I often found that astonishing as well. It does not help that we do not have ivy league universities here in Germany. I have met hundreds of people here claimin

I often found that astonishing as well. It does not help that we do not have ivy league universities here in Germany. I have met hundreds of people here claiming to have studied "in Munich, Harvard and Oxford", because they attended some expensive two-week summer schools abroad... Also, it happens quite often that people think of their alma mater as some kind of elitist, (I am looking at you, Munich, Karlsruhe and Mannheim...)even though it is not really hard to get in there, and curriculum is similar everywhere. TLDR: It's hard to earn prestige by attending any university in Germany - but people hate that.