Colleges that Alums have a Special Love for

Dartmouth, Princeton, Bowdoin.

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Every LAC that I know of. The NESCAC LACs are all like that, as are places like Vassar, Smith, MHC, the Claremont Colleges, Carleton, St Olaf’s, etc. Not surprising, considering the fact that they are small, intense, very residential, and interactive.

Of course, as @aquapt alluded to, these are small colleges, so it is lower key wearing of
“swag”, maybe because fielding the inevitable questions of “what does that name mean?” gets old.

I also think that the athletic rivalries, which often drive the outward manifestations of “school pride”, are less common among LACs. BTW, the athletic rivalry between Harvard and Princeton is legendary, and has been going on longer than most colleges have been around.

OSU, big time. My mother’s cousin, who is a retired dentist, and his wife attended USO, and both have OSU cases for their cell phones, season tickets, etc. You can see OSU lags and signs and merch everywhere in Ohio.

I see that @merc81 mentioned some of those already.

So I think that we do have two things here - outwards manifestations of school support, versus donations, reunions, etc. However, you can have a lot of alumni love without outwards manifestations of that, but you cannot have the outwards manifestations without a lot of alumni love.

So alumni of, say Carleton or Williams will come to reunions, donate, Volunteer to interview students, join alumni networks and help other alumni or students, donate, etc. However, they are less likely to regularly wear clothing with the school logos, have license plates with the school logo, etc. They’re also much less likely to follow the athletics of their school.

Many HBCUs, of course, like Morehouse, Howard, Spelman, and others.

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My nephew’s name started with a B, and a lot of his first words also started with B - boat, baby (sister), bottle, bird… and of course BADGER. We were walking in a hotel and a guy passed with a Wisconsin sweatshirt on and 2 year old nephew pointed and said ‘Badger’. Guy said ‘train them right from a young age.’ I don’t think this nephew has ever been to Wisconsin but he’s a fan.

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Go Irish :shamrock:

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There used to be posters on these forums claiming to be alumni of Stevens Institute of Technology who promoted that school heavily.

Penn State! :american_football:

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Any of the service academies. They forge bonds for life. And those rings…

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Michigan and Notre Dame without a doubt. My spouse led a team almost exclusively of Michigan grads when we lived there long ago. The joke in the office was wait 5 seconds, they’ll tell you.

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Always get a response to

OH……

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I live in North Carolina and see much more love for UNC than Duke or NC State.

My daughter went to Virginia Tech (she’s a brand-new alumna :sleepy_face:) No matter where you go, you don’t go very far in any kind of VT clothing without someone saying “Go Hokies!” and stopping to chat. They’ll even leave a “Go Hokies!” note on your car if they see a VT sticker. I’ve had people stop to talk to me in parking lots a couple of times after seeing my sticker.

I also agree that Clemson alums & fans have gotta be in the top ten of college love.

I think alumni college love is something important to track, when considering a college.

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When I worked in Florida there were always alums drinking out of FSU, UF, and Miami coffee cups or water bottles. They’d never drink out of a mug from a rival school.

Flags outside the houses.

Nebraska fans ‘travel’ and sell out other stadiums. Of course they have nothing to do in Nebraska when the team is playing an away game.

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When I was in grad school (at UGA) there were several students from India in our lab. One of them commented that they were shocked that Clemson was (at the time) only 1/2 as big as UGA. They had assumed that it was a very large school, based on the fact that when they traveled they saw so many people in airports with Clemson gear, even if it was just their luggage tag.

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Not mentioned yet, but …
Wear University of Nebraska or Wisconsin gear, and see how many folks say Hey!
Their fans are rabid!
Just a tick below Michigan.

As an aside, at an MSU-UM hockey game in Ann Arbor, I noticed very few of the UM alumni knew anything more than 4 letter epithets, lol. Poor ref’s.

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For some of these it seems some people are conflating fans with alum love of a school. I know lots of MI, GA and ND fans that have zero affiliation with the school, AND I know alums of schools that only care about the sports team. I have a relative who dropped out of a big D1 school, hated the school, loves the basketball team. Would be happy to talk you up about it if wearing a shirt..

I think that is REALLY different than Williams or Hamilton or Dartmouth.

% of Alum giving AND network is probably a decent proxy for "special love of the school)

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Of course, I know alumni of several prestigious colleges, who primarily donate in order to show “demonstrated interest” for the purpose of favored admittance status.

Money MAY not always = “love.”

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Same actually - I have good friends from college that started when their kids entered high school. Donating just enough to qualify for what might be a “special” tier of giving. But I presume once their kids are in, that giving stops.

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not really, vast majority of people giving aren’t giving substantial amounts - giving $100 to alum fund isn’t getting you ANY leg up at these sorts of schools..

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And I know a couple of families who angrily swore they’d never donate to their Ivy alma mater again after their child was rejected.

(As if their $1000-2000 annual donation was ever going to move the needle)

ETA: cross posted with @L_NewEngland

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The large Southern publics such as Ole Miss, Georgia, Alabama, FSU, LSU (even though rarely talked about on college forums), Auburn, U Florida, Georgia Tech. The emotions run deep; lots of school pride.

Penn State. Indiana. Michigan. Boston College. U Texas-Austin. Texas A&M.

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