Harvard student embarrassed to say the school’s name

[musicprnt]

<p>It is very, very hard to claim universality with colleges and brands, and people have different reasons for it. In the US there is a lot of cachet around schools like HYP among certain groups of people, that this is the ‘best’ and so forth. Among Asian Americans not unlike Jews in a prior era, these schools are seen as the pinnacle (and I am not speculating here, I work with quite a few Asians, and my son was part of a pre college music program loaded with Asian-American students who often went to those schools). For Asians in the US, it is often cultural, in China and other Asian countries where you go to college influences almost everything about your future, and those assumptions came with groups from those countries. Believe me, among Korean and Chinese parents the HYP is considered the gold standard in many ways (there are other schools, obviously, limiting it to HYP would be a gross simplification). For science and technology, the bias might be more towards MIT.</p>

<p>Internationally, it varies. For example, with MIT there is a global brand there, in part because of just how many things have come out of MIT, how many revolutionary ideas and technologies have been developed there and this is well known. Friend of mine, from India, got into IIT but went to MIT, and he said a lot of kids wanted to go to MIT, because while IIT attracts very bright students, is as exclusive or moreso than MIT, the environment at IIT has not produced the staggering amount of revolutionary stuff that came out of MIT. </p>

<p>I think Harvard does have a global brand among some people, as does Princeton and Yale, from my friends who come from China there are a lot of people who see that as the best path, rather than the best Chinese universities, becauise they want their kids to be able to work outside the country in international business, and getting a degree from those schools according to them is seen as being a much better route (there are some grains of truth to that, partially because of the nature of the education at the top schools in China and the not so good influence the government has on things), so there is some truth to it. Does everyone everywhere think Harvard is the best? I think that no one school has a universal brand, that is a bit overdoing it, but some schools do have widespread recognition. Among those halfway familiar with technology, schools like MIT and Stanford and Cal Tech are well known; in the realm of rarified air schools, schools like Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, The Sorbonne in France, are well known, in part because of the people who have come out of them and have influenced history (and if any schools are missing from here, it is not a slight, I am only giving examples).</p>

<p>In the world of classical music conservatories, there are a lot of great institutions all over the world, there are about j8 or 9 school here in the US alone thjat are considered at the top tier or elite level…yet within the world of music, if you mention the name of the other conservatories to people in the US, most people will scratch their head, but if you say “Juilliard” a lot of people know the name and Juilliard in places like Korea has an amazing magic to it (obviously, if you polled 100% of the people in Korea, not all of them would know it). Friend of my son’s was visiting relatives in some rural hinterland village, and when they found out he went to a music school he was shocked they all got really animated and said “juilliard!” (he doesn’t go to Juilliard, but whatever). </p>

<p>and yes, it depends on where you live, in Texas they will tell you Harvard is the Rice of the north:). </p>

<p>In the end, to be honest, whatever brand a university has is subject to local culture, beliefs and so forth, in the US for the most part where you went to school stops mattering once you are working, in other parts of the world where you go to school matters a great deal, and it charts a good part of your future, and that plays into all of this. If you want to work for the chinese government in a high level position, it is generally assumed according to my Chinese friends that going to the top Chinese universities is the way to go; but if you want to work for an international company or in investment banking or finance, a top western school like Harvard or the equivalents is seen as being better (again, what i have been told). </p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>Yes, Makenna, as a high schooler, you are clearly up on how things are perceived globally in all different regions, cultures and socioeconomic classes. Indeed, your little hamlet in suburban NY or wherever you live is completely representative of everyone in the US and indeed the world. </p>

[alh]

<p>It is always useful to me on these forums if the younger posters would just tell us their ages. I like it when my kids and their friends want to hang out with me (even if they sometimes try my patience to the point I have to just leave the room and cool off ) and I like that some kids want to hang out here. But I am going to respond differently to someone 40 years younger than to an age peer. I am going to try and respond like a mom. Which in my case means at least an effort to avoid sarcasm. These days anyone under 30 is a 'kid" to me. : )</p>

[Sue22]

<p>I think the further you get from college the less and less people care about your school. At a certain age what you’ve done with your life is much much more important than where you got your degrees or how many of them you have. Perhaps it’s because at 21 or 22 a degree is most people’s most significant accomplishment. That changes.</p>

<p>Because my H and I attended the same undergrad and grad institutions it sometimes comes up in the context of our personal history (“We met in college.” “Oh, where was that?”…) or when one of us sees a section mate from grad school. A couple of times I’ve been asked in the midst of conversations about the difficulty of college admissions these days or when I’ve had a commitment that involved my school and had to bow out of something else. Other than that I rarely, if ever, mention where I went to school and I certainly don’t have a need to pull out my credentials.</p>

<p>I know lots of highly successful people with little formal education and plenty of women with fancy law, medical, and business degrees whose main occupation these days is driving the carpool.</p>

