college bumper stickers on cars

Parent Cafe
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<p>Had an interesting experience today and almost immediately thought, “I’ve got to share this with the CC parents. They’ll appreciate it.”</p>

<p>Many posters here have made their opinions known about putting college bumper stickers on cars, some for and some against. I’ve always been of the ‘for’ because I think it can strike up an interesting conversation with others (same with sweat shirts and t-shirts). I have both Syracuse University and Muhlenberg College bumper stickers on my car.</p>

<p>Today at work, I had to take out a new employee to shadow me in the field while I saw patients. He started last week, and I’ve briefly met him a couple of times in larger groups, but this was the first time we would be out together. We were walking out to my car, and as we approached it, he saw my Muhlenberg sticker and asked me if I had a kid there. My first reaction when someone verbalizes any sort of knowledge of Muhlenberg is, “Oh, they must be from the East Coast,” because very, very few people from the Midwest have ever heard of it. So for a split second, I’m already assuming my new colleague is from out east, but he quickly adds, “My daughter is a freshman there.” It was as if time stood still for a moment as we both stared at each other and finally uttered, “You’re kidding.” Both of our kids are in the same program.</p>

<p>We both almost immediately commented how no one from around here has ever heard of the school (during any given year, as best as I’ve been able to ascertain, there are less than a handful of students from the Chicago area at Muhlenberg, and usually my daughter has wind of any of them), and now here we are, co-workers, each with a student there. So we spent much of the 45-minute car drive to our first stop talking about it. I told him about a show D2 was in this past fall, and it ends up he saw it when there for family weekend. </p>

<p>For those who don’t know, Muhlenberg is about 2400 students - probably about 90% come from the East Coast, and even more specifically from the tri-state area. So the odds of me finding another Muhlenberg parent in the Chicago area are slim. The chances that he’d end up being my co-worker… well I’ll let the math geniuses on here figure that out!</p>

<p>Had I not had the sticker on my car, there’s no telling how long we would have known each other before this conversation would have taken place. It was just a cool moment!</p>

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<p>How cool is that? I agree that the bumper sticker moved that connection along a lot quicker than it might have been discovered! </p>

<p>I like college car decals myself. It’s a connection to the school in spirit and even connecting with others. </p>

<p>By coincidence, I was thinking about this just the other day as I got into my car. I have mentioned on the car decal threads in the past that I have D1’s college and grad school decals on my back window but the decals for D2’s school are the sort that just cling to the inside of the window and not the sticker on the outside like the ones for D1’s schools. And I have tinted rear windows. I put D1’s decal on well past her graduation, LOL, out of sheer odd feeling that I only represented one D on my car but you really cannot see it! I know she doesn’t care at all. But if you look at my car, it looks like I only care about one of my kids. :frowning: </p>

<p>Love your story! :smiley:
(I wonder if you later discover that this person is a CCer from the theater college sub forum, LOL)</p>

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<p>I don’t like the actual stickers themselves but I do like the clings that go in the window.</p>

<p>Same thing happened to me not too long ago actually.</p>

<p>I’ve been at my job for over 5 years now and never ran into anyone that attended my college. I know two people with the same birthday as me (how rare is that one???), but haven’t met anyone that had gone to my school. Anyway, about six months ago I moved into a new role at work and subsequently wound up having my desk moved in the process and I wound up having this new-ish guy right by me (he’d been there for less then a year at the time). I guess he saw me come in to work one morning because when I got to my desk he was like “are you the little black car outside?” I said “yes why”, and he goes, “we both are alumnus of the same school!” He’s about 10 years older then me… so he was long gone before I got there… but it was finally nice to meet a fellow yorkie!!</p>

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<p>soozie - same here in regards to the sticker. My Syracuse sticker is a cling decal that is placed on the back window from the inside of the car, and because the windows are tinted, you can barely see it. Muhlenberg did not have any cling stickers so I got a smallish one that is applied to the outside of the window, so it is more visible. In fact, I remember one of D1’s friends from Syracuse, when visiting last year, noticed the Muhlenberg sticker (and at first didn’t notice the Syracuse sticker) and said to D1, “What, you didn’t get sticker recognition on your mom’s car?” We laughed and told her that not only did she have one, but she had the much bigger one, only you had to look more closely to see it.</p>

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<p>Cool story. I wonder what would happen if we put College Confidential stickers on our cars…</p>

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<p>My yD’s sticker (a small women’s college in NE) worked as a conversation starter for me several times when I drove DD’s car. oD’s sticker - not so much. I guess it has something to do with the fact that every other car in my town has a similar “Go Dawgs!” sticker :slight_smile: An interesting observation: for some reason, DH doesn’t like to drive yD’s car without any female passengers ;)</p>

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<p>Not sure if I ever commented on any other car decal threads … My car has back window stickers for both D & S, both college & (private) HS, When my car gets replaced, there goes their school history! (But, H says my car is built to last forever, so it could be a while.) I also have an inside cling decal for my undergrad school , but you can’t see it due to the tinting. H’s car? Absolutely no stickers, ever, under any circumstances. He even refuses to mount his EZ Pass on the windshield, saying it “ruins” the look of his car. (He holds up the Pass when we go through a toll booth.)</p>

