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In Europe people aren't as interested where one studied because the universities are predominantly public and vary much less in terms of quality and character. So, people hardly ever ask where I studied. When they do, it means they know something about U.S. schools. Recently, here in Berlin I met a German lawyer who was going to teach at Trinity College in Dublin, and she asked me where I'd done my undergrad, and I said, in Rhode Island. She said, "Brown?" I expressed my surprise that she had heard of it, and she said, of course she had, it's a great school. Clearly, she was "in the know." I also recently met someone who asked where I'd studied and I said Brown, and he said he had met someone in California who went to Brown. He said he was clearly brilliant but a little weird, and that made me smile. I'd agree that the best known schools here are Harvard, Stanford and Columbia, but I believe that's only because Harvard is Harvard, Stanford is associated with Silicon Valley/Google, and Columbia is in New York City.
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