The Ivy League Club

I was just briefly introduced to a friend of a friend. In the three minutes that the introduction was made, my friend made it a point to announce that I had attended Brown, and this other woman had graduated from Columbia. This comment was meant to somehow give my new acquaintance and I something in common. Instead, it just made me feel weird and uncomfortable. Did my friend expect this woman and I to bust out some secret ivy league handshake or something? I don't know the first thing about Columbia as a school, or have any friends who went there. Nor do I feel that having attended an ivy league university makes me any more sophisticated or smart or interesting than any of the grad students I've met at University of Arizona, for example. And no matter where you go to school, I think your education is largely what you make of it. At first, knowing that this woman had attended Columbia didn't make me feel that she and I had any kind of shared experience.

Of course, ivy leaguers do really have something in common: social advantage. Doors probably often open more easily for those with a brand-name school on their resumes. Also, it is often (though of course not always) the case that those who attended brand-name schools were able to do so because of coming from a background of financial advantage. Finally, ivy league graduates have in common the experience of some people's strange reactions upon learning that the graduate attended such a school. I usually think the people who raise their eyebrows at those with an ivy alma mater are the ones creating a class barrier that doesn't really exist. But maybe I've thought wrong. In any case, having had an ivy league education
certainly didn't make me feel any immediate connection to my new acquaintance. I will have to find something else to talk about with her.