<p>When I say I go to ______ the conversation stops.</p>
<p>Here's my list:</p>
<p>Harvard (They think your a genius)
Amherst (The HYPs shut up because Ameherst rejected them)
Yale (Impressed -- you're not only smart, but rich)
MIT (Genius rep)
Notre Dame (They shut up to remember the Gipper)
Duke (They hesitate whether to ask about Charlotte Simmons)
Princeton (assume your a snob)
Cornell (They wonder if you're smart or an aggie)
Brown (Probably a flake)
Dartmouth (Stop to think if it's in Vermont or New hampshire)
UPenn (Hmmm, he/she doesn't look Jewish)</p>
<p>I'm shocked that a couple of people have mentioned colleges such as Northwestern, Brown, Duke, Notre Dame, and Penn but have failed to include Stanford, CalTech, and Berkeley.</p>
<p>Sounds like an east coast conversation to me.</p>
<p>I think you are missing Mensa's humor this time.</p>
<p>I can add a couple, although only Southerners may appreciate some of these.</p>
<p>Stanford (Constantly confused with that Baptist school in B'ham, you must want to do pharmacy)
Penn (Wow! I hope Joe Paterno doesn't retire before you get there)
Emory (Atlanta is so dangerous, and do you know how liberal they are?)
Vandy (Isn't that nice)
Duke (You must be sooo smart)
Sewanee (Aahhh, old Episcopailian money)
Davidson (Aaahhh, old Presbyterian money)
Berkeley (What are your parents thinking!) ;)</p>
<p>"I'm shocked that a couple of people have mentioned colleges such as Northwestern, Brown, Duke, Notre Dame, and Penn but have failed to include Stanford, CalTech, and Berkeley.
Sounds like an east coast conversation to me."</p>
<p>i second that. </p>
<p>just to balance out with some west coast bias, not many people care/know about duke, brown, dartmouth, notre dame, northwestern, amherst, williams, and possibly penn for WOW-like academics (unless youre a CC-type of person). georgetown, cornell, columbia, and maybe johns hopkins get some respect though.</p>
<p>Stanford after MIT, Caltech after Columbia, Berkeley after Hopkins.</p>
<p>kfc, trust me, Dartmouth, Duke, etc get respect everywhere. Anyone who knows Georgetown, Columbia, or Cornell is going to know Dartmouth, Brown, and Duke without a doubt.</p>
<p>When I visited a friend at Georgetown, they were all like WOW when I said Dartmouth!!</p>
<p>Harvard/Yale/Maybe MIT - you cured cancer <em>and</em> you're stinking rich?
Duke - You may be smart, but I heard Coach K eats babies
UNC - GO HEELS!!121111
NC State - there's always next year
(Anything with California in the title) - why do you want to go to school with all them liberals?
Kentucky - Tubby Smith is gonna git his one day
Wake Forest - so close, but not really
Anything else, from Chicago to Mudd - oh, that's nice. How is their basketball team?</p>
<p>
[quote]
What about "Middlebury, Swarthmore, Bowdoin, Haverford ... wow, you actually care about education instead of big names and grade inflation!"
<p>Nationally, I would say the only schools that have Name Stopping Conversation power are as follows:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>HARVARD (Biggest prestige. Harvard is Harvard, and there is no question that THIS is the school that comes to mind when one thinks about the "best" school in the world.)</p></li>
<li><p>STANFORD (Only one iota less prestigious than Harvard, and possibly bigger than Harvard in the techologically savvy West-Coast. There is no doubt in my mind that Stanford will soon be the best school in the world. Stanford started Silicon Valley and made California into the tech/dot com powerhouse that it is.) </p></li>
<li><p>MIT (Nerdy "wow" factor. If you say you go to MIT, people automatically think you are a math/science genius. Techers definitely get their fair share of respect. In many cases, a techer might even be considered to be smarter than Harvard and Stanford students. Although MIT is VERY close in prestige to Stanford and Harvard, it does not have as much "name-stopping" power because MIT'ers also have have the unfortunate reuputation of being socially awkward. Sure these guys are good at math and science, but do they know how to talk? Get girls? Become great leadership qualities? I don't know.)</p></li>
<li><p>YALE (Old-money traditional "wow" factor. This is the school that represents the good ol' boy's network and is filled with well connected alums like George W Bush and the past 5 presidents. If you say you go to Yale, people automatically look at you like you are an elite-uppercrust member of society. This school is almost the exact opposite of Stanford. One is a humanities power-house and the other is a science/tech powerhouse. One is old-money and one is new-money. One is full of entrepreneurial go-getters and dot-comers who want to start Googles and Yahoos from scratch. The other is full of students who rely on the upper-crust network to get a cushy job from a friend. Either way though, Yale represents the elite of the elite of the elite of the elite. If you go here, you are the most well-connected member of the American nobility. Definitely commands respect. )</p></li>
<li><p>PRINCETON (Perhaps because of its lack of top-notch graduate schools, Princeton is dwarfed by the HSYM giants. Princeton does not have as much name-stopping power as the Big Four but it still commands it's fair share of respect. This school is a hybrid of Harvard and Yale. It isn't as upper-crust as Yale and not as meritorious/academic as Harvard. It's somewhere in between.)</p></li>
<li><p>Every other school below the top five are too regional to rank. On the Eastern Seaboard some of the Lesser Five might be here. In the Midwest, Chicago and Northwestern might be in this category. In the South, Duke would be here. In the West, this spot would be reserved for Berkeley. So I will not attempt to rank any of these schools. That would be silly of me.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Here's a funny one. I have a sweatshirt from Yale, not that I go there or have even applied yet (and there's a good chance I wouldn't go anyway). I just got the sweatshirt because I thought it looked nice. At any rate, I was in the mall doing some Christmas shopping, and I was wearing the sweatshirt. I passed by an older lady whose husband was pushing her around in a wheelchair, and as I passed by, I heard her say, "Yale?!" It was kinda funny. ;)</p>