<p>Every time I see my alma mater on a license plate holder attached to a luxury car I feel a bit inspired. However I also see it on the occasional clunker driven by someone not so lucky in the job market. It got me wondering if this could provide another way of ranking schools. Is there a correlation between Kelly Blue Book value and school selectivity?</p>
<p>Name some car models you’ve seen and their corresponding alumni plate holders. Today I saw:</p>
<p>Late model Lexus/USC
Late model Mercedes/USC
Newish Volkswagon Jetta/UCSB</p>
<p>Our cars are from 1997, 2001, and 2007. They’re probably considered old clunkers. We just don’t see the point in spending money on cars! It has nothing to do with our success in life.</p>
<p>We all have old cars with our kids school, USoCal on it–2000 Toyota van, 1998 Volvo, 2002 MBenz (inherited by S), 2006 Volvo (D’s safe car for LA). The kids are alums, we parents paid the bills and our plate holders were gifted from the kids as USC mom and dad. </p>
<p>There aren’t many cars around here with U license plate holders–spent it all on tuition (private school & Us).</p>
<p>We drive our cars until they are unsafe or we are handed down a better vehicle. We rarely spend more than we have to on vehicles–spent it on education.</p>
<p>Yes, I drive a Honda Civic with crunched bumpers held together with JB Weld. I don’t have an alma mater plate. Still curious what you see on the road.</p>
<p>I don’t really notice. I don’t have college bumper stickers on my car (I wouldn’t put any bumper sticker on my car, for any reason) and I wouldn’t spend the money for a license plate holder. I just don’t have any need to advertise to random people on the street.</p>
<p>“I just don’t have any need to advertise to random people on the street.”</p>
<p>Maybe not where I went to school but I have to admit I bought my husband a plate for the front of his car that says “Georgia Tech Dad” and he loved it.:)</p>
<p>I would tend to wear something alma mater related before I’d put it on my car (or fly a flag outside my house). Just personal preference, cobrat. Nothing more.</p>
<p>Actually I specified license plate holders over stickers because the plate holders tend to go with the current owners of the car. Stickers can last through many changes of ownership. Years ago NPR did a hilarious story on bumper stickers that seemed to be incongruous with the car drivers in NYC. </p>
<p>I once saw a bright yellow Lotus sports car with a “University of Redlands” alumni plate, and I’ll admit, I looked up U Redlands- hadn’t heard of it before.</p>
<p>Are you saying you only noticed U of Redlands because it was on a Lotus? </p>
<p>We don’t have bumper stickers of any kind…or those magnet things either. When our kids were IN college, we had rear window decals that were like color forms…peeled off easily when they graduated.</p>
<p>I donate to my alum association every year, and every year they send me another car decal. Either they think I buy a new car every year, or they are just wasting my small donation money.</p>
<p>No license plate holder here.</p>
<p>But we do have coffee mugs and commuter mugs from the colleges.</p>
<p>^^^LOL the California agriculture plate, I might have to spring for that one next year. Tired of seeing imported produce when the CA crop is in season.</p>
<p>Smart move for UCLA alumni association, they definitely seem to be one of the ‘proudest’ groups, rivaling USC for brand labeling of car occupants. And Cal should commission their own line of Prius, like the Eddie Bauer line of Explorers.</p>
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<p>Yes. Call it superficial, misguided, ignorant. I looked at that car and at the plate and thought, “University of Redlands must have served this person well that they can afford this car”. However when I see an Ivy alum in an economy car I just assume they are practical or working for a non-profit.</p>
<p>What gets on my nerves are the license plate holders that say “Alumni xxx University (or College)”.</p>
<p>uh, hello. Unless more than one person in your family graduated from that school, and at least one of them is male, you’ve got it wrong.
female grad = alumna
Male grad = alumnus
More than one female grad: alumnae
Alumni is used for more than one male grad, or a group of grads of mixed gender. </p>
<p>We have several very expensive cars and not one license plate holder that indicates where we went to college. It kind of baffles me that anyone would make the connection between one and the other, to be honest. Our financial success has little, if anything, to do with what colleges attended, but rather what we did with the education we received, and a good amount of hard work and luck. :)</p>
<p>My favorite licenses plate holder was on expensive car(cant remember type but saw it often) on Balboa island it said 'my other car is a piece of sh… "
Son is Redlands grad will tell him about Lotus.</p>
<p>H bought a license plate holder from my alma mater (a school most people outside of the midwest have never heard of). It is on my late model Lexus.</p>