For a fun NLP experiment, count the language usage of "When I was at <insert school>" vs. "When I was at College".

You'll find that the schools people casually drop in with that phrase are by and large tier-1 schools. While most people who went to school to learn just use the latter phrase. The lesson is that when you go to Harvard of Princeton or wherever, you didn't go to College, you went to some place that transcends mere college, you went to someplace with an important name, and because of that name, you too are important.

Hell: here it is off of the USNews list using google

   "When I was at Princeton" - 16.3 million
   "...Harvard" - 5.93m
   Yale - 2.58m
   Columbia - 3.53m
   Stanford - 2.44m
   University of Chicago - 6
   MIT - 18.5m
   Duke - 1.37m
   University of Pennsylvania - 1.81m (without "the" - 2 results, "Upenn" 201,000, "Penn" - 13.3m)
   California Institute of Technology - 1 ("CIT" - 6, "Caltech" 887,000)
   Dartmouth - 691,000
   Johns Hopkins - 6.14m
   Northwestern - 6.64m
   

For reference: "When I was at College" - 9.46 million results "in college" (exact) - 29.4m "at college" (exact) - 7.88m "at university" - 31.4m "in university" - 7.050m

Here's the Tier-2

   Ashland - 860,000
   Barry - 843,000
   Benedictine - 95,300
   Bowie State - 2 (Just "Bowie" - 249k)
   Cardinal Stritch - 4
   Clark Atlanta - 6
   Cleveland State - 6
   East Carolina - 1.62m 
   East Tennessee State - 3 ("East Tennessee" - 3)
   Florida A&M - 3
   Florida Atlantic - 3
   Florida International - 3
   Georgia Southern - 877,000
   Georgia State - 1.65m
   Indiana State - 1.28m
   Indiana University of Pennsylvania - 2 (Indiana University - 5.07m)
   Jackson State - 466k
   Lamar University - 0 ("Lamar" - 441,000)
   

edit, words, Penn and tier-2