<p>I live and work in New York City, and every single time I’ve told someone that my son goes to the U of Chicago, the reaction has been very positive, along the “gee, he must be smart” line. So at least around here, a lot of people (at least, among lawyers like me, many with kids around my son’s age) are very familiar with it.</p>
<p>I don’t think it was nearly as well-known in this area back when I was applying to college in the 1970’s; the only reason I knew about it then is that my older sister went there. </p>
<p>And I distinctly remember being taken down a peg myself the summer after I finished high school when I told a great-uncle of mine that I was going to Yale, and he had never heard of it. The only U.S. college he knew about (he was from Germany originally and lived in France) was Harvard.</p>