[bookworm]

<p>The OP has left the room</p>

[Gourmetmom]

<p>This has to be the silliest thread ever, and my S goes to Harvard! </p>

[Gourmetmom]

<p>Concerning the regional differences discussed - my family in the midwest (very middle class) seems to think that Harvard is pretty much a mix of very smart and very rich kids and very smart and very poor kids. Harvard is not on their radar at all because their kids don’t fit into either group. While they’re impressed that S attends there, it’s a world away to them…sort of like hearing about someone’s great yacht that you’ll never go on…fun to hear about, but not part of your life and not something you give a moment’s thought about. Which is why it’s interesting that so many people are hyper concerned about Harvard this and Harvard that. Unless you or your kid attends the school, why would you care about its reputation?</p>

[Vladenschlutte]

<p>

Does anyone spend time in social circles where it isn’t considered the very best manners to ask the “what college” question right out?

</p>

<p>I frequently ask when I meet someone where they’re from if it’s not obvious. Since my social circle is mostly aged 22-30, about a quarter of the time that answer is a college instead of their home town. </p>

[ChoatieMom]

<p>Makenna: They chose the Harvard version of the shirt because that’s where I was going. (Those shirts come in many varieties.)</p>

[rhandco]

<p>At the risk of thread hijacking, I found this a fitting corollary to the OP:
<a href=“Princeton, Rutgers universities included on list of schools with 'least datable alumni,' report says - nj.com”>Princeton, Rutgers universities included on list of schools with 'least datable alumni,' report says - nj.com;

[garland]

<p>We live in a largely blue town not far from NYC. When a neighbor parent asked me what school my son was going to, and I replied Columbia (40 minutes away), she replied–“oh, that’s a teacher school, right? I didn’t know he was thinking of teaching?” It’s a good place to live to keep pretensions at bay.</p>

<p>Now as a graduate, he can wear his sweatshirts without looking like bragging, because the universal assumption is that they’re items from the sportswear company by the same name.</p>

[keepittoyourself]

<p>^Similarly with NYU being a commuter school.</p>

[garland]

<p>^^Too late to correct, but what I meant to type up above is “blue collar town” not “blue town.”</p>

[hebegebe]

<p>

But, there is more snobbery afoot. There are those who say “I went to the College” to distinguish themselves from athe plebian folk who only attended Harvard for grad or professional school.

</p>

<p>I don’t know about Harvard, but often times the graduate schools are more selective than the undergrad school. Many departments in MIT are like that, for example. </p>

[keepittoyourself]

<p>^ Not socially. The graduate departments are everything that most top American undergraduate admissions are not: meritocratic and done purely by ability and achievement.</p>

[Gourmetmom]

<p>The undergrad acceptance rate at Harvard is around 5% - grad school rates, while still very selective, are triple that…which is why people distinguish between the college and the university.</p>

[sorghum]

<p>Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences:</p>

<p>

In general, only applicants holding the BA or equivalent, with distinguished undergraduate records, are admitted. Faculty recommendations and the applicant’s statement of purpose are carefully weighed. Research papers, publications, and other original works may also be considered by the admissions committees during their evaluations. … Approximately 9 percent of the applicant pool is offered admission to enroll in an incoming class of about 640.

</p>

<p>9% of a pool of high-achieving graduates may well be more selective than 5% of a pool of high school students many of whom will not go on to distinguished undergraduate records.</p>

[Sue22]

<p>^Plus in some departments there’s weeding out that happens before students even apply. I worked for years as the person handling the administrative end of admissions in one of the graduate programs within Harvard’s GSAS. We couldn’t have cared less about bulking up the number of applicants and in fact would sometimes actively discourage applicants we didn’t feel fit into the department well. Most of the time this was because an applicant’s prospective area of graduate research didn’t match up with anyone in the department but sometimes it was because the applicant clearly wasn’t qualified, as was occasionally the case with applicants who had a very poor grasp on the English language.</p>

[keepittoyourself]

<p>“The undergrad acceptance rate at Harvard is around 5% - grad school rates, while still very selective, are triple that…which is why people distinguish between the college and the university.”</p>

<p>Depends on the program. Some Harvard phd programmes might get 500 applicants and admit 10, making them far more selective than the college. The admissions are also purely academic, with no wealth or ‘leadership’ considered.</p>

[sorghum]

<p>For Harvard Department of Philosophy:</p>

<p>

The Department of Philosophy typically receives nearly 300 applications each year. We ordinarily expect an entering class of five to eight doctoral students. Although the number of qualified applicants exceeds the number of offers the department can make, we invite all who would like to study Philosophy at Harvard to apply.

</p>

<p>So that is about 2%, and we can assume it is a pretty well self-selected applicant pool.</p>