My fave will always be Washington University, University of Washington, and George Washington! Like you’re on one of the coasts or in the middle of the country!
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Okay, my husband and I actually had this argument once – he told me that no one called the school UC Berkeley, and I told him that no one called it Cal! 
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This is why people should just say Udub or WashU, lol. Although I don’t know if George Washington has a nickname!
As a graduate of the school we all called it Cal or Berkeley, no one called it UC Berkeley.
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That’s funny – I’m not really familiar with the California schools at all, but I started saying UC Berkeley because that’s how I see it referred to here on CC! 
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Assuming my kids are right (as one should about what to call something, lol) as well as a friend who works there, it’s Cal or, less often, Berkeley (no UC in front)
I mostiy see it as GW or GWU. I have also seen people get confused between Georgetown and George Washington.
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Wash U usually gets blank stares since no one’s heard of it. You then say the whole thing and get asked, “Is that the one in Seattle or DC?”
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D26 applied to Penn State and Michigan State and I have a slight unease that people won’t hear the State part of it (if she ends up picking one of these and we tell people where she is going) and make the wrong assumption, which we would not mean to imply. And then we would feel the need to correct which could come out with us feeling like we are saying she applied to less than or something.
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Is that true of the other UC schools as well? Do people just say Irvine or Davis or Santa Cruz?
I worked with a woman decades ago who had gone to UC Santa Cruz, and I never forgot her telling me about the Banana Slugs, and how there actually were banana slugs all over the sidewalk that they’d have to carefully step over.
Still don’t know if she was pulling my leg about that part, but seriously, best mascot ever.
Agree, but I hear plenty of folks not from here call it UC Berkeley. I almost always call it Cal unless traveling somewhere else and talking about it.
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The banana slugs are real. Can’t speak for all of the UC’s but people do say they were to Davis or Santa Cruz. Most common for a few is the acronym, UCLA, UCSD. Santa Barbara seems to go by both that and UCSB.
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Not an authority but what I hear most is: UCLA, UCSB, UCSD, Irvine, Davis, UC Santa Cruz. Don’t really know anyone who goes to /whose kids go to Riverside or Merced so not sure what’s normal for that. SLO is “cal poly” while CPP is full name (I guess to avoid confusion with both SLO and Pomona) and CP Humboldt is just “Humboldt”.
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My husband went to grad school at Penn. my daughter applied to Penn State. People who know this have said “oh so she’s a legacy”. 
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I do like how the UCSC Formula SAE team is called Formula Slug. “Never has there been a faster slug.”
However within the UC system, my favorite mascot is the UCI anteater. Zot! Zot! Zot!
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There really are bananas slugs in the areas around UC Santa Cruz. When I was a kid, I’d go to girl scout camp in the summer in the Santa Cruz mountains and there were banana slugs there a lot.
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My wife is always freaked out by the banana slugs, in rainy season they are all over Santa Cruze mountains and you can’t hike without running into a bunch of them. The UCSC merch is fun as gifts but my favorite UC mascot is also the anteater. They have a stuffed one on campus. More campuses should have cool statues like this one around.
Instead you get bears and that’s not really unique.
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I’m still going with Ralphie as favorite mascot.
And my kid is still freaked out by the UMN “gopher” 
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Here on the East Coast, if you say Berkeley, you have to clarify it as California Berkeley in case someone thinks you mean Berklee College of Music.
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I never understood the Cal/UC Berkeley thing and as an east coaster this always has been confusing!
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Confusing around here is USC (Southern Cal) v USC (South Carolina). To me, USC was always in reference to Southern Cal but living in Georgia, people think D26 applied to South Carolina.
Where did she apply??
…. USC, …..
oh South Carolina?
no - Southern California!
literally me every day
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