<p>College bumper stickers should be much more fun. I would love to have a bumper sticker that reads: “Rejected by MIT. Their loss” or “Not HYPSM.”</p>
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No, I’ve seen it in graduates of other prestigious universities, too.</p>
<p>A medical school classmate of my wife’s used to talk about “uh…where I was an undergrad” until one day my wife said to her, “It’s all right. I went to Harvard. It’s OK if you say ‘Stanford’ to me.”</p>
<p>In residency, she had a colleague–a highly competent young woman–who used to refer to her alma mater, with upspeak, as “Princeton University? In New Jersey?” As if you might not have heard of it…when she knew full well that every other doctor working in a major east-cost medical center had.</p>
<p>I will do the window clings for whatever school they attend, I will not put a bumper sticker on any vehicle. Our oldest’s school sent a window cling, except it was manufactured wrong and you would have had to put it on the OUTSIDE of the car to use it. We didn’t put that one up :D.</p>
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<p>We live out west and don’t spend much time in New England, so I don’t know about regional differences. But I definitely don’t see the same thing in the case of D2 who attends Dartmouth. No one is stunned by mention of Dartmouth as they sometimes are by Harvard. Some people have heard of Dartmouth, a few know it’s in the Ivy League, but almost no one could tell you where it is located or anything else about it.</p>
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<p>Yes, I gotten that too.</p>
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<p>Sounds like a joke set-up. Cal-Tech? MIT?</p>
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<p>Gourmetmom, have you not also encountered, “I [or sometimes, my kid] could have gone to Harvard, but…”?</p>
<p>LoremIpsum–that would have been funny if it was but no, plain old state school with a bad source for window clings.</p>
<p>Who wants to buy one of my stickers? They say, “Also accepted at:”</p>
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<p>I have only met a few people who have reacted odd when told where I went to school but answering the question is a damned if you do and damned if you don’t situation … and frankly, in those cases, being direct has created more odd reactions than being coy. Personally, I’ve chosen to take the path that creates the less odd situations for me to deal with.</p>
<p>I read the OP and decided not to read the rest of the thread. I sure hope the OP is kidding. </p>
<p>We were proud to have window decals for all of the schools our kids attended.</p>
<p>I remember a bday party I attended with D (she was about 12). She was the ONLY child attending who went to public school–all the others went to the same private school Obama attended while in HI. The grandmother of the bday girl (who had been our long-time neighbor and one of D’s best friends at the time) told me what year each of the adults in attendance went to that school, even though all of them had since graduated from college & often grad/professional school. I found it rather stunning that she would commit such things to memory. Oddest was that the other kids attending (ages about 10 years old or so) came up to me & D and told us how well D was “holding up” at the party (considering she didn’t go to that school). It was rather odd and awkward–D didn’t attend future events where she’d be the only kid who attended a different school.</p>
<p>Our kids ended up attending the main rival private school to the one that the neighbor & some of our nieces & nephews attend. Both are great schools but the culture is somewhat different at each. Our kids are the only ones who attended their U, but my nieces attended my alma maters; no one went to anyone else’s alma maters, so I guess I’m flattered. 
Our kids weren’t interested in my alma maters, though my SIL did drive me & S up to my law school alma mater–it has REALLY grown much larger than when I was a student and I was happy he decided against it. My niece who went there as an undergrad loved her years there.</p>
<p>I’d be happy to have a window sticker on my car for whatever college my children attend. Right now I have 2 stickers: one for S1’s college and the other for S2’s high school (both private.) Maybe it explains why I drive a 10 year old car… :)</p>
<p>Sevmom - I just saw a license plate frame in a parking lot the other day that said “A House Divided” above the plate and “UVA/Va Tech” below it. Very amusing I thought!</p>
<p>Window decals from all schools here. Some folks probably think we’re bragging, some probably think “couldn’t get into a really top school,” and some have never heard of any of the schools. </p>
<p>I like reading window decals and tell myself little stories about the family, based on the schools and the type of car. If I see multiple decals from need-only schools on a luxury car, I think, “Gee, it must be nice to be rich.” 
If you, or any of your kids, go to/went to Harvard, you won’t bother me with a window decal. Sincere congrats!</p>
<p>I’ve always wanted a bumper sticker that reads, “School of Hard Knocks.”</p>
<p>“Kids don’t put Harvard stickers on their rear windshields, parents do.”</p>
<p>Not in my house. My parents didn’t have a prestige floor for college window decals – they had a ceiling! In chronological order, they posted decals for Wesleyan, Barnard, Brown, and Bryn Mawr. But the next opportunity was Harvard, and they both refused decals. They believed it would attract negative attention.</p>
<p>My dad does wear a Yale Law Women shirt now and then, and he displays my Massachusetts Alpha chapter of Phi Beta Kappa certificate in his office. But both parents own zero objects that say “Harvard” or even “Harvard Dad.” After some negotiation, they agreed to accept mugs and pens that say “Leverett House” or “Veritones.” Not Harvard.</p>
<p>my2sunz, I’ve seen flags like that too. We rooted for UVa while older kid was there. Now we root for VT against UVa while son is still at VT. When they don’t play against each other ,we root for both. When younger graduates next year, I guess we’ll have to start alternating who we hope will win when they play each other! We do have their decals right next to each other on my car. My VT son bought his older brother’s car a couple of years ago. It had a UVa sticker on it and I did suggest he take it off before he took the car to Blacksburg!</p>
<p>A good friend of mine’s son went to UMCP for UG and Duke for grad school. Around here, THAT gets noticed! :eek:</p>
<p>The “best” story about college t-shirts I know is when someone in Hawaii was new there, and saw someone at the gym with a U Mass sweatshirt. They both attended, started talking and have now been married a couple of decades.
So far no bumper stickers for me, but I do have the free window thing they gave my son, and laziness/fear of it being hard to get off is why I haven’t put it on.</p>
<p>My dad drove a really old beat up car when we were in college. He had Colgate, Dartmouth, Cornell, Stanford stickers on his car. His co-workers asked him how he could afford all of those schools if he was driving such an old car. He said the reason he was driving such an old card was because he was paying for those schools.</p>
<p>When our kids were growing up, where they went for private K-12 was a bigger sore point than colleges. We never put up their secondary school sticker, but colleges were fine.</p>