Actually, I’ve never met a Yale or Harvard grad who wasn’t perfectly happy to talk about college; it’s just as important a phase of their lives as it is to anyone else’s - perhaps, more so. Interestingly, phrasing their alma mater in terms of its host city doesn’t work quite the same way for other ivies. Saying, “I went ot college in Upstate New York” or “I went to college in New Jersey” doesn’t have quite the same effect, which is to invite the listener to guess (usually correctly) the name of the speaker’s school.
The name, “Middlebury” makes breaking the ice so much simpler.