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Comment by mindcrime | Hacker News Reader

The comment about bias against going to school in the South really resonates. I mean, in one sense it's hilarious to think that there are people who don't realize that schools like UNC-CH, Georgia Tech, Clemson, NCSU, Campbell, Wake Forest, South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, Virginia Tech, William & Mary, etc. are great schools. But in another sense it's very, very sad. And I almost find it weirder to hear that about people from the West Coast, where the stereotype about people has them being so much more open minded and accepting, vs. people from the Northeast who are stereotyped as being more elitist and dismissive of Southerners.

Oh well... at the end of the day, all you can really do is, as they say, "Be so damn good they can't ignore you".

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The sad part of this is that the only time most people hear about any school is related to sports. Almost all schools get judged by the wider population first based on their sports records. In most cases, it's often about the only thing most people know about most schools. Even with most schools that are "good" or "great", most people couldn't tell you why, but they can tell you about some football pass person X made in 2002 which saved the game!

he says people ARE aware that UNC-CH is a good college. but that "few realize the University of Georgia is a Top 30 law school and Top 5 for my master’s program."

That sounds pretty understandable to me. I don't feel like there's anything wrong with that.

Right, he mentioned UNC-CH in particular, but otherwise, there seems to be a trend of people on the West Coast / Silicon Valley, being painfully unaware of how good many Southern schools are. And no, I don't expect any random person in CA to know specifically that "UGA is a Top 30 law school", but I'd expect pretty much anybody to realize that it's a pretty damn good school in general. Same for the other schools I mentioned.

But, maybe I'm just putting too much stock into things I read here on HN and in startup related blog posts and articles. I haven't spent that much time in SF/SV and surrounding areas, so maybe this is just a filter bubble thing in effect.

Is there really a bias against schools south of the Mason-Dixon? I feel like most of NYC went to Duke. Tim Cook also seems to be doing alright.

People from the west coast don't necessarily have a nuanced understanding of the south.

To be clear, I say that as a west coast person who has visited the south.

I graduated from Florida State University on the cheap a decade ago and now live in New York City. I don't think it's a bias as much as it's NYC is really up its own ass. If you didn't go to an expensive private college they're aware of they don't care and assume that since they haven't heard of it, it sucks. Which seems true about any subject and New Yorkers.

Apart from William & Mary I have never heard anything about any of those schools. As for William & Mary I think that I have heard that it is an above average liberal arts college. I could google it and the rest of the list, but that is honestly my level of knowledge of them.

Are they considered to be something special in the Southern states ?

> Are they considered to be something special in the Southern states ?

Special? No, why would they be "special"? The point is that they're fine schools; on par with good schools anywhere else in the country - but not necessarily "elite" schools like Yale or Harvard. But some people seem to have this "thing" of acting like having gone to school in the South singles you out as some barely-literate, uneducated hillbilly. This is far, far from the truth. That's all I'm getting at.

That said, there are several Southern schools that help make up the original group of "Public Ivies"[1], including three of the schools named above (W&M, UNC-CH and UVA).

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Ivy#The_original_Public_...

I've lived and worked all over the country and do a lot of engagement with the academic literature and academics in general, and I've never even heard of Campbell.

They're probably best known for the law school, not their undergraduate stuff. Anyway, that was just one example.

I checked, their math department appears to be five professors and an instructor, and only three of them have phds.

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