A Public Service Announcement For All Harvard Students

by | September 15, 2011 at 5:30 pm

It should really go with out saying, but when someone from Harvard coyly tells you they “go to school in Boston,” rather than just saying that school’s name, they deserve all sorts of awful things. All sorts. Since the conversation never actually stops there, it ultimately amounts to a multi-step humblebrag of the highest/lowest order, and we hate you already, Harvard reader, for even thinking about it.

It’s probably true that Ivy Leaguers of all stripes feel, to varying degrees, self-conscious about broadcasting their collegiate pedigree. Even so, we get the impression that actively concealing it is, by and large, an invention of Harvard. Let’s pick a few names out of a hat and test that hypothesis:

  • Yale: “What’s this ‘humility’ you speak of?”
  • Princeton: It doesn’t really conceal anything to say “I go to school in Princeton, NJ.”
  • Penn: Faces the opposite problem entirely — people following up with questions about Joe Paterno.
  • Cornell: LOL

Just in case this distinctly Harvardian conversational strategy required any more rumination, the Crimson’s Wyatt Troia ably explains why the “tactless Harvard custom needs to stop” :

If you are speaking to anyone but the most disinterested conversation partner, you will be questioned further until the truth finally comes out: “I go to Harvard.” This is when it gets really awkward. Now your acquaintance knows you were trying to conceal that you go to Harvard, and will assume this is because you didn’t want to hurt his or her simple feelings about being so much stupider than you. You’ve succeeded, by trying to avoid looking arrogant and condescending, in exhibiting both qualities.

Perish the thought! Wyatt continues:

While I hope that most of the time this habit is the result of well-meaning consideration for others’ feelings, the tone of voice used by some students when prevaricating about their college indicates that they get some kind of satisfaction from what they consider their own personal form of noblesse oblige.

Snap! How ’bout dem apples?

 
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  • PU ’09

    I didn’t go to Harvard and I do this too.  I work in a part of the country where a Northeastern education is relatively uncommon, and I work in an industry where a strong educational background often hurts more than it helps.  Additionally, the revelation that I went to Princeton often leads to a series of uncomfortable questions and unsavory assumptions from others.

    I now tell people I went to school “in New Jersey” and have my college education buried deep in my resume.

    One time when interviewing internally for a promotion at my current employer, the boss asked, “So, Princeton… is that a two-year program, or did you get a full bachelor’s?”

    • Anonymous

      Man, that “in New Jersey” must be a hard pill to swallow.

  • Molly

    On the other hand, the reason you avoid saying to went to Brown is so that no one asks you about how  the curriculum works.

  • Nyb

     Jesus, is that annoying. Some years ago there was this nice but dippy Smithie at a grad program here, a decidedly non-Ivy land-grant school. She’d say, “At…[desperately awkward pause]…my undergraduate school — ” At first it was funny, & very soon after tiresome. I wondered if I should say, “For chrissakes, you can say Smith, I turned down Wellesley if it makes you feel any better,” but who knows what kind of shock it might’ve induced. There’s about six people here who know what Smith is anyway.

  • H ’98

    I say, if you fellows wouldn’t start weeping, twitching your eyes, and generally broadcasting your shame every time you get the straight answer, we might be more inclined to give it.