I often do the same thing as OP regarding my daughter’s school saying “Boston” instead of MIT. It’s fairly pointless since the immediate follow up question is “which school?”. It’s hard to avoid feeling like a braggart when your kid goes to a well known school.
Usually I really want to talk about the issues of having my firstborn all the way across the country, or travel to Boston, or lobster rolls, etc. Once MIT comes up the conversation always pivots.
I never felt awkward about Harvard when I was at the B school, but I always try to be humble about the school in Ann Arbor I graduated from. 
Please. Let’s get over ourselves.
We got a lot of this type of thing with our son at West Point. It’s amazing how people react, especially the cringeworthy, “You must be so proud.” We often replied, “It was his only option; he didn’t get into Michigan, but we’re coming to terms with it.” (Not true, but always worth the look on their faces.)
Spending a good chunk of my life not far from Boston, I’ve never heard this to be true. Yes, more New Englanders apply but that really is a disadvantage as geographic diversity can bring small advantages.
Except for the fact there is much more need based aid around these days and much more reaching out to underserved communities. Back in the day, attending a private college often meant your family had some money and were more likely to be white.
I’d also expect distance to contribute to number of applications going down for several reasons besides just interest in college, but that was not the point. The point was students with such extreme beliefs about Harvard (“mythical aura”, destined for “super wealth”, possible “senator or president”, …) would likely have a stronger influence than things like needing to travel to a neighboring state or only being able to a apply to 7 colleges due to the application costs and having to cut some from the list.
The extreme beliefs cause students to believe their chance of admission is negligible is a possibility. However, if this was the case, I’d expect unhooked students would have a higher admit rate as distance increases since they are more likely to underestimate the qualifications required for admission. Only those who believe they are best of the best apply. Yet, the Harvard lawsuit sample generally did not show this pattern. Instead there was a slight trend in the opposite direction, with a slightly decreased admit rate among unhooked, as distance increases (excluding MA since Harvard acknowledges local preference among unhooked)… perhaps too slight to reach statistical significance. A large portion of applicants also were not what forum posters would consider well qualified and had near 0% chance of acceptance, based on information that would be available to the applicant.
Yield is primarily a measure of selectivity, with lesser degrees of influences from things like early decision/action, quality of FA, and uniqueness of college. Head-to-head yield is most certainly not primarily a measure of the college’s appeal.
Continuing with the Texas example, suppose you have 2 groups of high achieving Texas students of equal size. One of the 2 groups prefers Harvard to UT Austin, and the other group prefers UT Austin to Harvard. Many of the group that prefers Harvard are likely to apply to UT Austin as a backup. We see this all the time in forum posts and decision threads. Students applying to HYPSM… often choose their state flagship as a backup in case they don’t get in to HYPSM…, particularly if the flagship is ranked as well as UT Austin.
However, the group that prefers UT Austin to Harvard almost certainly will not apply to Harvard as a backup in case UT Austin rejects them. This would be silly. UT Austin has an extremely high chance of acceptance for in state residents with a high class rank. There would be no point to applying to Harvard as a backup since the chance of Harvard admission is far, far lower than UT Austin.
So the result would be near 100% of cross admits from this example choose Harvard over UT Austin, even though half of this group prefers UT Austin over Harvard. The head-to-heard yield has almost zero correlation with college appeal in this example. A similar principle applies with Rice and Harvard, but to a lesser extent. A small minority of students who prefer Rice may very well choose Harvard as a backup in case Rice rejections them, but in general students apply to the less selective college as a backup, not the more selective one.
I don’t know if “anonymously” is the right word since I was referring to Facebook, Instagram, and similar non-anonymous social media. Some of the persons I referenced have over 1000 “friends” on their social media. The reach within friends and family from a social media post is far larger than would occur with a casual in real life conversation. Maybe they are more comfortable name dropping on social media than when seeing a person in real life? Or maybe the college name doesn’t come up in conversation naturally very often after graduating, and it’s easier to force when you fully control the conversation subject and content, as occurs on social media ?
