Let’s not lump all Northeasterners in the same basket, please. Many of us are quite aware of geography. 
“Many of us are quite aware of geography.”
Oh yeah? Quick, which is farther east, Detroit or Atlanta?
Most New Englanders’ knowledge of geography can be condensed into one sentence: The Yankees suck.
We’re well aware how far east we jut out. In northern New England we use the term “downeast” for a reason.
If you knew, wouldn’t you say up east or down west?
Depends on one’s reference point. From where you apparently live, that might be true. Although originally a nautical term, from where many of us live it is directionally downeast.
When I moved from NYC to Ohio, more than one person made a remark about potatoes.
(FWIW I can drive to NYC in 8.5 hours from here. The Idaho border is 26.)
This.
Let’s also not start a war with silly statements like,
What kind of bonehead thinks this represents the Midwest?
@Sue22 I took that comment as tongue in cheek. No one really thinks that.
When I was a teenager I went to visit relatives in Niagara Falls, New York. This was in the 90’s and I lived in Kansas. Upon discovering where I was from, one of the relative’s teenage friends asked me if we had indoor plumbing or had to worry about “Indians”.
When I lived in Boston in the 1970’s, it seemed like every time local sportscasters mentioned Carl Yastrzemski, they mentioned that his father was a Long Island potato farmer.
When we moved to Mass from Michigan in the '70s, we too got the questions about “Indians and buffalo.”
When I grew up in NY the country was divided into NY, LA and everything in between was a suburb of Chicago. BTW SUNY at Buffalo was known as the Berkeley of the east when I went to school, more because of protest then academics. Now visiting Berkeley regularly, students are so stressed there is little time or desire to protest.
@sahmkc ok now that’s funny! Part of me wonders, if we send our Midwestern S19 to school “out east” if he will still run into kids who are biased against the Midwest. I do see posts on here where the student lives on one of the coasts and has ruled out schools in the middle of the country for no good reasons. Would those same students have a problem with Midwestern kids?
When looking at schools in the NE, I do look at the breakfown of students by state if I can find it. I’m sure that schools with a majority of kids from the NE feel a little different than those that have a decent percentage of kids from states outside the NE and California.
I’m sure there are people in the midwest with biases against people on the coasts. In fact, I see references to it all the time. Best to blow off ignorant people no matter where they are from and realize they don’t represent the majority.
How would the schools feel different if they are mostly populated by NE students?
@doschicos I love my east and west coast friends who I met in undergrad. The only problem is that they all moved back “home” after graduation or shortly thereafter and we hardly get to see each other!
@homerdog I hope college-bound kids are a bit more educated than that particular teenager! I think most people have preconceived notions about people from different areas, cultures or backgrounds. I also think that most are able to put those aside and get know people. My kids are routinely " embarrassed" about being from Missouri. Currently, our governor is under indictment for a sex scandal, the NAACP has issued a travel advisory for the state and we had a huge racial issue at our State Flagship a few year ago (we have just found out it was fueled by Russia, but the damage is done.) The state is firmly conservative and my kids are both liberals, so they don’t feel they are “stereotypical” Missourians.
@mom2twogirls Yikes. Ok. Here goes. Didn’t mean to offend. Hopefully, I can clear up my comment.
I grew up in the Midwest and went to Northwestern for undergrad. MANY kids on my floor freshman year and throughout my experience there were from CA or NY/Boston. I would say, without hesitation, that those kids were more intense and they had experienced way more things in high school than anyone I knew growing up in the Chicago suburbs (drugs, sex, etc). I’d like to say that’s a vast generalization but it was really true. That’s not to say that they weren’t awesome people or judged me but I was shocked at what I heard during those first few weeks of school. There’s just an edge to some of those kids that you don’t get in the Midwest. They were just more willing to state their views. They seemed more aggressive.
Not to say that there isn’t drinking or drugs going on in the Midwest but the east coast kids especially just seemed older than me. More worldly. It can be intimidating. I was a good student and pretty sure of myself going into school, but, socially, I sometimes felt like a middle schooler. I had a friend in school from Idaho and it was even worse for her.
My husband and I lived in NYC for a while after graduation. I get the east coast thing. And I love NYC. But it’s just different here. Even in the suburbs that are more “intense”, I don’t think it’s anything like the suburbs of NY or Boston. I hope I’m making sense.
Too late too add on to my above post but I think the word I would use for the kids I met from the NE would be sophisticated. They were more sophisticated than I was. Like I said, many of them ended up being very good friends but I certainly felt “less than” for a little bit.
I wonder if that’s more of a city vs suburb thing than a NE vs midwest thing.
I’m not offended, more surprised.
The answer is interesting from a psychology viewpoint.
I think you would find that the kids willing to travel further from home to a place where they don’t know many people are probably more likely to seem worldly, experienced and outspoken.