Ha! My good friend from central Virginia has a child who goes to Tufts. Nobody nearby has heard of it, and all her local friends look at them as if they have two heads. “Why would you want to go THERE?” is a common reaction.
This thread has been going for years. http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/926354-just-smile-and-nod-smile-and-nod-p1.html
@brantly I am sure that gets awkward!
@Lindagaf I love that thread! I could not find it so thanks for the link.
We have the opposite problem. We are from Wisconsin and my D is a freshman at Rice. Very few people here have heard of it. Just over break she was out with 2 friends and they were discussing a 3rd friends disappointing outcome with college admissions. One friend said, “He should have applied to Rice. That would have been easier for him to get into.” My very polite, non-confrontational daughter could not help saying, “He did. He didn’t get in.”
Anyway, we went through this a lot at the end of senior year. No one knew what Rice was and didn’t understand why she wasn’t going to some of the large state flagships she got into. There was definitely at attitude that she was crazy to go to some small unknown school in Texas when she could go to Madison. We would just smile and say, “Rice is a great fit for her and she’s really excited.” Not really much they could say.
Honestly- it amazes me that people think it is acceptable to make these kind of comments. It reminds me of what people would say (many years ago) when I was pregnant. Unsolicited questions/ directives on topics like pain relief, breastfeeding, hospital v. home birth. I think it aggravated me so much that I vowed to not be ‘that person’. When it comes to college discussions with S20s peers and parents, I’ll ask what direction they are thinking about, or what they are hoping to do next year, and then share their excitement with the plans they are making. I don’t understand why people think they actually have a stake in someone else’s decision!
That being said, I have had friends and colleagues inform me that my kid should definitely go to NC State full pay versus lower ranked schools with fantastic merit aid. This thread is really helpful. For all my crankiness in the first paragraph, I admit that I don’t always know how to reply when people disagree with his approach.
My kid was derisively told by a peer that the colleges he was applying to were “small and irrelevant”.
He laughed and said “Ok, you obviously don’t know what you’re talking about.” then walked away.
It’s all regional. And most people aren’t familiar with a lot of schools. You just have to accept that and let it go.
I live in an upper middle class area of Northern Virginia. Almost no one I talked to had heard of the small liberal arts college one of my kids attended. (It’s a school in the northeast which is consistently a top 5 LAC and comes up on cc a lot). Smile and nod.
When friends asked me where my child’s buddy ended up going and I answered “Penn”, they immediately told me about 3 other kids they knew who went to Penn State. Smile and nod.
Average Texan doesn’t know much about schools in Texas let alone out of state. Last year my boss’s twins picked Rice and Williams over free rides at UTD, A&M, UNT, Texas Tech, UF, UH and U Alabama. Everyone was flabbergasted that someone can pass on free money for colleges other than Harvard or MIT.
Their parents were grilled to the max for their decisions. Everyone offered condolences over the loss of luxury cars they could’ve bought instead of spending on their children’s education.
I was speaking to someone who mentioned her son went to college “in Connecticut.” Only later in the conversation, when it became relevant, did she add that the college was Yale. Her oldest was brilliant, sailing through, and her youngest didn’t stand a chance of getting in. It’s nice when you meet people like this who know what they’re talking about. I remember when I went off to college and many of my classmates got into Boston U.–a big deal back then. Well, here we are, years later, most of them did not graduate from there. Higher ed can be a long and winding road for teenagers. Try not to slam other people, even with the eye roll. A simple, “We think this is the right fit,” is all that is needed.
Son is an athlete at an Ivy. More than once I’ve told that to someone who I don’t know well but knows him through his sport and gotten the response “Oh, I thought he was good enough to go D1.” The look on their face is that they feel bad for the kid who had to go to an Ivy because he wasn’t good enough for Iowa or Minnesota.
He visited Williams and exactly one person I told that to had any idea what Williams was. She was an academic and visiting there as an athletic backup along with Ivies made perfect sense to her.
D21 isn’t a recruited athlete. Most of her friends already can answer the question “where are you going to college next year?” She definitely will need to figure out how to dodge this question. Because I’m sure she doesn’t want to go over the 10 schools she is hoping to get into with everyone who asks until March next year.
Just a completely different perspective where we live.
I definitely agree that there are big regional differences. My NE friends are all about the small prestigious LACs and the Ivies. The midwesterners are all excited about the big flagships. Whenever people ask where D goes to school, people get all excited and ask if she’s there for engineering. Pretty sure some of my NY friends think Purdue is just a brand of chicken ; )
“Pretty sure some of my NY friends think Purdue is just a brand of chicken ; )”
Or worse a pharmaceutical company.
I always said D got a great scholarship and with 5 kids that weighed heavy on our list of must haves
I am from CT (now living in NJ) and I have totally heard of Vassar 
Really? I thought Tufts was a place people knew
I just smile and nod and say “well our kid liked it and it was the best choice for him.” But, usually I don’t say anything. Every kid and family is different.
The kids here tend to go to schools within the state, both public and private. Our state’s flagship university is excellent, so I understood when people, asked why my DD was leaving the state for school. She was also asked by adults why she was leaving the state to attend a public school somewhere else, and why she was leaving to attend a community college in another state. She was always very polite in her responses, and tried to correct their misconceptions. Generally the mention of a very good financial aid package as well as the many academic opportunities caused them to stop their questioning. Still, there were some who thought she’d made a very bad decision for her future.
She’ll be graduating in June from the University of Chicago.
Lets face it, most people “know” (actually know nothing about but know the name) of the nationally televised sports programs, a few iconic national schools like HYP, Stanford, Duke, ND, some regional powerhouses (in their region) and their top two or three state Us.
Anything other than those and you’re likely to get that deer in the headlights look. Oh and… who cares?
@NorthLeftCoast lol! We live in an area where people are very polite and the vast majority would never say anything negative about a school choice. However most people give me a blank stare when I tell them my daughter attends UChicago. It’s not a school that’s on very many people’s radar around here. Most think it is UIC.
Texas smile and nod occasions.
Q. Did he not get in UT?
A. No, he is an auto admit in program of his preference but big warehouse size schools aren’t a good fit for every student.
Q. Did he not get merit at UTD?
A.No, with national merit, GPA and SAT, he can get pretty much a full ride there but being forced to attend UTD after achieving so much would kill his enthusiasm.
Q. You should consider community college for two years, it’s stupid to waste money on college.
A. He is a merit scholar who can get full rides at more than a dozen colleges, doesn’t need community college for free education.
Q. Did he not get in UNT, A&M and UH?
A. Well, he didn’t apply as has zero interest in going there.
As you can’t actually say these things, you just smile and nod.