Your school is a top ranked Tier-1 school isn't it? USNews ranks them in the top25. I've also noticed a similar phenomenon among schools with a strong sports p

Your school is a top ranked Tier-1 school isn't it? USNews ranks them in the top25. I've also noticed a similar phenomenon among schools with a strong sports program. (Ohio State cough cough). It would be an interesting little research project to come up with a set of typical self-referential statements like my sample one, and go through every school in the country and see where they show up. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that these are not quality schools by any possible stretch of the imagination. But I'd be willing to bet a dollar that the delta between the average Kettering grad and the average MIT grad in the same field is not as high as the ego driven self-referential usage patterns would imply (the average MIT grad is not 80,000x better or more desirable than a Kettering grad). What's usually surprising is how many of these types of statements ("When I was at...") usually end in a completely banal statement that any university student would be able to complete. Yet these statements are made with the kind of breathless urgency that would make the listener assume there was something really special about this particular permutation of a common experience that only a person who attended that school could really appreciate. "When I was at Harvard College just a few years ago, there was never any question among young women that we would have both successful careers and successful families." - Caille Millner - http://www.imdiversity.com/villages/woman/careers_workplace_employment/pns_summers_women_0105.asp http://www.imdiversity.com/villages/woman/careers_workplace_... "When I was at Harvard four years ago, two of my roommates campaigned for George W. Bush..." - Aaron Greenspan - http://www.aarongreenspan.com/essays/index.html?id=18 http://www.aarongreenspan.com/essays/index.html?id=18 "I told her that, when I was at Harvard in my Freshman year, I played football but I broke my wrist mid-season (true) but it still bothers me (false)." - John Vincent "Brother" Quinlan, Jr. - http://www.currentobituary.com/ShowObit.aspx?id=54113&member_id=23 http://www.currentobituary.com/ShowObit.aspx?id=54113&me... and many many others....