Either “He/she must be really smart” or “wow, that must be expensive.” (DS and DD go into the same school.) One relative started pressing us on why DS wasn’t going to the local state school to save $$$. We get into a lot of explanations of how amazing the FA is at the kids’ school; people have no idea and dismiss applying there because they’ve heard that the annual COA is double the average income around here, which is only a little bit of an exaggeration 
.
Being from NY, all I ever heard of was USC, UCLA, Berkeley and Stanford. . I have heard of many more as I got older of course.
i’m so surprised no one has mentioned the University of Pennsylvania identity problem yet. Everybody at the university says they go to “Penn” (and the t-shirts all say Penn or Univ. of Pa) but everyone not at an Ivy just assumes Penn is Penn State. I think that’s why so many people now refer to Penn as UPenn But there is still so much confusion of the name.
Interesting, desie1. I never heard anyone refer to UPenn as Penn until I came to College Confidential. To me, Penn does sound like Penn State.
Generally few people involved with Penn would admit to referring to the school as UPenn. 
The graduates I know did when I was a teen, and probably still do today. But I haven’t spoken to them in a while so I couldn’t say.
When I attended, everyone said "Penn " or “U of P”(but mostly just Penn).But now everyone I know says UPENN except the actually people who go there. To them, it’s still just Penn. But then everybody who isn’t a student there thinks "Penn"means Penn State. (sorry if this is repetitive. I didn’t think I explained it right above)
Olin College of Engineering is indeed teeny and new. It’s definitely on the rankings radar (example - US News & World Report (2016): #3 Best Undergraduate Engineering Programs, non-doctoral) But not sure it will ever be well commonly recognized. When our son was admitted to similar caliber but more established Harvey Mudd we used to joke that he had been accepted by "Harvey Who? " .
The reaction depends on the occupation and social capital of the respondent.
“Oh” is a common response.
“Good school” is another common response.
And geographic location.
What’s in a name… Who knew Purdue was public??? I didn’t a long time ago- and I was in a Big Ten State. btw- I’m sure name recognition is going up for those eastern schools that joined the conference, at least out of area.
D1 went to Haverford College, a leading LAC just outside of Philadelphia. We live in Minnesota. Typical conversation:
THEM: Where does your daughter go to college?
ME: Haverford
THEM: Oh, HARVARD! (as if correcting my pronunciation)
ME: No, Haverford. It’s a small liberal arts college near Philadelphia.
THEM (puzzled): Oh. Well, how did she end up way out there? Do you have family there or something?
ME: No, no particular local ties. She just wanted a small liberal arts college with good academics, and there were some things she especially liked about Haverford. It was actually her first choice.
THEM (eyes glazing over): Oh. (End of conversation).
The conversation is completely different, however, with college and university faculty, many of whom attended leading LACs themselves, or at least have friends and colleagues who did. Among this group there’s a much more richly informed sense of the institutional landscape and the available options. Even among well-educated upper middle class parents who don’t regularly travel in academic circles, it’s somewhat unusual to find people whose whose radar screens have room for more than the in-state schools, several other top Midwestern schools and perhaps a dozen or two dozen of the most high name-recognition schools outside the region…
@mackinaw This was exactly my experience growing up in Los Angeles and going to public school. I don’t even remember hearing much about Stanford. I went to Columbia, and many people in Los Angeles had never heard of it, and certainly didn’t know it was Ivy League (honestly my own knowledge of East Coast schools was vague, outside of Harvard and Yale, I applied to Columbia because I wanted to be in NYC, basically). A lot of people would say “oh? Columbia School of Broadcasting?” which is a vocational school in LA.
^^I remember those commercials for Columbia School of Broadcasting :))
Ha ha. I remember that too. Are they still around? I’d have had a great radio career if I had a better voice and some talent.
^^comedy
@desie1 “…everyone not at an Ivy just assumes Penn is Penn State.”
I think that Penn students and parents just don’t care whether average Joe recognizes it, except when they are asked about Jerry Sandusky. Ugh
I usually say DD goes to the University of Pennsylvania. Most people here in the midwest have never heard of it, unless they are highly educated, but that is fine with me. There is no reason that they should know. The people who do know it, usually say “Penn” in their response.
New students sometimes say UPenn because of the website. Once they spend a week on campus, then they change to Penn. The same as students at Michigan.
My family knew a lot more colleges than those in our area because we were transplants from Boston to Wisconsin so we’d heard the names over the years - Amherst, Williams, Boston College. And we’re big on sports, so knew Duke and USC and Army and all the big sports schools. However, no one from Wisconsin understood why anyone would go to want to go to any school outside of Wisconsin unless it was Notre Dame. Most people went to Madison, but if you didn’t it was acceptable to go to Point or Eau Claire or Oshkosh. Very few went to Milwaukee because if you wanted a big city, just go to Madison. A few went to Minn St. Cloud for sports. Florida or Texas? That was for spring break. We all knew we could go to Minn for the same tuition, but why would anyone do that? A few, very few, went to private colleges instate like Beloit or St. Norbert. That was rare because of the cost - why would one pay $2000 for college when you could go to Madison for $500? I have an east coast cousin who went to Ripon. We didn’t understand it at all. Why? Didn’t they have tiny little schools in Mass? I guess Wisconsin is the anti-New Jersey - no one wants to go away for college.
I don’t think much has changed. The guy who is now a pro hockey player from our town? Went to Madison for college hockey. Only a few go to school OOS, and most of those are the children of college professors, transplanted to our town. One guy I know who was a local born and raised did go to the local directional for 2 years, then to MIT, then to Harvard Law. Many years ago and quite an exception to the norm. Wisconsin colleges didn’t require SAT or ACT, so no one took them. They weren’t even offered in our town.
I think some high schools can become ‘feeder schools’ for OOS schools because other grads have had success or a GC has a connection. My daughter’s tiny magnet high school (25 kids per class max) sends tons of kids from Denver to Humboldt State in California (by tons I mean sometimes 5 per year, but out of 25, and maybe 20 who go to college, that’s a lot). The kids like it, they report good things, there is the WUE tuition exchange, it just snowballs into being very popular. My niece’s catholic high school send a good handful to USD every year (as well as other catholic colleges). The schools market to the GC’s and the GC’s make a lot of referrals. I’m sure the same things happen in NJ for schools in North Carolina or to Ole Miss or to schools in VA. I don’t think it is statewide, but it may seem that way when a number of kids from the same high school attend the same OOS college.
This entire thread proves @Pizzagirl 's point.
@Pizzagirl "The average person is not plugged into “academic circles.” The average person “evaluates” colleges by sports and I-knew-someone-who-went-there.
It is not a knock on fine schools to suggest that the average person (outside their catchment area) doesn’t know them."
It is unrealistic for parents or students to expect the average person to know your school, especially if it is not nearby. If your priority is to impress the average person, then always choose a football or basketball school over Ivy League or University Athletic Association schools every time.
I went to Michigan, and it never occurred to me to call it anything but Michigan. But here at CC, I got in the habit of UMich, because that seemed common here.
Going back to the thread theme, when I transferred to Michigan, back in the Dark Ages, my mom was confused by my going to “some big ag school in the Midwest”, just cuz my boyfriend (now H) went there. I had to show her some ratings I found that listed their English department as in the top ten in the nation to convince her it was a Good School.