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It may surprise some of you but the idea of "elite school" is unknown to a good percent, possibly the majority, of people even in the US. I went to an "elite sc

It may surprise some of you but the idea of "elite school" is unknown to a good percent, possibly the majority, of people even in the US. I went to an "elite school" and my GF didn't think much of it. She just thought that it's a school where a lot of politicians and rich people send their kids but didn't infer any special status or qualifications from that observation. In some ways, she's absolutely right but culturally among some circles the idea of "elite school" exists and value is placed on that idea. It happens that the same circle of people who hold this idea are often themselves "elite" or at the very least privileged in some ways. So by labelling MIT "elite" the news article is signaling to people that this news is a "big deal".

papermill 8y ago
This is simply not true. Everyone in the US knows about Harvard, Yale, MIT, etc. They are culturally significant institutions. So much so that people use "MIT" as a stand in for "excellence". "MIT of X". "kind of like the M.I.T. [sic] for magic." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_in_popular_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_in_popular_culture If your gf didn't think much of your school, maybe it's not as "elite" as you wish it were. Harvard, Yale, MIT, etc are as elite as you can get in the US ( and the world ).
- automatic_4_ppl 8y ago
  This may be true in the kind of upper-middle class bubble where people discreetly brag about going to Yale, but if you stop random people on the street and ask them to free-associate about MIT most of the time you won't get anything except some vague understanding that nerds go there, although now the Big Bang Theory may have shifted that kind of common cultural cachet to Caltech.
- hangonhn 8y ago
  It's one of the three schools you just listed. Don't know what to tell you. There are people who are different from us. I think your assumption that a large percentage of people think or believes the same things as us is a bit shaky. Sure maybe there are references to those schools in popular culture but can you really assume: 1. Popular culture is actually popular for the majority of Americans? 2. People consume all of popular culture? 3. People pay attention to the details in popular culture. Someone might say a line in a movie and not everyone is going to understand it nor is everyone going to look it up in Wikipedia or Google. 4. Even if people paid attention to the detail, are you sure that they understood it the same way? It's not as if my GF haven't heard of those schools. It's just that she didn't think they are particularly elite. In her words, she thought my school is the New England version of Notre Dame. A good or even a great school but she didn't think it is "elite". > Harvard, Yale, MIT, etc are as elite as you can get in the US ( and the world ). I'm not too sure about that, especially when it's applied to the world. "elite school" is an idea that lives in the heads of people. It's not an actual club that grants special privileges. There's the Ivy League but that's an athletics association and you left out most of the schools in it from your list.
chrischen 8y ago
Regardless of the semantics of elite and what she thought it meant, she knew that you went to a school associated with kids of politicians and rich people. That’s consistent with the general definition of elite. Maybe what she and you were thinking of was “smart.”

papermill 8y ago

This is simply not true. Everyone in the US knows about Harvard, Yale, MIT, etc. They are culturally significant institutions. So much so that people use "MIT" as a stand in for "excellence". "MIT of X". "kind of like the M.I.T. [sic] for magic." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_in_popular_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_in_popular_culture If your gf didn't think much of your school, maybe it's not as "elite" as you wish it were. Harvard, Yale, MIT, etc are as elite as you can get in the US ( and the world ).

automatic_4_ppl 8y ago
This may be true in the kind of upper-middle class bubble where people discreetly brag about going to Yale, but if you stop random people on the street and ask them to free-associate about MIT most of the time you won't get anything except some vague understanding that nerds go there, although now the Big Bang Theory may have shifted that kind of common cultural cachet to Caltech.
hangonhn 8y ago
It's one of the three schools you just listed. Don't know what to tell you. There are people who are different from us. I think your assumption that a large percentage of people think or believes the same things as us is a bit shaky. Sure maybe there are references to those schools in popular culture but can you really assume: 1. Popular culture is actually popular for the majority of Americans? 2. People consume all of popular culture? 3. People pay attention to the details in popular culture. Someone might say a line in a movie and not everyone is going to understand it nor is everyone going to look it up in Wikipedia or Google. 4. Even if people paid attention to the detail, are you sure that they understood it the same way? It's not as if my GF haven't heard of those schools. It's just that she didn't think they are particularly elite. In her words, she thought my school is the New England version of Notre Dame. A good or even a great school but she didn't think it is "elite". > Harvard, Yale, MIT, etc are as elite as you can get in the US ( and the world ). I'm not too sure about that, especially when it's applied to the world. "elite school" is an idea that lives in the heads of people. It's not an actual club that grants special privileges. There's the Ivy League but that's an athletics association and you left out most of the schools in it from your list.

chrischen 8y ago

Regardless of the semantics of elite and what she thought it meant, she knew that you went to a school associated with kids of politicians and rich people. That’s consistent with the general definition of elite. Maybe what she and you were thinking of was “smart.”