Just a fun post. What are colleges that alums you have known have an incredibly special, uncommon love for?
Please don’t share the colleges you graduated from or the colleges that your kids go to. You are biased.
Share schools that the unbiased side of you says, “Wow. People who attended X school REALLY love it.”
I will ask questions like this to AI and usually get answers that show alumni donation levels. However, this can equally be about fund-raising prowess and affluent alums as it is about love.
Funny story. A Michigan alum once bought me a Michigan sweatshirt. I wore it one day to humor him while he was visiting me in California. I had 3 people come up and say “Go Blue” during an 8 hour period.
We did a tour of Notre Dame back in October. We stayed in the on-campus hotel. I was really moved by the love that the older alums had for the school. They were obviously so thrilled to be back on campus.
FSU, Penn State, Notre Dame, Princeton and I know this is cheating since my daughter just graduated from Clemson, but to be fair, 4 years ago I knew very little about this university, and was honestly shocked at the extent of alumni involvement (lots of alumni voices in the closing Alma mater).
I feel like I am far more likely to learn someone went to Notre Dame than most other colleges.
It may not be as obvious, but actually talking to people, I would say women’s colleges are often very beloved as well. Carls also tend to love Carleton, but are characteristically even more low key about it.
Back when a lot of my HS friends went to Michigan, it was a running joke how many of the kids were from NY/NJ/etc.
But it sort of made sense back then, as for various reasons Rutgers and the SUNYs and such were not considered remotely suitable for the kids from those areas who went to Michigan. I think that attitude has softened somewhat, but maybe not entirely.
I can’t believe no one has mentioned Duke yet. Their alum are like a cult. One of our close friends went so far as to name his first born Cameron. During my husband’s medical training the Duke alums were referred to as “Duke-we’s” because every sentence that came out of their mouths started with “At Duke we…”.
IME among the private school and full-pay public school crowd in metro NYC, Michigan is still much more popular with University of Texas at Austin, “Wisco,” and UCLA gaining ground.