Some of these answers are baffling. Simply answering the question of where you went to college isn’t being a braggart. Actually dancing around it and assuming I’m going to react a certain way is being a bit full of yourself.
And now saying to someone “ you must be proud” is cringeworthy?
Different worlds.
I’m calling false humility on the pretend you don’t go to Harvard thing. I lived in the Boston area for decades, and the only people I met who pretended they didn’t want you to know they went to Harvard were people who were dying for you to ask and be amazed when you found out. Most people, fortunately, would just say “Harvard” when asked.
The other people need to pour out the Koolaid, wise up to the fact that there are schools just as good as Harvard, and quit wallowing in the illusion of their own specialness.
My kid “only” went to Duke but even then it was often overwhelming the response I’d get many times to saying it. “oh my god, she must be brilliant. How did you get her in to such a great school” etc… I’d imagine HYPS produce even more reactions. Sometimes you just don’t want to deal with them. So I do understand the “ Boston” answer.
No sympathy at all
It’s not embarrassment, it’s self-protection. People assume you are really smart, or that you are wealthy (Havard has incredible financial aid). and they may also assume you are arrogant. This is real. And once on the job, your boss who went to UMass will overload you since you are so smart, and everyone will tease you. It’s true that the best way to go is to work with other Harvard grads, and many stay in the Harvard bubble one way or the other, which is too bad. (Note this phenomenon is for some reason now hurting Pete Buttigieg, and of course Elizabeth Warren downplays her connection to Harvard as a tenured professor.)
Or, maybe they don’t want to listen to the same stupid jokes and realize that it was decades ago and that their education is just one aspect of them. Maybe they’ll tell you if needed but don’t want to listen to YOUR perceived image of any school. Ask anyone who attended a prestigious school to tell you stories about blow hards. They’ll have them. Lots of people have a chip on their shoulder about where they went to college.
Some people are actually humble and private and don’t chose to share every last detail with strangers. Others are braggarts. We have a Yale friend in his late 50"s who’s still talking about his college days. Yawn. And we have many friends from other schools ( Oxford, for one) from whom you will learn that fact only after many years of knowing him. Just different strokes. If you live in a college area, you will know many people from that/those colleges. Just a fact.
I do agree that many reactions are out of proportion. Until we stop overemphasizing college acceptances things will be out of whack. It used to be that people attended college to gain knowledge not status.
@doschicos wrote:
Yes, but back in the day, “having money”, more often than not, meant your dad was a doctor. Nowadays, it’s more likely to mean, your dad or mom is on the board of directors of a Fortune 500 company.
Not really. Plenty of MDs - and other professionals - can afford full pay college for their kids in my area - and plenty of other extras like sports cars, vacation homes, etc. Lots of folks able to pay full pay besides directors of Fortune 500 companies. That’s why there is no shortage of applicants. My tiny violin is already in use for Harvard peeps, though.
Happytimes, your friend who talks about Yale is in very good company- and not picking on Yale here. I’ve got friends who act as though the world revolves around SMU (a place that a lot of people have never heard of;) a friend who is shocked when someone doesn’t recognize the name of her sorority at Syracuse (she attended in the late 70’s so I don’t even know if the sorority is still around but apparently it was “the best” sorority) and a few friends whose glory days apparently ended when they turned 22 and got sent home from Michigan with their shiny new diplomas and told “You are done”.
It’s kind of funny…
@doschicos wrote:
I know. And, they all think they’re middle-class.
I feel sorry for the siblings of Harvard students. Too many casual acquaintances compare, overlook, and generally diss less academic oriented siblings.
I think OP’s question is similar to whether we should “feel a little sympathy” for that Boston football team after yesterday’s loss. As Jason Gay put it in the WSJ (https://www.wsj.com/articles/tom-brady-is-trying-to-break-your-heart-11578231631):
“To feel sad for the Patriots is like feeling sad for a tycoon closing a seaside Vineyard manse at summer’s end.”
No.
