When my D13 was a high school senior, Rice and UC Davis released decisions around the same time. She hadn’t applied to Davis, but she was super-excited to get into Rice. About a dozen kids from her school got into Davis, and there was much celebration. But every time Rice was mentioned, an awkward silence descended.
“Is that a good school?”
“Why is it named after food?”
“Is it an ag school?”
She was aggravated. All I could say was, “When you get there, everybody there will have heard of it.”
Four years later, the name-recognition of Scripps was no better, but at least there wasn’t the food angle.
“It’s in the Claremont Consortium. With Pomona.” [follow flowchart arrow to Cal Poly Pomona subroutine]