This could lead to “confusion” - Stanford, Samford and now Sanford National University

Parents Forum
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https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/10/09/national-university-change-its-name-after-receiving-350-million-pledge?dnuarrowclick=yes&utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=161ab11b77-DNU_2019_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-161ab11b77-198171250&mc_cid=161ab11b77&mc_eid=92c29ca1ec

National University is a non-traditional, private nonprofit U which states it has locations all over California, online, and one location in Las Vegas . A South Dakota billionaire benefactor, T. Denny Sanford, has donated $350 million and they are renaming the school after him. Wonder how carefully attendees, especially in CA, will need to pronounce the name of their academic institution :slight_smile:

There are several colleges with confusing or similar names (eg California U of Pennsylvania, Indiana U of Pennsylvania, BU/BC, Northwestern/Northeastern, Pittsburg State (in Kansas) the Wesleyans, U Miami/Miami of Ohio, and I recall many years ago an International student thought he had applied to and was admitted to Colgate— turns out he was attending Colby.

Now we have a new addition to the potential confusion. What other “sound-alikes’ or confusing college names can you add (there are actually quite a few).

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A couple years ago there was a story here on CC that a student showed up at the wrong UC! Confused by the initials.
There’s also College of the Holy Cross in MA and Holy Cross College in Indiana.

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those are confusing, and I can see my own kid getting confused.

(BTW Sanford Health is huge - and really a good system - in SD. )

my kid sent his ACT scores to Harford community college (when he meant to send them to Harvard) but I doubt that’s a usual mix up.

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Don’t forget Samford in Birmingham!

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Yes, @Patsmom- Samford was in the title but autocorrected to a misspelling :wink: I will see if the PTB can fix it. My ipad autocorrects and I missed it. Thanks for catching it. The title originally said Samford, not Stamford.

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Corrected title

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I have a Samford shirt that says “Sam not Stan”

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Thank you for fixing the title, @skieurope. But to add to the soundalikes, there apparently is also a U Conn campus in Stamford :slight_smile:

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My best friend in HS was applying to school at DePaul University but his counselor sent his transcript and test scores to DePauw. By the time the mistake was realized, it was too late.

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USC (University of Southern California) vs. USC (University of South Carolina); USF (University of San Francisco) vs. USF (University of South Florida), etc. These confusions are more applicable to sports than to the application process.

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@UCBUSCalum

You’d be surprised, especially for USC, at least where I live. Often have to get folks to clarify WHICH USC they are talking about.

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When I was in Austria, tourist shops sold mugs saying that there are no kangaroos in Austria. Apparently someone had been confused.

There is a Concordia University in Portland Oregon (“a private, nonprofit Lutheran university”), a Concordia College in New York, a Concordia College in Minnesota, another Concordia College in Alabama, and of course Concordia University in Montreal.

Many years ago when I was heading off to MIT, someone was confused and thought that I meant the Montreal Institute of Technology. The MIT in Montreal is either gone or now has a different name.

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Lawrence and St Lawrence are tied at #58 in the USNWR ranks this year.

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College of the Ozarks (in Missouri) and University of the Ozarks (in Arkansas).

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Santa Clara University used to be University of Santa Clara (another USC).

Mount St. Mary’s was the subject of a long thread a few years back (“bunnies”). Some accidentally referred to another similarly named school.

Many Catholic schools have common name elements like Loyola, Marymount, St. Mary’s, Xavier, Notre Dame, … .

There is a non Catholic public St. Mary’s.

There is a St. John’s College and a St. John’s University.

Pomona College and California State Polytechnic University - Pomona are sometimes mixed up.

Occasionally, out of state applicants to Penn State get admitted to a branch campus and do not initially realize that they would be getting more of a community college like experience than a big university experience.

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In addition to state universities in the state of Washington, there are various other schools with Washington in their names.

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well, the peeps on The Farm can always go back to using its proper name: Leland Stanford Junior University. :wink:

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My kid goes to Columbia college of Missouri, not to be confused with Columbia university of NY. Ha. My other kid goes to Haverford, which is strangely confused with Harvard occasionally.

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When someone told me she’d gone to Wheaton, I was surprised because she wasn’t religious at all. I didn’t realize there are two Wheaton Colleges - the Christian school in Illinois and the other one in Massachusetts. I ended up showing my kids the one in Massachusetts - beautiful campus!

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There are several other Columbia schools.

There is also a Cornell College.

There is a University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth.

Some students posting here refer to UW without specifying which one.