Harvard is one of the most affordable colleges in the United States for typical families. Harvard’s NPC estimates zero cost to parents for the ~half of US families making less than the median US income. Harvard claims that they are less expensive than state schools for 90% of US families. The lawsuit stats also suggest that Harvard gives an admission boost for “SES disadvantaged” families, which roughly correlates with being among the ~half of families having less than ~median US income. Nevertheless, attending Harvard is still well correlated with being wealthy, and lower income students are rare. Some specific numbers from the NYT linked economic mobility study are below (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobility/harvard-university ). Note that the specific $ amounts are not inflation adjusted to the current year.
Harvard Income Distribution in NYT Study
Top 1% Income Families – 15% of students
Top 10% Income Families – 53% of students
Bottom 80% Income Families – 35% of students
Bottom 20% Income Families – 4% of students
The graphs at the bottom shows hardly any change over time with the improved financial aid. The older 1980 birth year cohort had the following distribution:
Older Harvard Income Distribution with 1980 Cohort
Top 1% Income Families: ~16% of students
Top 10% Income Families: ~56% of students
Bottom 80% Income Families – 32% of students
The lawsuit docs show that the acceptance rate is similar throughout the listed income spectrum, as summarized below. Rather than acceptance rate differences, the lower income distribution seems to be primarily driven by who chooses to apply to Harvard. Wealthy families are far more likely to apply to Harvard than typical, even though Harvard is far more expensive than state schools for this group. Not wealthy families are far less likely to apply to Harvard, even though Harvard has near zero NPC estimated cost to parents for ~half of US families, with students/families again favoring the more expensive school option.
Harvard Acceptance Rate by Income: Class of 2009-16
<$40k income – 11% (would be 6% without admissions preference)
$40-80k income – 11% (would be 8% without admissions preference)
$80-120k income – 9%
$120-160k income – 10%
$160-200k income – 10% (would be 11% without lower SES preference)
$200k+ who filled out FA – 12% (would be 13% without lower SES preference)
Did not fill out FA – 7% (would be 8% without lower SES preference)
This effect has been noted at other colleges besides just Harvard. For example, the abstract of the study at https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/2013a_hoxby.pdf begins by stating the following.
“We show that the vast majority of low-income high achievers do not apply to any selective college. This is despite the fact that selective institutions typically cost them less, owing to generous financial aid”
More to the subject of the thread, I’m sure some people do assume saying you went to Harvard means you come from a wealthy family, and in most cases that assumption would be accurate. However, a similar statement could be said about the vast majority of selective private colleges, not just Harvard.
Some buddies of S1’s got into Harvard and Yale, respectively. They are great kids, but hate to bring it up. They get pestered by families who try to find out what steps they need to take in order to be accepted to those schools. It gets pretty relentless, apparently.
Rob Henderson, who is a Gates scholar at Cambridge, posted the following on Twitter, which I thought was a wonderful answer to this question:
Parents have asked how I got into Yale and Cambridge. They want the secret sauce for their own kids.
What worked for me (paraphrasing Bruce Lee, take what works for you and discard the rest):
-spend your childhood years living in 7 different foster homes
-don’t pay attention in elementary school
-make friends with kids who teach you how to steal purses
-vandalize buildings when you’re 9
-set a house on fire when you’re 10 (an accident, sort of)
-try smoking Marlboro reds when you’re 11
-learn the choking game from your friend’s older sister when you’re 12
-learn to convert apple cores and Rockstar cans into weed pipes when you’re 14
-be actively irresponsible at every turn
-sleep your way through classes
-quietly read entire textbooks but don’t tell anyone
-do none of the homework
-put more effort into calculating how to get a C- rather than just doing the assignments
-copy answers from girls who are nice to you
-hide your report card from your parents (get to the mailbox before them)
-move out when you’re 16, get job as dishwasher
-hang out with 30 year old coworkers, ask them to buy you and your friends beer
-graduate high school with a 2.2 GPA
-join the military
-be amazed at the trust instilled in you at such a young age
-slowly realize that actions have consequences, both negative & positive
-read tons of books
-take smart risks instead of dumb ones
-ask for help
-listen to people who know more than you