Weird Reaction

Yale Alumni Magazine graphic

It's understandable why people hide negative episodes in their history, but concealment is often the case for praiseworthy aspects as well. It's more than just humility (genuine or false).

With the passage of time an individual builds a web of relationships with people who don't know the individual's history. If they discover, for example, that the humble individual whom they have known for years is very wealthy, some would begin keeping their distance, perhaps caused by embarrassment over their own circumstances.

A similar dynamic appears to be at work with Yale alumni who say, vaguely, that they "went to school in Connecticut" when asked about their degree. (It's socially acceptable to brandish an Ivy credential when trying to get a job, get into graduate school, or raise money, but rarely otherwise.)

Stephanie Elizabeth Small ’99 spoke for many when she said she opts for a vague answer “because 90 percent of the time when I say ‘Yale,’ people have a really weird reaction.

Don Gooding ’80 agreed with Small. “I do this less now than when I was younger, but I’m still contextual about it,” he wrote. “There are times when it can be a conversation killer, and why do that?”

Of course, having six-figure student loans that you can't pay off is another reason to keep quiet.