KU. </p></li>
<li><p>The school was once referred to as Kansas State University. (unofficially) When Kansas State was established, Kansas just dropped the S and became KU.</p></li>
<li><p>KU was easier to use in school chants.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The first two theories don’t make sense since the school was chartered under the name “University of Kansas”. The last one makes the most sense of these, especially when you learn the origin of Rock Chalk Jayhawk. However, the bottom line is no one knows. (Yes, I did get a little obsessive about getting to the bottom of this.)</p>
<p>I find it amusing that a Penn State ad popped up on the side of this thread.</p>