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<p>Our family van has one for the alumni association of the school I went to, which is nowhere near here. One day my H was at the grocery store alone and was getting out of the van when a stranger said something strange to him. It took him a moment to realize it was the very unusual school cheer for MY school (we met in a different part of the country after we graduated from different schools, but thank goodness I had told him about the cheer). He recovered in time to say something appropriate.</p>

<p>We also have the cling of our D’s school (also a woman’s college). D got him a “Dad” college mug for Christmas. She said she wasn’t sure he’d like a “Dad” sweatshirt but he’s so proud of her he’d wear it.</p>

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<p>I enjoy seeing college decals and, because of what I’ve learned on CC, sometimes put together little stories about the families based on which stickers are on the car. :slight_smile: I also use the stickers to help find my own car, the kind of silver Honda you see absolutely everywhere, in a crowded parking lot (we’re the only family from around here in recent memory to have kids go to those particular schools). Handy!</p>

<p>My husband came out of a hardware store a few years ago and found someone waiting for him who wanted to meet a fellow alum - he isn’t, but they had an interesting conversation anyway.</p>

<p>Once we were traveling out of state when my d spotted a car with Vanderbilt and BC stickers. She said, “One of my hallmates has a brother at BC.” When we pulled up to the car at a light, it turned out to be the hallmate and her mom!</p>

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<p>My ds has magnetic stickers from choice #1 and #2 on his car - choosing might just come down to which sticker remains attached to his already salt-covered/dirty old car!</p>

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<p>Great story! I bet you were both stunned!</p>

<p>I became upset a few weeks ago when I realized that when my husband traded his car in for a new one, we lost D’s college sticker!! I’m sure he didn’t even think about it and likely it could not have been reused, but now I feel like we aren’t “representing”! She graduates this May so not likely to replace that one. :(</p>

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<p>I have had notes left on my windshield in parking lots from my children’s decals, just people saying hello & they were an alum or had a child at the same school. Your first reaction might be “someone hit my car & left me a note.” But fortunately not the case!</p>

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<p>We got my daughter a car decal for the college she will be attending in the fall for Christmas. She has had a decal for her sport from her favorite school on her car for over a year. Taking that sticker off and putting the new one on was somewhat bittersweet, as it was the first school she fell in love with. But she is thrilled to be “reppin” her new school! My husband is also one who would never put any kind of sticker or decal on his car, but he is so proud of our daughter that he has asked her to pick him up a decal for his car when she is up there next month! And I will happily put a decal on my car also!</p>

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<p>This does not worry me. We are just about to enter our paying-for-college years. I suspect I may never be able to trade my current car in!</p>

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<p>My minivans have had grade school bumper sticker, high school bumper stickers/decals, EC music school decal, and colleges represented.
Removed them all to sell the last minivan in fall 2009.
My new Subaru is unadorned.
Now only the ‘kids’ car’ has only the last (college senior) kid’s college decal.</p>

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<p>My van windows are too dark for the clings. I couldn’t find a bumper sticker in the Tufts bookstore. So I am only advertising one college. GRRR.</p>

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<p>I don’t have any on my car but my kids do put them on the cars they drive. And I like seeing them on other people’s cars. We live in a not-tiny but small town so sometimes when I have my kids in the car we’ll try to figure out who the family in front of us might be based on the hs/college stickers they have.</p>

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<p>D2 was accepted to her ED school on Dec 1st; is now on her third car decal since then (good thing they are not particularly expensive)…</p>

<p>her school is not that popular around here so we are pleasantly suprised to see others with the sticker on the roads…</p>

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<p>That is very cool, Teri.
My car looks like trailer trash with all the stickers on the back. (well, not that bad…) It IS a neat way to connect with people. I met a lovely young woman who works in our (large) building when I saw her Sewanee sticker on her car in the parking garage and asked for some current info on the school to pass on to someone here on CC.</p>

<p>My daughter was just about to take her Interlochen (boarding school) sticker off her car because she is now finishing grad school, when someone came up to her in the grocery store parking lot and wanted to share Interlochen experiences. </p>

<p>As I’ve shared before, no one views Ivy or other prestigious school stickers as bragging here in middle Tennessee. If it ain’t a SEC sticker, it ain’t worth much!!</p>

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<p>DH and I each have two stickers on our car/truck windows. Two stickers represent our whole family since S1 went to DH’s sch. and S2 goes to my sch. </p>

<p>My school has a finger “Hook” sign represents the mascot (not TX) that people do at football games, etc. Recently while driving down the interstate, a small car driven by a young man passed us. I noticed he had my school’s sticker on the back. Guess he must have noticed mine too because as he passed us, he stuck his hand out of his sunroof and did the “finger hook” sign and flew on down the highway. It was kinda cool (since we are “old people” and he was a kid).</p>